UPDATE: As of v2.0.0 of the "BMW i Remote - North America" app for iOS, an "Unlock vehicle" button now appears in the app! So the contents of this page should no longer be necessary, if the user can install and run version 2.0.0. I will maintain the rest of this page for archival purposes.
This information seems like it should have been as simple as typing the following:
The “BMW i Remote - North America” app for iOS does not allow the user to Unlock the doors on their i3/i8. However, the “BMW Connected North America” app does.
However, there are a few tiny details that made this somewhat trickier, and possibly impossible for some users (who don’t record and archive every password they ever encounter). The complications I encountered attempting to use the remote unlocking feature of the BMW Connected North America app may also affect other BMW Connected users, not just those of the i3/i8 models.
The BMW i Remote - North America app for iOS has a glaring omission: the ability to remotely unlock the vehicle’s doors. You can lock the doors, as well as sounding the horn, flashing the lights and starting a Preconditioning cycle, but unlocking the doors is notably absent.
Initially, I accepted this as a likely security/liability-related restriction from BMW North America (even though our Ford Focus Electric’s mobile app does allow remote unlocking). After all, it does represent a security risk that one might accidentally unlock their vehicle without realizing it, not to mention the risk of someone having temporary control of your phone (PINs/TouchID notwithstanding). And while remote unlocking may not sound like a useful feature for some, I have had cause to use Remote Unlocking, and have anticipated a strategy for letting friends access items locked in the car when I am elsewhere in the world. Online research indicated that outside North America, the i Remote app did have unlocking functionality.
I’d seen that there was a BMW Connected North America iOS app, so I decided to see if it worked with the i3.
As soon as I entered my BMW Connected username and password in this app, it displayed my name; a paint scheme-correct image of our i3 REx model; and current charge/fuel states and range estimates for our car. Tapping on a button labeled “Remote” opened an app pane which contained buttons for “Remote Services”: Lock, Unlock, Horn and Light; one “Activate now” button under “Climate Control;” and a Set Departure Time setting.
The BMW Connected North America app requires that the user hold their finger on the requested button for 2 full seconds to prevent accidental activations - a progress thermometer grows a horizontal red line across the top of the pressed button to provide visual feedback. I pressed the “Unlock” button and waited for the thermometer, and the app presented an Unlock password challenge dialog, where it asked “What is your BMW Assist™ password (i.e., located on your Subscriber Agreement)?” and presented a “Answer” text entry field.
The password I’d just used to log in to the BMW Connected app did NOT work here. In my password management database, I’d kept a record of a previous “temporary password” for BMW Assist, and tried entering this password. This was accepted! The challenge dialog disappeared and the app reverted to the “Remote Services” sheet. At the bottom, a status display read “Unlock: Sending to vehicle . . .” and a progress pinwheel spun to its right.
After something between 10 and 30 seconds, the driver’s door of our i3 unlocked. The status area at the bottom of the app turned green, and displayed “Unlock: performed successfully.”
I long-pressed the “Lock” button (no password required), and after 30 seconds or so, the doors locked.
SUCCESS! But where did that second password come from, and why was it different from the main BMW Connected password?
NOTE: During a subsequent test, the door never locked, and the app continued to report that the Unlock command was being sent. Attempts to again send a “Lock” command resulted in a prompt that another command could not be issued while one was in progress. After 2+ full minutes of waiting - during which I switched away from and back to the app a couple of times, with no apparent effect - the status bar at the bottom of the app turned red and the text read something about “Failed.” Switching back to the main pane of the app (by clicking the “Close” button in the upper-left of the Remote Services pane), “Unlocked” was displayed below the car image. I tried issuing another “Lock” command, and this time the door locked successfully in only 15-20 seconds. So even though it’s possible for the commands to be lost, the user can at least monitor the current door lock status, and is eventually given an opportunity to re-try a command if it is unsuccessful, after a generous time-out period.
Initially, I couldn’t remember where I got the “temporary password” that I successfully used to respond to the Unlock challenge. I remembered signing a document to sign up for some kind of “electronic services” at the dealership when we were signing our i3’s lease. I found a photo of a “BMW Assist Subscriber Agreement Contract” I’d taken with my phone just after signing it, but we were NOT given a copy of that contract (and I’d never thought to archive the photo into our vehicle records until now). From the nature of the password, I’m pretty sure that I generated the complex password with a password-management app, and I do recall sitting at the sales person’s computer and filling out the username and password information myself. I found this BMW Connected FAQ page which refers to that contract, so that you can see where the password would be located if you received a copy of this contract:
In the “history” for my password management software, I saw that the original password I used to create the BMW Assist account at the dealership was the first password I’d used to log into connecteddrive.bmwusa.com. I suspect that BMW’s own website required me to change the password immediately upon logging in for the first time, and my database also showed that the password had been changed twice since.
So despite my changing our password at connecteddrive.bmwusa.com multiple times, that password I provided to create the BMW Assist Contract in the first place still mattered when I was trying to Unlock the car using the BMW Connected iOS app. I very much doubt that most people, upon being instructed to enter a new password, would have kept a record of the previous. I’m not sure what would have happened had I NOT had that original password - I suspect I’d be corresponding with BMW Support.
Poking around in the BMW ConnectedDrive site (while logged in), I found this page: Security Question for Using Remote Services. Changing this question and answer replaced that original password I provided when I enrolled in the BMW Assist program. For security’s sake, I suggest that you change the Security Question and answer as well. If you’d rather not click the link above, do the following:
Subsequent attempts to issue an Unlock command from the BMW Connected North America iOS app (so far, that’s the only function that has prompted me for a secondary password) resulted in being challenged with the chosen Security Question. Entering the new, custom answer allowed the remote Unlock process to proceed.
I have both the BMW i Remote - North America and BMW Connected North America apps installed and logged in on my iPhone, and I can switch back and forth between them. The BMW Connected app has lost its login credentials once, requiring me to re-enter the username and password. This may have been an anomaly, and in any case I'm not expecting to use this app very often.
On this page of their ConnectedDrive website, BMW refers to a “Security Question for Using Remote Services.” But in the BMW Connected North America app itself, the prompt to enter this password (which is presented when you attempt to send an Unlock command) reads: “What is your BMW Assist™ password (i.e., located on your Subscriber Agreement)?” So BMW is inconsistent - calling the same password two different things, and unclear that there are TWO passwords: 1) the password to log into the connecteddrive.bmwusa.com website and the iOS apps; and 2) the Security Question [which is initially a password, but allows you to change to typical “personal history” questions, adding further confusion] for remote Unlocking.
This may be an anomaly for our account, so others may not experience this behavior. But if this is common to all BMW Connected
users, it's more of a programming/web design oversight.