> asked if I could get access to the BMW Ready SDK ... They declined.
Sometimes this is all the motivation a person needs. Now it's (almost?) reverse-engineered and it could be a big headache for BMW in the future if a exploit/bug/fun-stuff is found by the right people.
Companies: share your SDKs. The guy/girl doing a RE is not your regular "coding demo SDK apps" engineer and will go deeper.
I tried to get developer access via a form and never got a response, so I tried sending a message the head of the infotainment on LinkedIn
Thankfully he was able to get my application to the dev site moving... but unfortunately, they required a business use case to get an API key once you had access to the site.
So I tried to pick the API key out of the app.
They had the most novel obfuscation I've ever seen for an app's API key
The key was inside the image data for the launcher icon
There was a weird transformation applied to it too, so instead of trying to reverse engineer it I just fired up Charles and intercepted it from there
With the API key and the documentation for the API from the dev site I was able to write a program that started preconditioning my Volt when I left my apartment (the car was in an attached underground garage, so it'd be at the right temperature by the time I got down)
While I agree that companies should share development libraries/SDKs, this will not prevent reverse engineering and if closed source gives reverse engineers another avenue to gain access. BMW likely declined due to possible liability. If someone creates a smartphone app than anyone could download that unlocks the vehicles and is sued, it is easier to convince lawyers, judges and nontechnical plaintiffs that the company is not at fault if they provided no access to the software regardless of whether the SDK provided was utilized or not. Even if there was an explicit opt in for each vehicle to allow users to utilize a SDK, the auto industry does not have protocols on how to do factory resets after the vehicle changes hands.
I bought a mid-tier BMW last year. Regardless of how you look at it, it's a big, expensive luxury car. And being a big, expensive luxury car it's big and carefully made and feels like driving around in a well appointed living room or a first class cabin.
And the UX is pretty good. The computer controls can almost be used by memory, they're very close to hand and well laid out. The nav is so-so but the in-dash lane view makes it sane for big cities.
But the software is awful. It's not poorly designed, necessarily, but it's buggy as hell.
Half the time I enter the vehicle the car thinks I'm my wife. She's a foot shorter than I am which means I can crawl into the seat for about 30 seconds before my legs start to cramp. In that time, the following invariably happens:
1. I painfully get a foot on the break and hit the ignition.
2. The computer prompts me to confirm that I'm my wife.
3. While I'm trying to select my profile CarPlay kicks in and opens the media screen.
4. I navigate through several menu levels to set the correct driver profile, swearing the whole time.
Now, I can move the seat back before I enter, but it's slow and clumsy. Then I still have to go through the same process, just minus the leg cramp.
> Half the time I enter the vehicle the car thinks I'm my wife.
I had the same issue with a fairly old Volvo, and manually adjusting the seats for the large height difference was quite irritating (even with the setting memory feature). I was convinced it was buggy or random, until I accidentally figured out the car's actual "algorithm" - it was simply remembering the last seat setting for the key used, and since we were using a single key and just swapping the car between us as needed... Not sure why this took me so long to figure out, it was just kind of an unexpected default behaviour, given our use case of a shared car.
> But the software is awful. It's not poorly designed, necessarily, but it's buggy as hell.
Can't say I agree with this in the slightest, assuming you are not talking about a 2002-2005 (EU) year which did have a very buggy implementation of iDrive based on Windows.
The issue you are describing is otherwise known as "opening the car with a key attached to the driver profile for your wife".
My 2009 3 series with the professional navigation option is not only bug-free in everyday use (with all updates applied) but substantially better than most brand new cars available today, which is why I still have it.
It sounds like all of these problems have to do with the driver profile. My grandpa's 1999 Buick Park Ave had 2 key fobs. Each fob was paired with a different driver profile. Depending on which fob unlocked the car, the seat and preferences were adjusted instantly. Surely BMW can do something similar here.
My only advice is to talk to your salesman / dealer and see if they can set you straight.
> But the software is awful. It's not poorly designed, necessarily, but it's buggy as hell.
Seconded. It was always crappy, but I recently switched to a 2019 model and expected it to be better. It isn't.
I'm amazed that in 2019/2020 we still have problems with keeping track of two driver profiles (yes!) and their phones. It's not rocket science!
