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UVO / Kia Niro app

21K views 27 replies 12 participants last post by  drewesque 
#1 ·
2018 Niro PHEV

My account is linked, I can control charging, honk the horn, lock the doors......
BUT, I cannot start the climate control either at home or away, plugged in or unplugged.

Furthermore, even simple things like lock the doors can take from 20 seconds to a couple minutes.

Also, the Alexa apps - UVO and Kia Niro - neither one work although my account is linked.

I can live without Alexa, but not having the ability to turn on the a/c remotely is a big concern. Especially since my Honda can do this AND respond IMMEDIATELY.

Any tips?
Anybody else with the same Climate Control problem?
How quickly does you Niro respond to requests such as lock or honk the horn?
 
#2 ·
I am able to go online to the MyUVO website hit remote tab and set AC and it pre-cools the car just fine , but i am unable to use the UVO eco app on my iphonefor my PHEV to do same. I have to constantly delete and download app in order for it to access my car and it will only work once then won't let me log in again without deleting and downloading the the app again. Customer Service for UVO was no help.
 
#3 ·
2018 Niro PHEV
Any tips?
Anybody else with the same Climate Control problem?
How quickly does you Niro respond to requests such as lock or honk the horn?
In my experience the response is pretty slow. Lock / unlock can take 60 - 90 seconds or so. Same for climate control commands. This is with both the UVO Eco app (important if you have the PHEV Niro, the regular UVO app doesn't seem to work well if at all) and the website.

The slow response doesn't bother me, but YMMV.
 
#4 ·
There is a possibility that those with fast access are on a home wifi network that the car is also logged into and it is all done locally. And the possibility that those with slow access are sending their request through hundreds of servers to South Korea and back again. Not a tech expert but I always wonder about the background communication, especially when different people have such different experiences. There was a longish thread here or on the Ioniq forum about the difficulty getting one's car to recognize and log into home networks.
 
#6 ·
The remote climate start works for me. All functions seem to take around one minute to execute which seems acceptable and normal to me since it uses 3G/LTE only. The Niro PHEV does not have WiFi. My Hyundai Tucson had Wifi and I was also able to remote start and it took about the same time to execute commands.

One thing I noticed with the remote climate start is that it turns on the defroster even if I am turning on AC and trying to cool the car down.
 
#7 ·
I started the thread. Yesterday, I was demonstrating the stupidness of this system - at least 15 tries, it wouldn’t connect - when, surprise, it worked and really quickly. I will be taking this up with Kia and will post the results. BTW, I also demonstrated the same feature on a new RDX, also using an iPhone app, and it worked every time and immediately. Kia needs to do this. Make or break feature for me.
 
#13 ·
So you are calling remote start as the only way to control the HVAC system? That seems odd to me. It won't start the engine on a cooling call. Seems dangerous to start an ICE in a garage and potentially dangerous even outside if there is an exhaust leak - people die in the wintertime when stuck. On a BEV, "start" is just an abstraction until you put it in gear - no ICE to "start".

Why not just call it remote climate control?
 
#15 ·
So you are calling remote start as the only way to control the HVAC system? That seems odd to me. It won't start the engine on a cooling call. Seems dangerous to start an ICE in a garage and potentially dangerous even outside if there is an exhaust leak - people die in the wintertime when stuck. On a BEV, "start" is just an abstraction until you put it in gear - no ICE to "start".

Why not just call it remote climate control?

I have a 2018 HEV and I call it a remote start because it starts the vehicle remotely. In an HEV you need the ICE to generate the heat transferred to the car. I had a Prius with remote start for over 10 years and am still around to tell about it. Unfortunately, it seems Kia does not have a remote start available for an HEV.
 
#16 ·
Yep, that one still gets me sometimes. I generally don't lock my car at work so often when I try to start the A/C it takes me a few tries to remember, oh yeah, I need to lock it first. :eek:

It would be nice if the app would tell you to lock it or perhaps even lock it automatically when you start the climate control.
 
#19 ·
I think it'll run for ~15 minutes or so.

If you want it run longer you can leave it running while locked. You'll need to take the metal key out of the fob and use it to lock the car while leaving the fob inside so the car will keep running.
 
#22 ·
I love my remote start don't really get snow here but get frost hit the button in the house walk out a few minutes later its warm and ready to roll. Haven't had it in summer yet but ill definitely cool it down its probably 120 degrees in my car in the summer if not hotter. But I added remote start to my hybrid.
 
#27 ·
Tomorrow here in Southern Ontario it is going up to 35C and feeling like 42C (104f) but that won't be the actual temperature especially in the shade. It is only a humidex reading. I guess if more people were actually driving a Plugin Niro then we wouldn't have all these extreem weather condions that require the UVO app to pre-heat or pre-a/c the car in the first place.
 
#28 ·
Honestly, even in 100+ weather, I find my PHEV to not really require the pre-AC, since it cools pretty quickly. But it is nice if the car ended up in the sun and I think of it. I don't blame anyone for wanting it to work well. After all, that is part of the purchase. If you don't want/need it, good for you, but I tend to want everything I have paid for, regardless of necessity.
The part of the app I have used the most is verifying that I locked the doors. Came from a Honda that autolocked when I walked away, so I have had to verify the locked status.
And I don't really think it is that extreme to have the occasional triple digit day or subzero day. I generally prefer it to the lack of seasons when I was living in western Washington.
 
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