Finally Here! The Ford Trail App for Bronco

Thanks Laura! I have it downloaded and look forward to using it out on the trails.

Darrel

This app is amazing! More trails than I 1st thought! Just found one of my most favorite! Sorry, a little overly excited.

Yup, there are more trails around me than I thought they would have. The one that's missing, however, is Miller Jeep Trail which surprises me since they did the Alamo Loop.

RagnarKon

Okay that's what I figured.

As far as I know the Bronco's APIM doesn't have a dedicated encoder, so it would have been super impressive to get uncompressed video to your phone.

Well... I'm feeling real good about my Mid package purchase now. That would have been the one feature that would have made me regret not getting the High package.

Yeah, I find that frustrating. And what's wrong with uncompressed video? Aren't they sending that to the screen in the Bronco anyway? So why not to the app? Although wireless CarPlay might not have the bandwidth to keep up. But then the iPhone 15 is supposedly going to have a USB-C 40Gb/sec port on it!

TechnicalDisaster

My TPMS sensors are real time. I use dashboard sensors information to air up and air down all the time.

So that's what I was wondering. What's the difference between the display on my dashboard and the app? Like @TechnicalDisaster said, I use my dashboard air pressure display to air up/down all the time. One thing I noticed is that there's an "offroad" vs on road tire pressure display in the app. What I would LIKE is to be able to adjust the level where it alerts me to low tire pressure on vs off road.

Down Loaded it but I cannot login to use it. I keep getting errors that my login is wrong I have reset the password a few times and still nothing. do I need to be near the Bronco or something. LOL

Jakob1972

Down Loaded it but I cannot login to use it. I keep getting errors that my login is wrong I have reset the password a few times and still nothing. do I need to be near the Bronco or something. LOL

I was about 30' from my Bronco when I downloaded and signed onto the app. I did select "sign on with Fordpass".

JoergH

So that's what I was wondering. What's the difference between the display on my dashboard and the app? Like @TechnicalDisaster said, I use my dashboard air pressure display to air up/down all the time. One thing I noticed is that there's an "offroad" vs on road tire pressure display in the app. What I would LIKE is to be able to adjust the level where it alerts me to low tire pressure on vs off road.

Just played with it on my lunch run, for offroad you set the target you want and can watch it as you deflate, didn't have time to actually do it, on road mine seem locked at 39 target

Darrel

I was about 30' from my Bronco when I downloaded and signed onto the app. I did select "sign on with Fordpass".

I am about 30 miles from My Bronco but I tried it again one last time and viola it worked. now the realtime tire pressure needs to be close to the vehicle to work but it is working.
seems sad the only Texas trails it has is 3 trails in Hidden Falls. is this going to be a crowd sourced type of app. Like a trail WIKI we are going to Merus Adventure Park this weekend and would be nice to add those trails to the app.

Michael Grasso

From what it asked on my screen it uses your phone's camera not the vehicle...

Can confirm, Just used it on my lunch run. Uses phone camera video, the overlay isn't available real time, but as soon as you're done recording it's there and you can rewatch your recording on the Bronco's screen, with the overlay, as long as you are going under 5 MPH. Pretty impressive actually.

JoergH

Yeah, I find that frustrating. And what's wrong with uncompressed video? Aren't they sending that to the screen in the Bronco anyway? So why not to the app? Although wireless CarPlay might not have the bandwidth to keep up. But then the iPhone 15 is supposedly going to have a USB-C 40Gb/sec port on it!

I just looked at the developer documentation for the iPhone and it seems Apple doesn't expose any APIs to allow you to send video to your iPhone. It lets you capture the iPhone's front camera or rear camera but that's it.

The GoPro app gets around this shortcoming by encoding the video on the GoPro itself and sending it over Wifi like you would with any streaming video (YouTube, Twitch, etc.). The Bronco is obviously capable of creating a Wifi network so I had assumed that's how they would handle recording the front camera as well... but if there is no encoder in the Bronco then that makes things very difficult.

EDIT— BUT... the new 2024 Mustang supposedly does real-time graphics rendering. And if it can do that then it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to include an encoder. We're quickly getting to the point where infotainment systems in vehicles are basically smartphones.

I can see it now... New feature with the 7th gen Bronco—Trail Recording!

RagnarKon

I just looked at the developer documentation for the iPhone and it seems Apple doesn't expose any APIs to allow you to send video to your iPhone. It lets you capture the iPhone's front camera or rear camera but that's it.