A phone can stop working for no reason and require un-paring/re-connecting. The UX is crappy, Spotify integration works or does not, depending on the phase of the moon.
My car also came with Apple CarPlay, which was somewhat better but after a couple of weeks both phones stopped working with the car. The dealership told me I never had a CarPlay subscription (!), which means it must have been a demo. From the point of view of the user: phones worked nicely, until suddenly they stopped working, completely. Wasted time on dealership visits and unparing/re-connecting phones again.
Oh, and the much-touted feature that lets you unlock the car with an NFC card or your phone? Only works with Samsung phones.
I'm not sure if manufacturers get the fact that for a certain segment of customers phone integration is one of the most important features in the car. After my lease expires I will be shopping with that in mind.
This reminds my of the troubles I have with CarPlay on BMW.
I use Android. Anytime I try to go somewhere while my wife's iPhone is near the garage, it takes over my car and I can't do anything. No music, no phone calls, nothing but drive. In order to regain control of my car, I have to drive a mile down the road, pull over, shut off the ignition, count 30 Mississippi, then restart the car. Only then will the unresponsive CarPlay coupe coup be ultimately defeated. :)
Sure I could remove her iPhone profile, but that hurts her feelings.
This story is exactly why I want my cars to be dead simple. I don't care about the "luxury" that is having some gigantic distracting screen with whatever invariably-horrible software implementation running on it.
My current car is almost entirely mechanical, with the exception of electronic throttle body. This may sound like a petty gripe considering the pure garbage that is being sold today, but I can feel the difference between this and a throttle body with a physical cable attached to it. It annoys the hell out of me that I can sense a 1mm deadzone before the computer detects that I have pressed my accelerator pedal. I cannot comprehend how people are tolerating things like brake/steer-by-wire, lane-keep assist on by default, engine auto stop, emergency auto breaking, etc.
I understand the most profitable target market for these cars is "people who didn't want to drive in the first place", but can we at least spend a little time considering those still in the "I like to drive and don't want it to be a miserable experience" demographic?
Which iDrive version does your car have? The only notable software bug I’ve encountered on my G12 with the current gen NBT EVO (101172.3.214, 2017-04, Q18491l) is that carplay sometimes fails to connect until I restart the infotainment.
I’ve never seen the car pick any other driver profile than the one associated with the keyfob.
Something to remember about the automotive industry is that they have a long running time for each project.
So each generation often have a large improvement over the last because they worked on it for years before first release.
This is why some things can be "not perfect" for some users.
The companies are improving rather fast just past years to be able to have things like software be improved in a much faster way and free of chains to the timeline of the project they are part of.
"Car thinks i'm the wife".
Some cars go by weight and some by the key used.
Some go by the last use and once you sit down it adjust things to that last setting.
I used to have a Audi and a Volvo with these things.
The Audi i had seemed to go by weight only and the Volvo had memory buttons to be used but seemed to go by the key.
Do you and your wife use multiple BMW keys interchangeably? Each key can be made to default to a profile, so when either my wife or I enter with our keys, everything sets up per each of our preferences.
>And the UX is pretty good. The computer controls can almost be used by memory, they're very close to hand and well laid out. The nav is so-so but the in-dash lane view makes it sane for big cities.
But the software is awful. It's not poorly designed, necessarily, but it's buggy as hell.
Interesting. I have a 2015 BMW 3 Series with professional I-Drive and I still find it one of the best systems available.
I am driving a new Mercedes C class and can confirm: the software is utter rubbish. Half of the built-in "Mercedes apps" are crashing, not starting, not working, not connecting. Mercedes Me works - sometimes, sometimes it doesnt.
Oh god. I got rid of my BMW less than a year after buying it in part because of the horrible "iDrive" central console interface. It was absolutely terrible! Examples: Putting the car into drive would pass by reverse, so the reverse camera would come up, then not go away for 20 seconds or so. Notifications would pop up for gas at 1/8th of a tank with an alert sound like the scene change music to Law & Order. Unkillable notifications for unneeded oil changes. Deep menus for common functionality like sound adjustments. The audio didn't stop when you turned off the car, only when you opened and shut the door (letting everyone in the parking lot hear a snippet of your music first). The nav system took a minute or so to start up, so you can't begin to enter an address until it's ready. Where were the physical play/pause buttons? There are none.
