[mukeshc18]

Originally Posted by abirnale

Wow, I am thrilled! Wish we could stop for a quick chat too. Thank you for all the kind words and appreciation.

I always look at the number plate for Red XUV700 in case I spot Red Sparkle.

In case there is a plan for weekend drive, I would love to join with my XUV 500.

[abirnale]

The curious case of CarPlay and Android Auto disconnection:

We have had multiple instances in the past where Android Auto or Apple carPlay gets auto-disconnected. I was not very sure when or why this happens. Android is relatively more stable than iOS. It’s just that when Android reconnects, it is smooth, whereas in iOS, upon reconnection, we need to manually reset the navigation destination which is counter-productive.

I have tried OP+11 5G and iPhone 12 Pro with Public Beta, Developer Beta, and the general version OS. There is one place in BLR where this issue is sure-shot reproducible: https://maps.app.goo.gl/DnNFAETf8ps55k71A?g_st=ic

On the Bannerghatta Main road, precisely at the signal, you will find your phone (iOS or Android) getting disconnected from Car’s Wifi. If you were using only BT, it would be fine. If using Android Auto or carPlay, it will get disconnected!

Not sure if we found an urban Bermuda Triangle or something spooky in that region that interferes with Wifi Signal strength/ corrupts the channels! Not sure if this happens with other cars, too (XUV and non-XUV)! A few folks from our TORC also reported this exact behaviour and that is the reason I got curious and zeroed down to these observations!

What could be the secret? I am tempted to try different Wifi Channels or settings, but knowing I have an ICE feature-rich car, unable to gather the courage to fiddle with wifi settings and try!

Has anyone ever come across such things in their cars?

Anyway, more travel and more drive are on the cards for the weekend. Stay tuned for more updates!

[fusionbang]

Originally Posted by abirnale

The curious case of CarPlay and Android Auto disconnection:

Is this specific to any particular service provider? Should we try this on my Safari. We can do some testing and identify the root cause or may be some theory for this to happen.

We might make it to the history books to discover Bangalore's Bermuda Triangle

[abirnale]

It’s that time of the year again and we are excited to chase the rains, soak in the rain - #TheRedSparkle is always ready to take first road out of the town into wild.

An impromptu trip to Sakleshpur - just me and my son to beat the weekday blues. After my weekly run (literally using my own feet), me and my son drove out of Bangalore. A quick booking with Mugilu Homestay south of Sakleshpur and relaxed drive through out the highways, country roads, taking breaks wherever we found green pastures or water bodies, we reached after lunch at homestay. Exploring nearby meadows, grasslands, water bodies, mountains, clicking birds (the feathered ones - and too many for this thread so not including the pics), we settled for relaxed evening, lazy morning and even more lazier drive back home.

We wandered around Kaginahare area, drove up the hill to peak, witnessed the monsoon clouds playing hide and seek, soaked a little in occasional drizzle. The roads up to the peak were not fr faint hearted. Only the bikes (of adventure kind) were on that route. Me and my son took the challenging mud roads, slippery slopes and 40-45 degree inclines! What greeted us was beautiful view of the western ghats and misty mountains.

We clicked tons of pictures and some random videos to stitch together using iMovie’s magic movie feature, the results are here:















































The video is accessible here:

https://youtu.be/PfsKElwEAIs

Next weekend will be another drive, another fun weekend. See you again with more fun pictures and videos.

[prash1892]

Photos are simply breathtaking
Will someday take my car to these locations if it's still possible

[IvanBiv]

Originally Posted by abirnale

It’s that time of the year again and we are excited to chase the rains, soak in the rain - #TheRedSparkle is always ready to take first road out of the town into wild.

The roads up to the peak were not fr faint hearted. Only the bikes (of adventure kind) were on that route. Me and my son took the challenging mud roads, slippery slopes and 40-45 degree inclines! What greeted us was beautiful view of the western ghats and misty mountains.

The video of the narrow muddy roads indeed looks scary. One would think twice before venturing into that.
Having said that, the view indeed seems magnificient. Also, speaks volumes about the capability of the 700.

