What does my FFE use wifi for?

[triangles]

Fumbling thru the screens and menus on my new FFE I found a screen for setting up a wifi connection. What would the FFE need to connect to wifi for? Why would I set this up to connect to my home wifi?

 

[NightHawk]

Fumbling thru the screens and menus on my new FFE I found a screen for setting up a wifi connection. What would the FFE need to connect to wifi for? Why would I set this up to connect to my home wifi?

yeah I saw that too last month and tried to get my FFE to connect to my home wifi router to my cable interent.
It saw the wifi router but failed to connect, but I couldn't figure what it would use it for anyway?

 

[Kakkerlak]

The FFE uses an onboard cellular modem to communicate with Ford's MyFordMobile servers, so maybe the idea is to let the vehicle use a faster connection when it's sitting at home. Or maybe it's for future software upgrade purposes.

My experience is also that it doesn't connect; I tried a guest network that we use often for visitors and mobile devices at work, and it wouldn't connect.

 

[NightHawk]

My experience is also that it doesn't connect; I tried a guest network that we use often for visitors and mobile devices at work, and it wouldn't connect.

I'm thinking perhaps the software supports a wifi connection if the car's hardware supports it but maybe the FFE doesn't have the wifi hardware support for it to actually connect?

 

[WattsUp]

This has been covered at length previously in these forums.

To summarize: If you set up the wifi connection, all this does is enable the car to "re-broadcast" an external Internet connection within the car using the car's internal wifi network (yes, the car has its own wireless access point). This external Internet connection can be made over wifi (not very useful; see below) or Bluetooth (more useful) and, I believe, also USB (also useful). But, the car will not use wifi or the Internet for connecting to Ford. The car always uses its built-in cellular data modem for connecting to Ford.

"Well, that seems useless", you might say. For the most part, it is pretty useless... and almost nobody bothers to set up the wifi connection.

Making an external Internet connection via wifi is not useful because, as soon as you drive out of range of the external wifi signal, the car's internal wifi network will no longer have Internet access (although any devices on the car's local network will still be able "see" each other). On the other hand, making an external Internet connection via Bluetooth or USB using a phone (or other device) that is traveling with the car is potentially quite useful (although it still may not be worth the trouble; see below).

With an external Internet connection via Bluetooth or USB, the car can re-broadcast (via wifi) that external connection using its own wireless access point. In that scenario, passengers inside the car will be able to connect their devices to the Internet via wifi (that is, connect to car's local network) and all share the external Internet connection. However, since many phones (such as iPhone) already offer a built-in wifi hotspot feature that can perform the same task directly (without needing the car to act as an intermediary) most people will still not find the car's internal wifi network features all that useful. It will probably just be easier to activate the hotspot feature on the phone (or other device) when needed.

 

[jmueller065]

This may be a bit more instructive on the use of WiFi:
http://support.ford.com/sync-technology/bluetooth-tethering-sync-myford-touch

Note that My Ford Touch does run on windows. Originally there was plans to include a web browser (I think it was there in the first release) but that got quickly axed when all the problems started showing up.

 

[hybridbear]

This thread from the Fusion Hybrid Forum contains more discussion about it as well: http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/5858-wireless-mft-351-sync-and-now-362/

 

[Kakkerlak]

Thanks for those clarifications and further reading !

My assumptions about why there were both Client and Access Point modes were clearly wrong, and the icons for WiFi/WiFi and WiFi/Cellular on the configuration screen make more sense now.

 

[blackbeasst]

Now if someone could have the touchscreen to play DVD movies we'd all be set!

 

[WattsUp]

Now if someone could have the touchscreen to play DVD movies we'd all be set!

It can if you plug in a DVD player (or iPhone or other device) to the A/V inputs under the center armrest. You have to be stopped though. You can't watch video while you drive.