There's a reason why California companies lead the world in UI design: We actually care about the user experience. The hostility of a BMW UX is on a level that I honestly didn't think was possible. It wasn't just moronic, it was straight up belligerent.
Thank goodness the car had a major safety recall and I had an excuse to get rid of it. My first and last BMW ever.
It's a very interesting article. I'm also impressed by such dedication. Hashing the strings from the decompiled APK to easily debug the protocol in Wireshark is inspiring.
On the topic of using a BMW with you phone without being frustrated, some people put a third-party box between the screen and the car infotainment computer to get Android Auto. I heard the experience isn't perfect.
Personnally I use Google Assistant and I think it works relatively well. I can use it to get directions, make the sound of random animals, change radio, play music on Spotify... To trigger it, you can long press the voice command button on the steering wheel.
Yeah, I 'inherited' a 2015 BMW 1-series with very basic equipment from my grandma. Plenty of car for a cs student, but I really wanted Apple Carplay and Android Auto in my car.
You're right though, it is not perfect. But I was surprised how well it's integrated. It definitely connects faster and more reliably than the default Bluetooth connection in the car and it can be removed without a trace afterwards, since it's just a piggyback box.
I do experience a crash though sometimes, and then I have to stop, turn off and lock the car for ~30 seconds just to restart the box.
I have a binary firmware file from the manufacturer, was thinking I might try to decompile it and make my own version, but I don't have a the experience or the time atm.
Dang, there is something odd with the (unusual high) number of newly registrated comments on this post. Good comments, but could all be from the same person?
From zwb’s bio: “(..) Hacker News is an online game you can play where your score is up in the top right corner and there's a leaderboard, and you get points by posting stuff and making comments people like. (..)”
I can't help but feel for this guy having done my own reverse engineering of BMW's i-bus back in the day. You get to the point where you see such possibility if the carmaker would just open up a little damn bit. It's a real shame that automakers feel that every software or hardware integration with their vehichle should be something to monetize. Even the forward thinkers like Tesla are no better on this front.
Another possible explanation (other than keeping everything in case it can be monetized) is being concerned with mirriad of ways it can bring liability to the company. Perhaps, it is not a practical way to keep such risk away, but I can see how it can be most rational decision by a big company.
Tesla didn't try to block it when people did figure out the calls to talk to their car, so that's at least a good thing. They figured it out by putting the android or ios app on wifi and looking at the calls. Then from there they figured out the login token. One thing Tesla hasn't done right, you can't revoke tokens (at least it didn't seem to be possible last I looked).
I want an electric car. I don't want any screens though.
Analogue dials, switches, buttons.
I don't expect to own a vehicle for 20 years, but what is the real life-expectancy of those LCD screens and back-lights? I'm driving a 9-year-old car right now and half of the 'tech' on it doesn't work worth shit. It drives ok, but it's nearing it's serviceable EOL.
I'm confused why just 1 car company doesn't allow end-user developed apps. A model lineup like that seems like it'd be easy to turn dealer inventory. You have the historical success of both PC and mobile to understand how nobody can compete with a proprietary systems.
[+] [-] scoutt|6 years ago|reply
Sometimes this is all the motivation a person needs. Now it's (almost?) reverse-engineered and it could be a big headache for BMW in the future if a exploit/bug/fun-stuff is found by the right people.
Companies: share your SDKs. The guy/girl doing a RE is not your regular "coding demo SDK apps" engineer and will go deeper.
[+] [-] selpop|6 years ago|reply
I tried to get developer access via a form and never got a response, so I tried sending a message the head of the infotainment on LinkedIn
Thankfully he was able to get my application to the dev site moving... but unfortunately, they required a business use case to get an API key once you had access to the site.
So I tried to pick the API key out of the app.
