[cookiesowns]

Originally Posted by ZPrime

Pretty sure all 2017+ US-spec cars come with 6NS by default; 6WD is the wifi hotspot connectivity, and 6NW is the wireless charging. 6WD and 6NW are packaged together as part of Exec in the US.

6NW overrides 6NS and includes everything normally in 6NS, AFAIK. Check out the 2017 order guide.

Note that on a US-spec car, none of these options require Carplay to be chosen.

However, maybe choosing Carplay for $300 adds the 6WD wifi hotspot automagically?

I believe on everything mid-2017 and you can add Carplay at a later date via the ConnectedDrive stuff from inside the car itself. I'm not sure if this means you're then stuck only with wired/cabled Carplay in a non-Exec car, or if they actually include the 6WD hotspot hardware in all the cars and just leave it disabled until you pay for Carplay? (You pay $300 in ConnectedDrive and they just turn it on remotely, making me wonder if it's possible to code in for free with esys...)

If you have NBT-EVO (NBT2) the WiFi stuff is included. My car with a Feb 2017 production date didn't have carplay on, but I was able to activate it via connecteddrive. It works wirelessly over wifi, and my car does not have 6WD.

[cornercase]

Originally Posted by Spa2k

Not all U.S. '18s have the charging dock built in. It's only included as part of the Executive Package.

What does the inside of the center console look like if you don't have the Executive Package?

[cornercase]

Originally Posted by ZPrime

Pretty sure all 2017+ US-spec cars come with 6NS by default; 6WD is the wifi hotspot connectivity, and 6NW is the wireless charging. 6WD and 6NW are packaged together as part of Exec in the US.

6NW overrides 6NS and includes everything normally in 6NS, AFAIK. Check out the 2017 order guide.

Note that on a US-spec car, none of these options require Carplay to be chosen.

However, maybe choosing Carplay for $300 adds the 6WD wifi hotspot automagically?

I believe on everything mid-2017 and you can add Carplay at a later date via the ConnectedDrive stuff from inside the car itself. I'm not sure if this means you're then stuck only with wired/cabled Carplay in a non-Exec car, or if they actually include the 6WD hotspot hardware in all the cars and just leave it disabled until you pay for Carplay? (You pay $300 in ConnectedDrive and they just turn it on remotely, making me wonder if it's possible to code in for free with esys...)

That would be interesting if the $300 Apple CarPlay option included the WiFi Hotspot, but I recall it was just some USB brick that you could move outside of the car. That is, I don't remember the Wifi Hotspot to be built into the car and non-removable.

There seem to be a few oddities in the way the 2018 LCI is being equipped; in addition to Adaptive LED Headlights, WiFi Hotspot would be another Executive Package option that comes installed on some non-Executive Package optioned vehicles.

[Spa2k]

Originally Posted by cornercase

What does the inside of the center console look like if you don't have the Executive Package?

Just a rubber tray in the bottom of the space.

[ZPrime]

Originally Posted by cornercase

That would be interesting if the $300 Apple CarPlay option included the WiFi Hotspot, but I recall it was just some USB brick that you could move outside of the car. That is, I don't remember the Wifi Hotspot to be built into the car and non-removable.

I'm pretty sure it is... it just uses the same 4G/LTE data connection that the car uses for the ConnectedDrive / phone home / door-unlock-via-cellphone crap. There's what amounts to a wifi AP / router built-in to the car.

I'm about 99% sure that the equipment that provides the ability to have wireless CarPlay is the same equipment that creates the wifi hotspot. (It would be really dumb for them to have two different wifi radios in the car for two different purposes, plus they can potentially interfere with each other.)

I'm fairly certain (from reading other posts on this board) that starting sometime in mid-2017 production, it became possible to order a car without CarPlay, and then enable it on the car later (via ConnectedDrive), and still have the wireless portion of CarPlay be functional. This is only possible if the wifi hardware is already in the car. From what I understand, on 2016 cars, if you didn't option it with CarPlay to begin with, you could not add it later, meaning there's some hardware limitation there. Potentially you might be able to add it via software and have it work correctly with a wired connection, but they presumably didn't want to offer CarPlay without it being (at the user's choice) wireless as well, so they simply don't allow the 2016s to add it later since they lack the wifi hardware.

Now, I do not know whether or not you can actually use the "hotspot" portion of the system on a car that was optioned without the Exec package, but it seems really stupid for them to block that (since it's just another way for BMW to make money off of you via that hotspot data charge).

There seem to be a few oddities in the way the 2018 LCI is being equipped; in addition to Adaptive LED Headlights, WiFi Hotspot would be another Executive Package option that comes installed on some non-Executive Package optioned vehicles.

The Adaptive LED thing seems to be a weird fluke - I think I remember seeing photos of at least one LCI US-spec non-Exec car that has been delivered without them, so it's not a universal thing. Supply constraints on the non-adaptive lights would be my guess as to why some people are randomly getting upgraded, but that's pure speculation.