First off I despise XM as a company so I don't care about XM Radio. but The doc on the 2018 Prime confuses me a bit. It seems there are several products delivered through either HD Radio or XM. Specifically Weather and real time traffic. With the Prime Advanced do I have a choice as to which to use? Am I tied to XM for those services? Thanks, J
As far as I know traffic is all HD radio. I despise XM too and don't have an account with them. I haven't ever seen any weather related stuff, so maybe that's XM?
I believe there is a feature to overlay Doppler Radar on the Nav screen. Again I wonder if this is a HD Radio or XM or either. Thanks, J
If I am understanding this correctly hd radio can be on regular radio stations like in my area radio station 89.9 isint hd but 100.3 is hd
The radio station decides whether to buy the equipment to broadcast in the HD digital format. One local station has the same programming on their analog 98.1 and digital 98.1 HD1. They have different programming on digital 98.1 HD2 and on digital 98.1 HD3. This is just one example. By the way, HD on a radio does not mean high definition or anything else except a specific digital service. The company that started it copyrighted "HD Radio©" for marketing purposes.
On the first generation PiP, at least in the earlier model years, the traffic info came over Sirius/XM data, and after the initial complimentary subscription expired, you had to set up your own XM data plan (which is a distinct service from the audio radio stations). As I understand it, later models years of the PiP changed to HD radio for traffic info. As mentioned, with the Prime you have the choice of using either HD Radio or Internet service via the Entune app on your smartphone to get traffic info. There is no charge for either of these options. FWIW, if you use the Safety Connect service on the Advanced, you are dealing with a subsidiary of Sirius/XM. This is just a matter of corporate ownership of the provider Toyota chose to use; Safety Connect uses a Verizon cell phone built into the Advanced, and has nothing in any way to do with satellite radio service.
