You made me look. I was worried ab this and the life time of the new light assemblies. Turns out the rear luggage lights do not activate/dim on arm/disarm. (I didn't know this)

Anyway, I've spent the last couple days preparing for the roadtrip in the *other* direction: South to Tampa, FL. Anyone here wanna say hello?

After some rather clear-headed moments and a series of tests to prove I had a good radio, I finally accomplished a long time dreamL: I put together a bench tester! Here I am, giddy with elation that this old school octa core with Android 8 will fire RIGHT up!

This provided the perfect little bit of confidence I needed to screw around with it. TRY to brick it! After all.. It's not doin' anything ATM, rt? So, let's see if the MCU firmware can get upgraded? Well, Whataya know?

TODAY'S fun was rebuilding the silly apps and such from the road. I ended up completely shitballing the OS and MCU updates.

After some serious research, I cleared errors and had me an octa core Android radio as fresh as the day I bought it. Things could be worse. I started with Car Launcher as it was the only way I knew to get things done for the last 3 years. A few minutes later, I was on to figuring out the CarPlay app, and of course, I-Bus.

That left today's 10 or so hours at the wheel with a LOT of reflection. It's nice to start with a fresh OS when you KNOW what you use the radio for the MOST. I only installed like 4 apps, cause 95% of the time, I'm in CarPlay. Most of the other stuff was just to see what is different.

I was WAY pleased to find that after changing the BT type in the Factory Settings menu, the radio linked to the OBDII adapter that had been lost for a couple years. Torque immediately recognized it. That's a really, really old itch that was finally scratched right there.

Also, Tho the slowness in I-Bus App had returned, all is now very responsive. I had a great time working through the options and starting from point zero. I did indeed feel, if I may, gentlemen... Zen. Today, I spent $5 on the Car Launcher Pro app after using the freeloader one for.. well a long time.

One of the AWESOME things I discovered today was a widget that allows you to turn Wi-Fi off and on simply by pressing the touch screen antennae (appears as any WiFi antenna). SO, ya know when you have to jumble between the hotspot app on the phone and then find settings and wifi and turn the sh!t on and.... ? Well, the 'Pro' version has a lil widget that just turns wi-fi ON/OFF. So, I get in, make my hot spot discoverable, hit that lil widget I put on the home screen, and BOOM. She connects!

Finally, the latest versions of I-Bus allow you to *actually* assign the steering wheel keys to meaningful functions! I made a long press 'Next' send me to the main Car Launcher Menu. The 'Talk' button launches I-Bus. And Finally, the R/T button brings up the CarPlay app.

I think the X5 knows that I'm treating it to some Turner parts coming soon. She's bein awfully nice.

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