They had the most novel obfuscation I've ever seen for an app's API key
The key was inside the image data for the launcher icon
There was a weird transformation applied to it too, so instead of trying to reverse engineer it I just fired up Charles and intercepted it from there
With the API key and the documentation for the API from the dev site I was able to write a program that started preconditioning my Volt when I left my apartment (the car was in an attached underground garage, so it'd be at the right temperature by the time I got down)
[+] [-] thrilleratplay|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] austenallred|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1234_9999_46|6 years ago|reply
And the UX is pretty good. The computer controls can almost be used by memory, they're very close to hand and well laid out. The nav is so-so but the in-dash lane view makes it sane for big cities.
But the software is awful. It's not poorly designed, necessarily, but it's buggy as hell.
Half the time I enter the vehicle the car thinks I'm my wife. She's a foot shorter than I am which means I can crawl into the seat for about 30 seconds before my legs start to cramp. In that time, the following invariably happens:
1. I painfully get a foot on the break and hit the ignition.
2. The computer prompts me to confirm that I'm my wife.
3. While I'm trying to select my profile CarPlay kicks in and opens the media screen.
4. I navigate through several menu levels to set the correct driver profile, swearing the whole time.
Now, I can move the seat back before I enter, but it's slow and clumsy. Then I still have to go through the same process, just minus the leg cramp.
[+] [-] danielbarla|6 years ago|reply
I had the same issue with a fairly old Volvo, and manually adjusting the seats for the large height difference was quite irritating (even with the setting memory feature). I was convinced it was buggy or random, until I accidentally figured out the car's actual "algorithm" - it was simply remembering the last seat setting for the key used, and since we were using a single key and just swapping the car between us as needed... Not sure why this took me so long to figure out, it was just kind of an unexpected default behaviour, given our use case of a shared car.
[+] [-] jen20|6 years ago|reply
Can't say I agree with this in the slightest, assuming you are not talking about a 2002-2005 (EU) year which did have a very buggy implementation of iDrive based on Windows.
The issue you are describing is otherwise known as "opening the car with a key attached to the driver profile for your wife".
My 2009 3 series with the professional navigation option is not only bug-free in everyday use (with all updates applied) but substantially better than most brand new cars available today, which is why I still have it.
[+] [-] arrty88|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwr|6 years ago|reply
Seconded. It was always crappy, but I recently switched to a 2019 model and expected it to be better. It isn't.
I'm amazed that in 2019/2020 we still have problems with keeping track of two driver profiles (yes!) and their phones. It's not rocket science!
A phone can stop working for no reason and require un-paring/re-connecting. The UX is crappy, Spotify integration works or does not, depending on the phase of the moon.
My car also came with Apple CarPlay, which was somewhat better but after a couple of weeks both phones stopped working with the car. The dealership told me I never had a CarPlay subscription (!), which means it must have been a demo. From the point of view of the user: phones worked nicely, until suddenly they stopped working, completely. Wasted time on dealership visits and unparing/re-connecting phones again.
Oh, and the much-touted feature that lets you unlock the car with an NFC card or your phone? Only works with Samsung phones.
I'm not sure if manufacturers get the fact that for a certain segment of customers phone integration is one of the most important features in the car. After my lease expires I will be shopping with that in mind.
[+] [-] Lendal|6 years ago|reply
I use Android. Anytime I try to go somewhere while my wife's iPhone is near the garage, it takes over my car and I can't do anything. No music, no phone calls, nothing but drive. In order to regain control of my car, I have to drive a mile down the road, pull over, shut off the ignition, count 30 Mississippi, then restart the car. Only then will the unresponsive CarPlay coupe coup be ultimately defeated. :)
Sure I could remove her iPhone profile, but that hurts her feelings.
[+] [-] rad_gruchalski|6 years ago|reply
I have two BMWs, both do the same.
[+] [-] roel_v|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bob1029|6 years ago|reply
My current car is almost entirely mechanical, with the exception of electronic throttle body. This may sound like a petty gripe considering the pure garbage that is being sold today, but I can feel the difference between this and a throttle body with a physical cable attached to it. It annoys the hell out of me that I can sense a 1mm deadzone before the computer detects that I have pressed my accelerator pedal. I cannot comprehend how people are tolerating things like brake/steer-by-wire, lane-keep assist on by default, engine auto stop, emergency auto breaking, etc.
I understand the most profitable target market for these cars is "people who didn't want to drive in the first place", but can we at least spend a little time considering those still in the "I like to drive and don't want it to be a miserable experience" demographic?
