COMAND issues and Internet access

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Wed, 14/08/2019 - 10:23
Jdring
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Joined: 12.04.2004
Location: South of Oxford, UK. 87' 230GE SWB Manual, 89' 230GE SWB Auto, 2012 G350Bluetec LWB
GWOA Groups: Committee, Members

Well, COMAND has always been pretty poor.  But its worst feature has to be Bluetooth and connecting to phones.

MB make great cars, but the COMAND system must have been outsourced, and there are so many versions.  Its not even easy to know or find out what version of COMAND you actually have.   The only way I found was to go into Engineering Mode by pressing and holding the Phone hangup button plus the # key plus the 1 key, for 5 seconds.   I have version 11 31, which I think is COMAND NTG4.5 (2012 G350).   But who really knows!

The online documentation it has is OK, but really slow and clunky to use, and never actually tells you anything useful - its too full of arse protecting caveats about not hurting yourself moving seats, or blowing yourself up doing a jump start etc to actually tell you anything.

And then there is the MB Apps and connectivity to the t'internet.   It should be easy, and needs a Bluetooth phone which supports tethering AND has something called SAM (SIM Access Mode?).   If you manage to get that working (its a crap setup) then the internet access will be slow, but I wanted to see what there was.

Anyone using it?

 

 

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Fri, 16/08/2019 - 12:36
#1
Arnie
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Joined: 12.04.2004
Location: London
GWOA Groups: Members
Re: COMAND issues and Internet access

None of the automotive manufacturers make their own infotainment systems. MB has traditionally used Bosch as the OEM. However, Siemens, Alpine (favoured by BMW) Becker/Harman and others also supply systems. 

I've never had good FM radio reception on a COMAND, even with strong stations, whereas BMW systems could always pull-in even the weakest signals. Probably an antenna amplifier failiure, but all the same on 2 or 3 vehicles.

 

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