[abirnale]

Two things to note:

First - If your car’s DEF levels are anything around 40%, at the next possible opportunity, top it up! I am on MH monsoon trails at this time. In Pune, at sahyadri motors in Wakad, they didn’t have DEF stock! Other places asked me to schedule an appointment before visiting them! I actually searched on maps for M&M ASCs and tried calling them if I can get DEF topped up! All city folks wouldn’t entertain you just like that! Not having enough DEF could be an issue if you were running too close to limits and are out on a trip. And by the way not all ASCs are on maps and M&M WYH apps. For example - Poona Motors from Pune/ Navale Bridge isn’t on the official list yet! Finally - I got tier 2 city ASC help with DEF without asking a single question! A notable and positive experience - Jay motors in Satara, even when they were on lunch break, helped me source DEF from their counter, helped fill and got me back on road. Took only 15 mins. No drama and fuss at all! Love those guys - they are holding the M&M fort well! 👏

Second - I am unable to make up my mind whether the car looks good when it is clean or has this dirty look with local kids performing graffiti on it:





Stay tuned for more dose of rains and drive from Sahyadri!

[niranjan.mulye]

Are you coming to Ratnagiri? We could catch up and have a mini meet with bouth our XUVs

[abirnale]

The first Monsoon Drive of 2023!

There is a word for that: Pluviophile. And then there is a meditation on the move that very few people love to do all alone! The monsoon is magical - the greenery you see around is different in different places. What you see in the Western ghats covering Malenadu isn't the same as what you will see in coastal Karwar and Goa. This is not at all constant as you move up north towards MH. One needs some time at hand, a good excuse to be solo and explore the western ghats, especially Sahyadri without carrying the watch or calendar with you!

I did that throughout this entire week. Every year, July's first week is a slow period at work for me - I definitely take off from work for 2-3 days. This year was a little different - no plans were hatched to have a group monsoon drive like we did last year. So I figured out I had an excuse to make a solo monsoon drive. Monsoon and Maharashtra - the combination is delivered with reason to visit the Ashtavinayak temples that are mostly around Pune, go into the Konkan, and further extend to home/ other areas of Sahyadri. Gave the details of how to find me when needed to my wife and Kids, and I set out last Saturday for this solo drive.

The plan was simple: Do all 8 Ganesha temples and spend as much time as possible on the road experiencing the rains. No hotels booked, no road conditions checked - just drive out. What I ended up doing is below:
Saturday: BLR to Satara, stay at Satara.
Sunday: Satara - Lonand - Moregaon - Daund - Sidhatek - Theur - Ranjangan - Ozar - Lenyadri - Malshej Ghat - Karjat
Monday: Karjat - Mahd - Pali - Tamhini - Mulashi - Pune
Tuesday: Pune - Sangli
Wednesday and Thursday: some work at home, local drives for lunch and dinners with family and friends
Friday: Sangli - Hubali [Working day - taking calls, working on the computer, finally ended up in Fern Residency for the night as I type and finish off the quick post] From here it's absolutely home-run, as boring as it can get!

The most fun and enjoyable drive was on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. When I started out of BLR, there were no rains, just clouds and some chill in the air. As I approached Belgaum, started seeing the drizzle, and around Karad - Satara it was proper rain in short spells. The Section after Ranjangaon towards Ozar and Lenyadri and further into the Malshej/ Karjat section had the heaviest rains and the best fun drive! As you pass through these two ghats - Malshej and Tamhini - they are two different experiences. Malshej has bad roads while Tamhini has almost perfect smooth roads! The Malshej has more breathtaking views of waterfalls descending down every whereas Tamhini has a nice misty and cloudy atmosphere that engulfs you! You must drive through these ghats to experience them! I am collating the dashcam footage - being solo, the only drawback is there is no support for photographing the moments - all you do is soak into them and come back mesmerized - not much to show to the world other than peaceful and happy you!

The roads are great everywhere except in the Malshej Ghat. The sections between Belgaum to Satara - are extremely slow due to the road widening work and several idiots driving mindlessly here. The locals are extremely welcoming and helpful when it comes to giving information about road conditions and directions to reach your desired destination. The most irritating thing was folks driving at full speed with blinkers ON in the rain!

The best snack I enjoyed was in the Patas-Moregaon section at "Jogeshwari Misal" - just loved their setup, taste as well as hospitality. The Bhel in Jaysngpur, Sangli, and Kolhapur is something one must taste!

The greatest memory I bring back from this drive is - meeting friends, family friends, and locals! And of course the rainy green!

