What’s the little symbol

See attached photo, the little picture of a satellite indicates that the car is receiving a GPS satellite signal. GPS is used for the NAV system on Touring, but even base models use GPS for the Find My Car function in HondaLink, and maybe some other things.

The icons to the right of the satellite are coming from a connected smartphone, the one just to the right of the satellite shows how much battery charge your phone has. The Bluetooth icon indicates that your phone is connected via Bluetooth. The one to the right of that is showing your phones cell reception. The car also has its own cellphone connection which is used for HondaLink among other things, the reception for that is shown on the instrument panel for a few seconds after you shut off your car.

Moonmack said:

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense, and now that you say it the icon does look like a little satellite. Now I just need to wonder how I can get GPS signal in my garage, but my HondaLink app says it can’t connect

(I’m pretty sure that’s not a connection signal issue ...)

Click to expand...

The HondaLink app on your phone does not communicate directly with your car, instead it communicates with Honda's server using your phone's regular Internet data connection. Meanwhile Honda's server communicates to your car via the AT&T cellular network (not GPS). If Hondalink cannot connect to your car, this could mean that the Honda server cannot reach the car via the AT&T cellular network, but there are other potential causes.

To eliminate the first possibility, while your car is in the garage turn the car on, then turn it off again, on the instrument panel for a few seconds it will say TCU (referring to Honda Telematics) and it will show bars which indicate the car's current reception with the AT&T cellular network. If the bars are very low that could explain the reason why the Honda server cannot connect to your car. If however your car gets a strong cellular signal, then something else is causing the problem. Before offering possibilities it would help to know if the HondaLink app has ever worked, or if it worked for a while then stopped working, or if it works sometimes but not all the time, or if it works when your car is parked elsewhere just not in your garage, etc. And what HondaLink function are you trying to use when you get the unable to connect message.

Moonmack said:

Thanks for the suggestions. HondaLink didn’t work for warming the car again. It had all but one bar of signal strength as indicated when turning off the car. I’m trying to use the turn on climate option, I’m not trying to schedule the climate. I ended up starting the warming with my FOB.

It works sometimes from my phone, but not others. I can’t really figure out the difference as to why.

Click to expand...

Connection issues that are not caused by low cellular signal are usually a problem with the Honda server. I have been using HondaLink for a year and a half on practically a daily basis, either for climate or for charging, and very rarely does it not connect. When it doesn't I usually just have to wait thirty minutes or so then try again and now it works, which is why I think it's a problem on Honda's end because nothing else has changed during that time. Maybe their server gets overloaded sometimes, or it's down for maintenance briefly and I just happened to catch it at that time, I don't know.

However I'm in the U.S. and you already indicated that in Canada they use a different cellular network. Also maybe HondaLink in Canada has its own server and doesn't use the same server as the U.S.

It could however be a problem with your specific HondaLink account, because some people have called HondaLink support with connection issues and they were able to fix it, probably by resetting that person's account or something. However those were usually situations where it never connected. An intermittent problem like yours is harder to diagnose, and they will likely try and say the problem is on your end. What I recommend is keep a log for a couple of weeks. Try HondaLink at least once a day, log the time, what you were trying to do, where the car was at the time, and also the exact error message that appears when it doesn't work. And ideally log the number of TCU bars each time, although I realize that takes an extra effort but otherwise they will say your cellular signal might be stronger at times than others.

You should be able to show a pattern that in identical situations (car parked in the same place, TCU bars the same) it worked on Thursday at 11:00 am but not on Friday at 9:00 am. But then it worked on Friday at 3:00 pm. After you have a couple of weeks of data call HondaLink support with this information, being ready to provide data that contradicts their claims, like they say maybe your car was parked somewhere out of range when it didn't work, you can say no the car was in the exact same place at 9:00 am that it was at 3:00 pm. At 9:00 am I tried three times in a row and got the same error message each time. Then at 3:00 pm under identical conditions it worked the first time I tried. TCU showed four bars in each case.

Also Start Charge uses the same connection as Turn on Climate, so you should experience that when Turn on Climate doesn't work that Start Charge doesn't work either. For the two week trial you should try both each time, so that if they start telling you well climate doesn't always operate if your cabin is already partly warm, you can say but Start Charge didn't work either.

Again it's very important in your log the write down the exact messages that appear on the screen when something doesn't work, not just a paraphrase of the message.