The GoPro app gets around this shortcoming by encoding the video on the GoPro itself and sending it over Wifi like you would with any streaming video (YouTube, Twitch, etc.). The Bronco is obviously capable of creating a Wifi network so I had assumed that's how they would handle recording the front camera as well... but if there is no encoder in the Bronco then that makes things very difficult.

EDIT— BUT... the new 2024 Mustang supposedly does real-time graphics rendering. And if it can do that then it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to include an encoder. We're quickly getting to the point where infotainment systems in vehicles are basically smartphones.

I can see it now... New feature with the 7th gen Bronco—Trail Recording!

Good point! I heard a rumor that Ford is looking to move away from Sync anyway. The leading candidate seems to be Google/Android.

Jakob1972

I am about 30 miles from My Bronco but I tried it again one last time and viola it worked. now the realtime tire pressure needs to be close to the vehicle to work but it is working.
seems sad the only Texas trails it has is 3 trails in Hidden Falls. is this going to be a crowd sourced type of app. Like a trail WIKI we are going to Merus Adventure Park this weekend and would be nice to add those trails to the app.

There isn't very much in TX. And none in S NM. Hopefully we can add to "My Maps" at least. But, trail WIKI would be nice. I'm very untechy. Maybe I'm not seeing everything on it yet.

From the developer: If the app crashes on you when recording, power off your phone, restart it, open the app, and leave it running.

If you force close the app, it will crash again when recording, and you'll need to do the power-off on cycle.

Well, the first attempt at using the app in the Bronco was kind of a mess. App wouldn’t open. Then app wouldn’t appear in Sync. Restarted my phone and now I’m signed out of the app. Signed into app again and my settings were erased (and my profile pic was deleted). Got the app to work and recorded my first video. Told the app to save my video, and it went…. Nowhere? Tried again and got the same result. Not sure where to find my recordings.

App seem to disable most features above 10mph. It really is a trail app and not meant to replace navigation on the pavement.

Hopefully the bugs will be ironed out in a release or two.

Anyone know how to stay logged in?? Every time I close it I have to reenter login, kinda sucks to do each time

TechnicalDisaster

Well, the first attempt at using the app in the Bronco was kind of a mess. App wouldn’t open. Then app wouldn’t appear in Sync. Restarted my phone and now I’m signed out of the app. Signed into app again and my settings were erased (and my profile pic was deleted). Got the app to work and recorded my first video. Told the app to save my video, and it went…. Nowhere? Tried again and got the same result. Not sure where to find my recordings.

App seem to disable most features above 10mph. It really is a trail app and not meant to replace navigation on the pavement.

Hopefully the bugs will be ironed out in a release or two.

If you are using android the videos will show in your gallery

ne2000

If you are using android the videos will show in your gallery

IOS. And the videos don’t show up in the Photos app.

Can I get an “Amen?!” 🔥🔥🔥

ResidualGenius

Anyone know how to stay logged in?? Every time I close it I have to reenter login, kinda sucks to do each time

I just closed mine and reopened and I was logged in. I'm android,, if it could make a difference. I wish I had a suggestion for you.

Soooo... I'm going to be blunt.

I was expecting this "Fordpass Performance" "Bronco Trail App" to be built in to the vehicle software and not be as heavily dependent on the phone.

My phone gets hot enough running android auto and Spotify and it doesn't help I also live in the desert.

My first impressions.
- App downloaded and connected to my account like a charm.
- Took a few minutes to figure out how to link the app to the Bronco via having to press too many buttons. On vehicle screen - Apps, Trail Apps then Android Auto then Trail apps logo on left. Confusing AF.
- Couldn't figure out how to full screen
-UI between Trail Apps and the other side of the screen is not intuitive when trying to select something specific like not having maps up while having Trail maps up.
- Wasn't able to pick direction the map faces while driving like map facing north or directional.
-App crash
-App disconnected
-2 phone reboots
- I figure you could have more features up on the screen without being on a Trail. It would be cool if the telemetry data as well and tires and all the other on screen features could be used on their own as well. Like Jeeps offroad pages.
I'm trying to remain optimistic but I don't see where 3 years of development has gone other than 1200 or so trails. Having to use your phone for anything other than the video recording is a big L in my book. I will go test out a Trail this weekend to see how it goes but this App so far feels like something some interns made on their spare time.