[mfish123]

I successfully retrofitted a cic module in my 2009 E90. I had it remote coded and I have a feeling the coding isn't perfect but it is functional.

When I first plug in my iphone and start the BMW app it causes the whole idrive / stereo to reboot once or twice and then after that it works as expected. I have an old iphone 6 that I leave connected to my car at all times and it connects via wifi to a mobile hotspot on my Samsung Galaxy S10.

The only annoyance I have is that in order to use Spotify (whole reason I did the retrofit) is that I have to completely close spotify and then start spotify again each time I start up the car. In other words I double tap home, swipe up on spotify to close it, and then start Spotify again.

Is the the normal expected behavior for using apps or does this indicate something messed up with the coding?

I have my S10 automatically (Bixby) start a mobile hotspot when it connects to my car's bluetooth. Was hoping that by leaving the iphone plugged in it can be completely automated so spotify is just ready to go every time I drive without having to touch a thing on either phone.

I know the shortcuts app now has automatons with ios 13 but the iphone 6 isn't elgible for ios 13. If it was I was planning on setting one automation to shut down spotify when it disconnected from the mobile hotspot and then another to start spotify when it connects to the mobile hotspot. I toyed around a bit in the IFTTT appto try to set this up but either I couldn't figure out how or it doesn't have this ability.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[opjose]

Sounds like normal behavior on your devices.

When you shut things down the effective path to the internet is lost and any open apps continue to use the previous routing when power is restored.

In effect the open app is unaware of the newly started hot spot configuration.

[mfish123]

Originally Posted by opjose

Sounds like normal behavior on your devices.

When you shut things down the effective path to the internet is lost and any open apps continue to use the previous routing when power is restored.

In effect the open app is unaware of the newly started hot spot configuration.

Gotcha. Thanks for letting me know that. Sounds like if I had an ios 13 capable device, automatons that close and open spottily based on wifi connectivity would make this truly "hands free". Any suggestions as to how to accomplish what I want to with my current setup?

[opjose]

Why not get a Bluetooth dongle and let it connect your Galaxy to the CIC's audio?

The rebooting is unusual. That should not be happening.

[mfish123]

Originally Posted by opjose

Why not get a Bluetooth dongle and let it connect your Galaxy to the CIC's audio?

The rebooting is unusual. That should not be happening.

Thanks for the suggestion. If i do that ten that's really just giving me wireless audio output from my phone, right? And being that CIC has bluetooth audio built in why would I need a dongle.

I want to be able to control spotify via the idrive controller and have the spotify interface show on the idrive screen. A bluetooth dongle wouldn't give me this ability would it?

[mfish123]

Upon further investigation it does seem that with my setup it's because spotify doesn't know when it re-establishes an internet connection. If after I start my car and the iphone grabs the wifi signal from my Galaxy S10, I just open the already running instance of spotify and press the play button in the app it resumes playing the song and re-establishes the connection with BMW apps in CIC. In other words spotify just basically pauses the song that was playing when it lost its internet connection. Would be nice if spotify would monitor for re-established internet connection.

[Captain Confused]

Originally Posted by mfish123

Thanks for the suggestion. If i do that ten that's really just giving me wireless audio output from my phone, right? And being that CIC has bluetooth audio built in why would I need a dongle.

I want to be able to control spotify via the idrive controller and have the spotify interface show on the idrive screen. A bluetooth dongle wouldn't give me this ability would it?

The CIC does not have bluetooth audio built in it simply recieves a sigle over the MOST cable from the combox in the trunk or through a dongle in the armrest.

[mfish123]

In case anyone else stumble across this here is my solution. Basically I need to leave the iphone plugged in 24/7 with the BMW app running and spotify running in the foreground and have the iphone unlocked for spotify to "auto start" when I get it my car and the iphone gets a wifi signal. To facilitate that:

- On my main Android phone that I use daily and always have with me I'm using the app "automate" to automate turning on the wifi hotspot when my phone connects to my car via BT

-My dedicated car iphone is always plugged in to the via USB
- I have the screen set to never lock

- I've followed steps in tutorials to minimize battery use - airplane mode, disable BT, disable push notifications. ** Don't enable low power mode or it will set screen off to 30 seconds and grey out the settings.
https://www.copytrans.net/support/ho...-battery-life/

- Turn off auto brighness

-Set brightness to dimmest

- To further dim brightness using white point settings: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-dim-yo...ness%20setting.

-To dim brightness even more using the zoom setting: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...do/5415796002/

If you drive enough this should charge your battery more than it drains. The screen brightness is incredibly low. It's almost off. You need to be in pitch black to barely see anything on the screen. Hope this helps someone.