I would like to have a Wifi Hot Spot in my GX550. I know there are different options available (phone, dongle, or from the car itself), and I am leaning toward using the GX550 solution. Have others done this and how do you like it? I do lots of long road trips in this car and I am frequently in hard to reach spots and would like to know your experience with it.

One question I have: if I am in a remote location, would I be more likely to get a signal using the car's hotspot, or is it exactly the same as using my cell phone as a hotspot??

Thanks.

 

While I cannot answer your question completely, I can say that the GX 550 hotspot uses AT&T as a carrier, so it would be pretty much the same coverage as if you had an AT&T phone and used it.

 

According to Lexus, the car can either uses AT&T or Verizon for Internet services. Coverage would be the same as it uses the same carrier. I can only imagine two advantages to having a cellular connection for the car.

1) If you have kids or other passengers, this frees up your cell phone from having to hot spot. I hotspot often from my cell and this often causes the phone to get really hot and causes excess wear and tear on the battery. Not a real issue for me as I get a new phone every few years.
2) Theoretically the car may get better reception as it is capable of using a larger and more powerful cellular antenna. I have no way to prove this so this is all theoretical.

https://support.lexus.com/s/article/...0and%20carrier

Ideally Lexus should have set it up so that the GX can switch multicarrier on the fly as coverage changes but that would be more money and not worth it to the masses.