[+] [-] ryanlol|6 years ago|reply
I’ve never seen the car pick any other driver profile than the one associated with the keyfob.
[+] [-] CowboyViking|6 years ago|reply
This is why some things can be "not perfect" for some users. The companies are improving rather fast just past years to be able to have things like software be improved in a much faster way and free of chains to the timeline of the project they are part of.
"Car thinks i'm the wife". Some cars go by weight and some by the key used. Some go by the last use and once you sit down it adjust things to that last setting.
I used to have a Audi and a Volvo with these things. The Audi i had seemed to go by weight only and the Volvo had memory buttons to be used but seemed to go by the key.
What the newer BMW use i am unsure of.
[+] [-] ilikehurdles|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] landcoctos|6 years ago|reply
But the software is awful. It's not poorly designed, necessarily, but it's buggy as hell.
Interesting. I have a 2015 BMW 3 Series with professional I-Drive and I still find it one of the best systems available.
[+] [-] m463|6 years ago|reply
But now the problem is that software companies make very good software - that benefits themselves first, and the customer as almost an afterthought.
[+] [-] lowdose|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 88840-8855|6 years ago|reply
Germans are very bad at software.
[+] [-] russellbeattie|6 years ago|reply
There's a reason why California companies lead the world in UI design: We actually care about the user experience. The hostility of a BMW UX is on a level that I honestly didn't think was possible. It wasn't just moronic, it was straight up belligerent.
Thank goodness the car had a major safety recall and I had an excuse to get rid of it. My first and last BMW ever.
[+] [-] speedgoose|6 years ago|reply
On the topic of using a BMW with you phone without being frustrated, some people put a third-party box between the screen and the car infotainment computer to get Android Auto. I heard the experience isn't perfect.
Personnally I use Google Assistant and I think it works relatively well. I can use it to get directions, make the sound of random animals, change radio, play music on Spotify... To trigger it, you can long press the voice command button on the steering wheel.
[+] [-] bmo-at|6 years ago|reply
You're right though, it is not perfect. But I was surprised how well it's integrated. It definitely connects faster and more reliably than the default Bluetooth connection in the car and it can be removed without a trace afterwards, since it's just a piggyback box.
I do experience a crash though sometimes, and then I have to stop, turn off and lock the car for ~30 seconds just to restart the box.
I have a binary firmware file from the manufacturer, was thinking I might try to decompile it and make my own version, but I don't have a the experience or the time atm.
[+] [-] ac_20200120|6 years ago|reply
Someone at BMW added me accidentally as a nexus repo. I get loads of BMW traffic now, and it's really annoying.
Leaks a bunch of fun stuff.
[BMW'S IP] - - [20/Jan/2020:08:52:11 +0100] "GET .... com/bmw/cc/b2vngtp/statusAPI/20200120.074026-feature_2020-T1.5-CDNGTP-3818-improve-stability-of-integration-tests/statusAPI-20200120.074026-feature_2020-T1.5-CDNGTP-3818-improve-stability-of-integration-tests.war HTTP/1.1" 403 1364 [MYSITE] "-" "Nexus/3.15.1-01 (OSS; Linux; 3.0.101-108.87-xen; amd64; 1.8.0_92)" "-"
[+] [-] punnerud|6 years ago|reply
From zwb’s bio: “(..) Hacker News is an online game you can play where your score is up in the top right corner and there's a leaderboard, and you get points by posting stuff and making comments people like. (..)”
[+] [-] gorkish|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hippich|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NotSammyHagar|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shoes_for_thee|6 years ago|reply
I do wish I had adaptive cruise control, though.
[+] [-] UI_at_80x24|6 years ago|reply
I want an electric car. I don't want any screens though. Analogue dials, switches, buttons.
I don't expect to own a vehicle for 20 years, but what is the real life-expectancy of those LCD screens and back-lights? I'm driving a 9-year-old car right now and half of the 'tech' on it doesn't work worth shit. It drives ok, but it's nearing it's serviceable EOL.
[+] [-] mkhpalm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] S0und|6 years ago|reply
by the 3rd time i was laughing at this...
"not a problem, barely an inconvenience"
[+] [-] whois|6 years ago|reply
Yea sounds about right :(