And to sum up, some pictures from the drive:



























While coming out of Karjat, towards Mahd, there is this abandoned plane that is used for various photo shoots - early in the morning, i sneaked in there with permission from the friendly watchman and he even helped click the pictures!











The food is an integral part of the drive:





These are the exact roads driven:









The accommodation was all booked last minute using the MakeMyTrip app.- the worst experience was at the agri-resort at Karjat where the unruly crowd kept drinking and making noise throughout the night and I couldn't get good sleep. On the other hand, the Fern Residency hotels in major towns are good options to crash for the night without having to worry about parking spaces for your rides.

Oh and by the way - TheRedSparkle was running at 42% DEF level that is when in Pune I tried to top up and it wasn't a great experience. The Satara ASC exceeded expectations and helped in the best possible way. The car also encountered one puncture and TPMS was bang on to warn, re-learn upon the full-size spare replacement, and was absolutely flawless! Great FE as I was cruising relaxed and happy, no trouble with whatsoever on the car other than occasional CarPlay getting disconnected. The in-built MMI navigation is superb - when google fails, MMI sure delivers!

Have a great weekend - see you son here with another drive, another interesting update soon!

Originally Posted by niranjan.mulye

Are you coming to Ratnagiri? We could catch up and have a mini meet with both our XUVs

No - did not come that side. Mostly stayed around Pune. August is when I will be in that area hopefully. Will PM you shortly.

[abirnale]

Quiet weekend - after the week long sojourn into MH, #TheRedSparkle is back in it’s den! The odometer reads 48,149 Kms



And it wears the the matte red monsoon livery:



I just happened to pull one saved video from the dashcam: this was exciting as well as scary. And I can confirm that sunroof doesn’t leak

https://youtu.be/CMRPtmv9LLk

[abirnale]

Service Action: The ICE update

I was informed by Chrome Motors senior CoTek - Prasad that there is a latest ICE update for silver-box and bunch of things with it are made available for all XUV7OO variants. I was out of town on monsoon drive and hence did not have opportunity to visit ASC for this update. Today for about 75 mins, I was able to get in Chrome motors, get the updates applied and out of there. This is rolled out as service action - no charges to car owners. This is not a priority/ must-have update: so you don’t need to rush to ASC. It can be done as part of your routine visit to ASC for service/ repair etc.

There are some interesting features in this update apart from general stability fixes. The most notable though is MMI maps updates. MMI now has replaced their regular maps with Mappls (https://www.mappls.com) A completely new UI, sleeker and more detailed views, guidance, various options and a crowd-sourced potholes report are some highlights I noticed. Things so far working fine - have to drive a little longer and see how stable this is. The real-time traffic update is now enabled in Mappls - muvh more helpful (may not be as good as google). This will deifnitely make Apple carPlay disconnections bearable now The MMI has been my offline/ last resort of a kind maps. I duly note the lat-long prior to every long trip as via points and use MMI as fallback when gMaps fail. The MMI generally navigate through the roads that are appropriate for car - unlike Google maps take me in the narrow village roads.

Below are some screen grabs from the ICE I took during my drive back from ASC, the Chrome Motors @ Mysore Road:

The ICE version:


The Mappls in action:




























The maps when on MID console:





Please note that, this update will need you to almost reconfigure everything on your ICE - including user profile, Car and phone settings/ BT pairing, Maps Home and Work locations, etc. You do not need anything to be done with Adrenox App - it will continue to work as before. Mappls claim to offer the latest routes, traffic updates OTA - over the air. So ideally as long as your Adrenox subscription is active, latest map data should not be a concern!

And a note for Chrome Motor guys: As always, Prasad was super helpful in scheduling time, spending right amount of time preparing the updates with series of pen drives, diagnostic tools. He is one thorough CoTek engineer who does everything by the rule book. Follows every instructions to the minutest details form the TSB he receives from M&M. So it’s rare for him to overshoot estimates time and/ or have bricked the silver-boxes in the process. I have heard numerous stories of cars getting disabled/ ICE going blank, Silver-box getting bricked and so on. With Prasad at the update task, I can actually leave car to him, continue to take my office calls and work sitting there and get the things done in top shape. So thanks to him! My SA Zubair at Chrome is another great human being - caring for customer, doing things head of time, not making us wait for billing and formalities - he tries to save every minute of his customers. He doesn’t shy away from giving you a patient ear if you have any complaints or issues to report. And he is still composed to ask you for a cup of coffee and smile at you naturally. This team of Edrish (floor in-charge who has fabulous team to work under him on car, mechanically), CoTek - Prasad and SA Zubair - these guys take care of my car.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to explore this new version of ICE and some more rains!

