BMW Australia have taken a leaf out of Tesla’s playbook, offering downloadable upgrades over the air for the first time in 2020 in a first for the luxury car segment.

Over the air upgrades allows drivers to receive updates or upgrades without having to leave their driveway by simply downloading them through the BMW ConnectedDrive store. Upgrades are expected to be installed and fully functional within minutes according to BMW Australia.

BMW’s over the air delivery of upgrades were officially made available back in October 2019 when a High Beam Assistant upgrade was released for the new BMW 1 Series, while the same upgrade package will be made available for the 2 Series Gran Coupe in quarter 1, 2020. The update costs $259 and can be installed in just five minutes.

The High Beam Assistant works by activates a light-seeking camera which monitors oncoming traffic up to 700m ahead. When a vehicle is detected, the automatically deployed high beam lights will be dimmed.

A dash cam upgrade (known as BMW Drive Recorder) is also available for select models which uses the vehicle’s onboard cameras to record video and sound for 40 second loops.

Drivers can tell the dashboard system to save a 40 second video segment from select cameras which can then be downloaded via USB drive. In the event of a crash the vehicle will automatically save the preceding and following 20 seconds of the collision.

Vehicles that will have access to the BMW Drive Recorder include the 3 Series, 7 Series and 8 Series models manufactured after July 2019 as well as the X5, X6 and X7 models built after August 2019.

All BMW owners wishing to take advantage of these over the air updates must have Parking Assistant Plus, which comes standard with all above model variants besides the BMW 320i.

Parking Assistant Plus can be purchased for a monthly subscription of $19, annually for $79 or permanently for $429.

BMW have announced that more downloadable upgrades are set to follow, however specifics remain scarce.

Original source: Caradvice | BMW Australia launches downloadable dashcam, auto high-beam

15 Jan 2020