Volvo Cars 4+

Very handy companion peace of mind

When I first tried to configure my car to work with the app it was not very good experience, I called my UK dealer and they arranged a call back to get some one help me. But in the meantime I approached customer care through the app, surprisingly they have configured my car with the app remotely without me going to dealer or speaking with anyone over phone. It was great !! Ever since I installed this app back in June, it always worked… many times it helped me to check whether car is locked or not and remote locking especially when we were on holidays and parked car bit far from the hotel/ sight seeing locations. The driving journal , car status, pre climate are the features I found it to be more useful. I do drive Mercedes with relevant app, in terms of features volvo seems to lack few on paper but on practicality i see no differences. I hope to see more feature and expect the app will continue to work with same level of reliability.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your great review! We are happy to hear that you like the app and appreciate the features.

Not bad, but potentially so much more

When it works it's great. Being able to check you locked your car or get mpg for trips is useful. But it's not reliable enough. It often doesn't seem to get updated information, won't refresh reliably, won't let me log in etc.

By far the most annoying thing is that when you check if you locked the car, invariably it says "unlocked" or "door open" for ten seconds or so before updating. Not good for the heart rate. A simple "last updated" time would help a bit. Also, if the battery on the car is low, and it's gone into power saving mode, you don't get an update. Why doesn't the car send an "I'm going to sleep, here's my latest status" to the server?

There are also some things missing I'd like to see: "send location to car" doesn't work for my V40, no detailed trip route (just start and destination on an unzoomable map) and you can't track the position of the car while it's in motion - why not? There are a few issues in trip tracking too; a short trip (a minute or two) followed by another results in the second trip being ignored and the app reporting the wrong location for the car. I phoned the on call centre and they knew where the car was - just the app that was wrong.

Close, Still needs some work…

Nice to see continuing updates for the newer models, but don’t forget your existing base of customers, would be nice for you to bring back features for the diesel/petrol cars, such as preconditioning, that can be scheduled to run the ventilation in the car (without starting the engine), but can no longer be activated via the app on my 2017 V90.

The latest update gives us interesting graphics, great to see my car with the sunroof for example (Wish that was also true on the 360° Camera view as it spoils the Birdseye illusion), but a lot of people are finding the use less intuitive, to enter the Climate section (Fan Symbol) to start the car engine has apparently confused many (Volvo forums) and choosing not to start the car engine but start Climate by hitting Start button is a bit strange. How about a Start Engine & Start Climate button again. Unlock via Face ID isn’t always working in v 5.01 and I’m having to type in the Long Password each time. The link to report issues in App Store just takes you to Volvo Car Support with no option for the app…?