[rudra_shiv]

Originally Posted by abirnale

Service Action: The ICE update

I was informed by Chrome Motors senior CoTek - Prasad that there is a latest ICE update for silver-box and bunch of things with it are made available for all XUV7OO variants. I was out of town on monsoon drive and hence did not have opportunity to visit ASC for this update. Today for about 75 mins, I was able to get in Chrome motors, get the updates applied and out of there. This is rolled out as service action - no charges to car owners. This is not a priority/ must-have update: so you don’t need to rush to ASC. It can be done as part of your routine visit to ASC for service/ repair etc.

Hello, Mr. Avinash! I'm delighted to see your update. I honestly didn't anticipate it coming so soon!

MapMyIndia/Mappls UI and the feature they offer are great. I really love the way it works and its fluidity. Unfortunately, it does not have optimized route suggestions like Google Maps, especially inside the city.

I heard that from this update the in-built navigation will be AN ONLINE map only utilizing the internet connection from the eSIM. Can you confirm?

If YES, then M&M and MapMyIndia are burning their hands instantly limiting people from using this India-based Navigation System. I really want to support this initiative but spending a 5k for the AdrenoX (with the limitations on remote operations AX5 has) with the infamous signal reception of Vodafone stops me greatly from getting the subscription renewed.

I really wish M&M find a way to add Offline Map Data to the system like the previous version we had.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by rudra_shiv

….
Unfortunately, it does not have optimized route suggestions like Google Maps, especially inside the city.

I heard that from this update the in-built navigation will be AN ONLINE map only utilizing the internet connection from the eSIM. Can you confirm?

Yes, and yes!

Navigation - since it’s online, it will get better with time so not much worried about it. As long as I see options, I can choose manually to drive where I want to.

When there is no network, you are not going to get directions - explore the wild! Thar already is a car without any offline maps - XUV7OO following the suit. More worry would come if this consumes too much of data and then eSIM gets disabled! And as of now we are Vi - worlds best network M&M chose! <Sarcasm Included.>

By the way, they do ask you to sign a letter that explains the updates in this version of patch and it clearly talks about Mappls. It’s online only thingie and knowing Mappls, this was expected thing. What I missed though is, we run world famous Vi network that will steal all the thunder soon!

[abirnale]

Just to be super clear on what I am saying:

• The offline maps support form the cars is disappearing. Thar is already gone, XUV7OO will go, me thinks.
• It is ok to have online only support as long as: the connectivity across India is super seamless, navigation should continue to work even when without connectivity and between the trip as long as the directions are set and you haven’t reached the destination. Technically, cache the maps for the current trip and 50Kms around it!
• The eSIM and connected car features are part of subscription that we will end up paying anyway - so expecting a reliable and foolproof service isn’t a wrong ask in my opinion. Do whatever it takes - make maps work.

Now here is what bothers me most: note the car sim signal strength, this is bang in the middle of town where phone Airtel network is showing strong 5G network already -



And by the way, the maps is an evolving thing - the suggestions on routes, taking through narrow or wider roads or through the traffic or beating traffic is something not just car but even the driver is getting smart at anyway, so no complaints there.



The MAPPLS definitely has offline and online hybrid approach on mobile apps - tablets etc. So it shouldn’t be a big deal to make it for XUV7OO too. The challenge that may be - is ICE CPU capable enough to process that kind of connectivity and data and memory? Only time and M&M engineers will know I guess!

[A.G.]

Originally Posted by abirnale

The offline maps support form the cars is disappearing.

Unless the Hybrid approach is available, this arrangement of maps is really not suitable as even the local Mahindra ASC here does not get Vi network, let alone other places. I wonder how the maps would be cached when starting from a place without network.

To me the pain of losing the offline maps outweighs the other gains / improvements in the update and it is a pity that such a choice has to be made. Mahindra has ensured that the novelty of in-built offline navigation would be robbed with this update in their attempt to fix something which was not broken in the first place i.e. the offline navigation. On a sarcastic note, seems the next to go online would be climate control to ensure subscription renewal