Mercedes Pro Connect - What Do You Get?

[rprochnow]

After 4 months working with Mercedes Benz, our Pro Connect has finally been activated.

So now that we have it, what are we actually getting???

First, Pro Connect is clearly intended for commercial users - not for RVs. Much of the functionality doesn't provide any value for RVs, and the web and smartphone interfaces are more complicated because they aren't intended for consumers with a single Sprinter vehicle.

But... If you get it fully activated there is value...

For our 21VD, activation was started with instructions provided by our Winnebago dealer, Lichtsinn. They provided the instructions, we filled out the online form - and, if things had worked as expected, our Pro Connect would have activated. But that only gets you part of the way there...

Some of the functionality requires creating a Mercedes Pro commercial account, creating a personal company and then adding your RV as a vehicle in a "fleet of one". Since Winnebago doesn't currently provide any guidance on their website or in materials provided with your purchase, your best sources for assistance will be your local Sprinter dealer OR calling Mercedes Pro technical support (877-762-8267).

Then, log into the Mercedes Pro portal (mpp.mbvans.com) and (if not already activated), activate/purchase the following three Pro "products" - Efficient Fleet Management, Optimized Assistance and Software Updates. Optimized Assistance is free for 3 years; Ffficient Fleet Management is free for 1 year; Software Updates are free with no end-date. There are two additional Data Interfaces for Vans products - those products are intended for companies with fleet managements systems, and don't provide any value for RVs.

NOTE that while the EFM and OA products have subscriptions with end dates, according to Pro technical support, Mercedes does not yet have a price for their subscription renewals, so it's possible that you may be able to get some additional free periods on these subscriptions, at least until Mercedes decides to start charging for these services.

Once you have the products purchased/activated, then on the mpp.mbvans.com website, go to your vehicle's page and then for each of the subscribed products, go to those product administration pages and activate each of the individual features. You'll likely see a spinning circle indicating the feature is in the process of being activated. This could take 24 hours or longer, and may require running your Sprinter engine or at least having MBUX running long enough to complete the activation of those features.

So what do you get with these features?

Software Updates: This provides you automatic software updates for your vehicle, if you have automatic updates enabled in the MBUX settings in your vehicle. This provides updates for the software - not for the navigation maps.

Optimized Assistance: This provides most of the features advertised for the MBUX system: voice commands, mobile hot-spot with AT&T subscription, internet radio, live traffic, automatic map updates, accident/breakdown management, maintenance/repair maintenance, navigation search, car-to-X (warnings of upcoming hazards), available parking, gas station prices, weather, and multimedia search. SEE NOTE BELOW ON THE MAP UPDATES

Efficient Fleet Management: Most of the features in this product don't provide any value for RVs. But there are a few that can be useful - vehicle location, theft warning, sending destination to MBUX navigation app, and remote lock/unlock. These features require running the Mercedes Pro Connect app on your smartphone.

MAP UPDATES: These are provided automatically only for the region around your home - a large state or group of smaller states. The automatic updates are not provided for the entire United States, Canada or Mexico. However, if you click on the settings link for Online Map Update on the Optimized Assistance web page, that will take you to a web page where you can manually download all of the map updates to a USB device - and when you plug that into one of the MBUX ports under the cover at the top of the dash, the MBUX system will automatically load those updates into your MBUX navigation system.

It is unfortunate that Mercedes has not (yet) provided Mercedes Me for Sprinter-based RVs, because Mercedes Pro is more complicated to set up and use, than Mercedes Me.

But, if you haven't fully activated Mercedes Pro yet in your 2020/2021 View/Navion (or a Winnebago Sprinter Class B), even though it's takes some work to do it, you should benefit from getting Mercedes Pro Connect fully activated...

[fsantore]

Really nice post. It prompted me to look back into my registration processing, which was at the state of waiting the allotted 7 days for MB to email me that my application was added. My navigation of all this has been a bit meandering and error prone, but your write up was superb and got me through the additional web pages needed to specify a company and my fleet of 1. Adding a vehicle came next, but it seems to want a dealer to physically verify the van and registration. Having not done so, the web process does not let me enable the various features. So getting closer I think, and I hope the dealer on Monday will do this by phone since it would kill half a day to visit them. At my initial inspection, they said they enabled connect, but despite inspiring a fair degree of confidence, they don't really seem to know that much about connect. As you say, they are oriented more towards the Mercedes Me product.

[37NG]

Seems like these connect services are managed through 3rd parties in agreement with the manufacturers, which really don’t know the details on the consumer sales level. Not sure with MB, put I’ve has this with other vehicles - seems like one provider for the connect services with its subscription fee, and another for the WiFi hotspot with its own fees. In a recent car I owned the hotspot was through ATT, $20 month unlimited data, and the connect services were through Vodaphone

I have a View arriving in March and am trying to get a handle on all the options. Does the hotspot provide unlimited data for a set price, enough for streaming, or just general browsing? Seems like many are going the route of cell provider hot spot, cell/WiFi boosters, and connection to other devices from that....

[rprochnow]

Mercedes Pro Connect and Mercedes Me are handled by the same customer support team. I talked with a tier 1 team in the US, who then escalated to a tier 2 team in Germany. It felt like these were Mercedes staff - not 3rd party.

The AT&T plan we have for the MBUX hotspot is unlimited 4G data. We were able to get a discount by purchasing an entire year for $211, less than $20/month. One month is provided for free after purchase of the vehicle.

The Mercedes Pro Connect activation was challenging - and we weren't aware it required involvement by your Winnebago dealer - Lichtsinn missed providing us instructions before we left Iowa City for home - and when I asked about it the following week, they e-mailed the instructions.

So, I'd recommend this be on your checklist to get from the dealer when you're completing the purchase.

We also have a Winegard Connect 2.0 wifi booster and a WeBoost Drive Reach Extreme RV 4G/5G cell phone booster. While driving, we use the MBUX/AT&T hotspot, because it's easier. The Winegard Connect is on - and automatically connects to the MBUX hotspot.

When we park at an RV site, we'll first try the park's WiFi through our Winegard. If it has poor performance, then we'll have the Winegard use either our Galaxy S20 4G/5G or Galaxy S10 4G cell phone hotspots. Our Sprint plan (now through T-Mobile) provides us 100GB of data per month per phone.

We use the Winegard Connect for our local WiFi, providing basic firewall services - and through the Winegard, we'll select which of the networks it will use (MBUX, RV park, cell phone hotspot). Our other devices (tablets, computers, smart TV, video game console, ...) always connect to the Winegard - plus we have a local network so the devices can see each other.

This structure is working very well.

NOTE we have the Drive Reach Extreme RV - not the Drive X RV, which is what dealers will likely want to install. We had the Drive X RV installed initially by Lichtsinn. When I ran tests, I discovered it provided very little signal boosting unless the cell phone was right next to the tiny interior antenna. Plus the Drive X booster didn't support all of the 4G bands used by Sprint. After consulting with WeBoost, we upgraded to the Reach booster which provides more amplification plus adds 5G support - and we upgraded to a larger interior antenna, which we wall mounted inside one of the cabinets - and now get boosted 4G/5G signal throughout most of our View. Would not recommend purchasing the Drive X RV - for a few hundred $ more, the Reach Extreme works much better.