[jrmille1]

Am I missing something about this app or is it really barebones? The only thing I can see that it does is give you a score on your driving and tell you where you parked (if you happen to remember to have the app open).

 

[realto]

Yep, it's pretty bare bones. It will not work if youre in Android Auto mode, and my phone automatically goes into AA mode in the car, so it's not used much. It can be set to call 911 with location automatically, when airbags deploy, whether phone is working or not. So that alone is worth it IMO. There are other apps that can tell you where car is parked, etc.

 

[KK6PD]

It's rare that I get to use the same response for two posts, but here goes...
So far the UVO has been nothing but worthless...... Every time I shut the car off I get the message that the app failed to work.... junk, good thing the purchase of the car did not depend on the app working

 

[jrmille1]

I did find out you do have to have the app open on your phone in order for it send parking info. Kinda makes it a pain when my iPhone already tells me where I parked.

 

[cookrd1]

The UVO eco app, for the PHEV, has the ability to turn on the A/C, lock/unlock, honk the horn and a few other minor things such as valet/geo/speed alerts it is pretty much useless too unle-Boss you need those things.

 

[yticolev]

How exactly does that work? Do you have cell service imbedded in your car, or is your charger on your local network and able to run those controls?

 

[jmurphEV]

How exactly does that work? Do you have cell service imbedded in your car, or is your charger on your local network and able to run those controls?

I assume the car has some low bandwidth cellular modem built in. The car doesn't have to be plugged in nor does the phone have to be in the car.

I'm sitting in a hotel room right now and can control the car in the parking lot using the eco app. It's pretty slow, taking around 90 seconds to respond to a command, but it works.

This raises a question of will Kia continue to support the feature long term? I suppose the predicted cost of a data usage over the lifetime of the car could be built into the purchase price, but it would be nice to know the details.

Mostly it's a cool but pretty useless toy. I suppose the climate control could be useful if the car is parked outside and I wanted to heat / cool it before heading out.