You are getting an enormous more help here than your Lexus dealer. If you don't have to travel long distance to dealer set up appt with the main tech and carry phone to him to activate. If no help there set up a service appt and tell them your system will not activate and it will be handled under warranty. It could also be now after several attempts and also setting up different account that all that has to be cleared from Lexus to proceed. Lexus created this problem let them fix it.

 

I understand the frustration, but the reality is that about 90+% of US cell phone owners have a smart phone, thus manufacturers across the spectrum design with that practical reality in mind. Is it worth it to them to adapt their systems and programming for a dwindling percent of users who may or may not even be in their marketing demographic- for instance, I would think that the percent of Lexus buyers with smart phones is even higher than 90%? Whether that’s good or bad is not an easy answer, but it's is a perhaps unfortunate aspect of our modern tech driven world. I don’t think the issue is going to reverse or go away though.

 

While I expect you will be able to find a work around and I hope you get to enjoy your new car, this is another example of a disturbing trend that has me pretty upset.
It seems that it is simply assumed that everyone will immediately embrace new technology the second it becomes available whether we want it or not. I am neither stupid nor poor, and resent being treated like a second class citizen because I happen to prefer some of the simpler older approaches such as a flip phone. It's smaller, lighter, cheaper and easier to use, and gosh I can still make and receive phone calls! Mine is in fact a "smart" version of the flip verity and can theoretically do a number of the more advanced things, but I have little use or desire to use most of them.
The real issue here is that as the assumption has been made, manufacturers have decided that they no longer need to make and sell a complete product. They can charge full price for half of a device and promote the "advantage" of it being linked to the phone that you obviously already have to control everything. Especially on an expensive purchase at a high end dealership, it is inexcusable that the folks that are tasked with getting people settled in their new cars are not familiar with these issues and ready with the solution. It seems customer service has been on a downward slide for a long while, and the decline was only hastened by the covid years. Here's hoping for further recovery!

 

Smartphone technology has been around for nearly 20 years.

 

Why does the car manufacturers still attempt to make navigation systems?
They have already lost it to Google and Apple years ago when they decided to offer Android Auto and Apple Car Play integration.
I have never used built-in car navigation systems. The one on my phone works great on each car I hop on.
And the experience from one vehicle to another is the same regardless of the make and model as long as the car supports Android Auto.
That means, I have a phone and the navigation in one device which is the smartphone. That means I don't need to carry my TomTom or Garmin GPS.
I still don't know why they force people to have smartphones to be able to finish the setup. Why can't you add your phone later?
It looks to me Lexus is trying to suck you into their subscriptions from day one.

 

The downside to using Waze, Google, Amigo, and other GPS sites is that you must use data on your phone. Not everyone has an unlimited data account and must use what they have - if they have it - carefully.

 

That's incorrect.
You can download an area of interest and use it offline.
https://support.google.com/maps/answ...form%3DAndroid
I can turn off my 4G/5G network, and Google maps still works...
Obviously, you won't get real time traffic data but it will get you where you need to go.

 

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the tip...

 

Correct....What I do for mine is download as much of an area in my state and then download another area adjacent. If going on trip do same for state and not just small area to be safe. I have been in an area where I had no cell data connection at night and ended up using an old nav software that had all of North America to get me back on track. Google makes it so easy now especially with offline maps.

 

That was true when the nav was an embedded version loaded on discs that never change until the next update, perhaps years later. But the new systems, like in our newer Lexus models, are using Google just like your phone does. For me, personally, I would rather look at a large screen and have turn directions displayed in the heads up, rather than try to look at my iPhone stuck on the dash or windshield.

 

The nav has greatly improved from prior systems and may use the google maps but does not use google services for live and still uses there Lexus subscribe servers and not as good as the phone. When I researched on the NX forum that got this first that is what they said.

 

Everybody seems to get this wrong. GPS doesn't use much data at all. I use Google Maps all the time, even when I know the route, because I like to know traffic and my time of arrival. I also track data usage because I only pay for 1Gb of data on my iPhone dedicated exclusively to the car. For example, over the last 30 days my data use was 0.16 Gb. In 3.5 years, I have never gone over 1 Gb per month and rarely go over 0.5 Gb per month.

 

Problem solved with a borrowed cell phone and the help of a very good technical tech who made it easy to do from home. thanks very much