Sorry to bother what seems to be an easy question, but dealer is closed today.

I thought I got Verizon wifi for a trial period when I bought my 2019 ES350. I tried to connect from the car and computer and they both say my car is not eligible after I put in the IMEI # . I thought someone at the dealership told me that I got wifi when I bought the car.

 

Yes, I got it. It's 12 months or 4 GB, whichever comes first. After that, it's $20/month.

I thought I saw it under subscriptions on lexus.com, but when I look now it's not there.

I forget what hoops I had to jump through to set it up.

 

I think the dealership people will have to set it up for you via enform. Just ask your dealership about it. Took them 1 week for them to set it up for me but now its running well

 

Is there an advantage to using this as opposed to just using your phone as a hot spot? It seems like Increasing your data would be a lot less expensive!

 

The one year trial period is very misleading. My trial period ended in around one month.

 

You might have someone in the car with a laptop. I see it as a backup. You only get 4 GB for 12 months, so use it sparingly.

 

Yet another pointless feature. My current cell phone plan offers 20GB of hotspot access each month.

 

BTW the 2020's now use ATT rather than Verizon and the trial is now 3 months/4GB rather than the (unusable) 12 months.

Set up the WiFi on the cars screen (consider changing to your own password rather than the generated one)
Point of the built in is that the signal strength and bandwidth Might be better than your phone or my phone.

If you have 2 or 3 folks traveling in the car downloading movies or playing hi-def games across the internet your
Hotspot might be struggling. If you are traveling in remote areas and using Apple CarPlay Google Maps set to
Satellite view (very cool, Tesla like set up BTW) you might be experiencing dropouts. Hook the tethered phone
to the WiFi and keep the display running.