Want heated seats in your BMW? Subscribe and download the feature
The BMW ConnectedDrive Store gives you the option of equipping your vehicle with over-the-air subscription features
Want heated seats in your BMW? You can subscribe to this creature comfort and pay a R250 monthly fee during winter, and then deactivate it in summer.
In an increasingly digitised automotive age, heated front seats are among several over-the-air niceties BMW drivers can activate for a fee, much like subscribing to Netflix or Disney+, as long as their cars are preloaded with those features.
The BMW ConnectedDrive Store gives you the option of equipping your vehicle with digital services linked to the car’s vin number. It’s all done over the air, without the need to visit a dealer to install the software.
Some subscription features are payable monthly, others give you the option of paying an annual subscription, and some are one-off subscriptions for an unlimited period.
Other subscription features include steering-wheel heating (R160 a month), real-time traffic information (R900 a year), a high-beam assistant (R160 a month), and a drive recorder that can be used as a dash cam (R100 a month).
Driving Assistant Plus, which automatically maintains your desired speed, lane and distance to the vehicle in front, is available for R530 a month. Adaptive M suspension is a one-off feature that can be activated for R7,200.
One of the more unusual features is IconicSounds Sport, which plays a sporty engine sound through the speakers, available for a one-off cost of R2,650.
To begin, the user has to set up a ConnectedDrive account and complete an online registration process. They can activate services on their smartphones via the My BMW app.