What will I miss without WiFi

[Craigins]

Is there a scenario where I am idling and have WiFi? In my driveway I'd be connected to my charger, so it's not really an issue. Is there something else I'm missing?

Some people in the vampire drain thread complain about power usage. So plugged in you'll be using more energy, but sounds like that isn't an issue for you.

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[mgc0216]

Many destinations have free public Wi-Fi, like schools, some Little League parks, camp grounds, WA State ferries used to and others may still, and other places you may be sitting and waiting for some time.

I will say that there is no way in hell I'm connecting my truck to those networks, but they exist...

Agreed. I honestly see no benefit to connecting to wifi while parked away from my house until they start having streaming video services - and only then if there is a charge for LTE data (or a cap).

 

[DJG]

This question kind of came up in another thread, but I wanted to call it out.

Right now my truck refuses to connect to WiFi - I even installed a new 2.4Ghz router very close to the truck to try and address this (I do have a service call open, and am waiting to hear back).

Others have said that OTA updates can be received over LTE - so that lead me to wonder:

What would happen if I didn't enable WiFi - what would I miss out on. The only thing I can think of is connectivity in a situation where there isn't LTE but there is WiFi (a remote campground with satellite Internet maybe?).

You'll kind of be forced to sign up for the membership when that becomes a paid thing. That, and updates will take a little longer to download. Uploads (telemetry) would also take longer, meaning a little more power draw/drain.

 

[mgc0216]

You'll kind of be forced to sign up for the membership when that becomes a paid thing. That, and updates will take a little longer to download. Uploads (telemetry) would also take longer, meaning a little more power draw/drain.

I fully expect to want to sign up for the membership program.

 

[DJG]

I fully expect to want to sign up for the membership program.

Yep, I do too (based on little information admittedly), but just pointing it out.

 

[pc500]

Over time I suspect Rivian will limit certain functionality to Wifi; like priority software updates or Gearguard video downloads. This likely won't happen for some time but there are real costs to certain operations, and they want them offloaded to Wifi where they are much less expensive.

Right now I'm not aware of any major differences.

They have bigger problems to solve than eliminating $10-15/month of ongoing expenses per truck. They can't be shipping 5-10GB s/w updates every month via cellular.

 

[kizamybute']

May or may not be relevant, but with the Tesla at least, I could only connect to the regular Wifi, not the one with the 5G attached to the end of the same wifi identifier.

Truck should bring up a list of Wifi connections close by, simply tap on yours (not the 5g one) and enter your password. If it's not bring up your WIFI and your phone is able to detect the same WIFI you're looking for, consider rebooting the truck. I just had to do that on my Tesla. The truck found my WIFI connection the first try. The Tesla wasn't, but rebooted and then it did

 

[astonius]

Tangential question, does the R1 wifi not support 5 GHz?

 

[mgc0216]

Tangential question, does the R1 wifi not support 5 GHz?

Someone on this thread said they put theirs on 5G - mine wouldn't connect to my 5G, but that could also be the encryption. When I called Service they said the truck didn't like 5G, so who knows.

I put in a 2.4 Ghz AP and put the encryption to WPA2 and it connected to it. Still so no reason for it right now given that LTE works well and I have a charger at home (so there's basically no disadvantage for me to just use LTE at this point in time)

 

[lostpacket]

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