Spying on you?

[blueroadster]

Antennas are internal to the TCU. Two transceivers ((1) WLAN (802.11b/802.11g/n) and (2) WWAN (WCDMA/LTE)) and one receiver (GNSS/GPS)

 

[blueroadster]

Link to the 41 page Radio Test Report:

https://device.report/m/9fc03927b2253611366bc65c1944181193e3be6a2ccef8ae2a475541ecb4771a.pdf

Here is an excerpt for the radio specification:

 

[blueroadster]

Regarding data brokers, most auto manufacturers do not share all of the third-parties that they sell your data to. Usage Based Insurance (UBI) is a thing where insurance companies pay data brokers around 25 cents per feed for vehicle data.

Honda partnered with Verisk in December 2017: https://www.verisk.com/company/newsroom/honda-joins-the-verisk-data-exchange/

Honda participation with Verisk got enhanced in August 2020 for UBI: https://www.verisk.com/company/news...unities-for-usage-based-insurance-innovation/

Next Generation DrivingDNA Score was added in June 2021: https://www.verisk.com/company/news...-to-support-usage-based-insurance-innovation/

In April 2024, Verisk claims to no longer be receiving driving behavior data: https://fcra.verisk.com/#/

The above is just one data broker. Honda and other manufacturers still sell feeds to LexisNexis. Other data brokers where there may be a relationship include Acxiom, Epsilon, and Datalogix.

Article posted today from Consumer Reports regarding collection of driver data: https://www.consumerreports.org/ele...-collecting-sharing-driving-data-a1233378612/

 

[blueroadster]

Plenty of reading and even more if one cares to dig into the Kyocera AL-T52V1-1 telematics module.

Once the weather warms up, I'm going to see if I can remove the TCU from the car to yank out the transceiver antennas.

 

[svvitch]

 

[Sporky McGeuschky]

Sooo....
Where's the shop to get that wrap installed?

 

[jtlctr]

Plenty of reading and even more if one cares to dig into the Kyocera AL-T52V1-1 telematics module.

Once the weather warms up, I'm going to see if I can remove the TCU from the car to yank out the transceiver antennas.

I had the TCU out last Spring to deal with it buzzing during a certain RPM window. It’s right under the center dash speaker and very easy to remove. I’ll be following this thread to see what you do with that little rat.

 

[jtlctr]

Sooo....
Where's the shop to get that wrap installed?

I’ll hook you up with my man, Fox Mulder. He’ll point you in the right direction.

 

[blueroadster]

Starting to make more sense...The #10 Antenna Assembly, GNSS (8B550-T20-A11) that I mentioned in post #46 is a receiver (to be expected) and has a physical connection to the audio unit in this diagram:

I recall reading somewhere that the FL5 uses two GPS/GNSS antennas. One being narrow and the other being more precise. With that said, the audio unit appears to receive the GPS/GNSS external antenna connection as a precise input whereas the TCU contains a redundant internal one where the TCU shares a two-way communications channel with the audio unit. That seems to corelate to the description of HondaLink:

It seems like TCU is functioning as a branch off of the CAN bus to simply provide external communications rather than being more integrated as part of a trunk communicating with other modules on the CAN bus. As a start, I plan to just unplug the TCU and see what happens (thanks to @jtlctr for the tip regarding the TCU location). I do not presume much functionality will be lost since the audio unit has its own dedicated GPS/GNSS antenna but it will however register DTCs in the audio unit for not being able to communicate.

 

[Superhatch]

Yeah I'm curious about what the software integration is like between the headunit and TCU. For those of us using CarPlay or Android Auto I'd assume there isn't any big loss in unplugging the antennas as our phones are doing the navigating for us anyway.

 

[citrus]

I had the TCU out last Spring to deal with it buzzing during a certain RPM window. It’s right under the center dash speaker and very easy to remove. I’ll be following this thread to see what you do with that little rat.

Do you have a post or photos detailing how you removed the TCU? I'm super new to the car.

 

[jtlctr]

Do you have a post or photos detailing how you removed the TCU? I'm super new to the car.

I don’t, but it’s very easy. You’ll need some interior trim removal tools to pry up the center dash speaker behind the infotainment screen. Once that is out of the way, the TCU will be right there under the dash. The bracket is fastened with 2 screws with 8mm heads. Remove the screws and disconnect the wiring and it can be removed!
Do you have a rattle/buzz, or are you looking to deal with Big Brother?

 

[citrus]

I don’t, but it’s very easy. You’ll need some interior trim removal tools to pry up the center dash speaker behind the infotainment screen. Once that is out of the way, the TCU will be right there under the dash. The bracket is fastened with 2 screws with 8mm heads. Remove the screws and disconnect the wiring and it can be removed!
Do you have a rattle/buzz, or are you looking to deal with Big Brother?

Both! ? Thank you for the information! Everything in the infotainment and CarPlay/AA still work normally without the TCU connected?

 

[jtlctr]

Both! ? Thank you for the information! Everything in the infotainment and CarPlay/AA still work normally without the TCU connected?

I never tried anything with the TCU disconnected because I was just dealing with the buzzing at the time. I ended up putting some foam strips in between the TCU and it’s mounting bracket to keep a little tension between them.

 

[blueroadster]

Yeah I'm curious about what the software integration is like between the headunit and TCU. For those of us using CarPlay or Android Auto I'd assume there isn't any big loss in unplugging the antennas as our phones are doing the navigating for us anyway.

Given the configuration, it appears minimal between the audio unit and TCU. With the audio unit being the diagnostic trunk, the TCU looks like a branch simply providing cellular communications to the cloud/mothership. Physically disconnecting the TCU would sever that connection.

The audio unit (i.e., brain) should still function as expected as it has it's own dedicated GPS/GNSS antenna. It will however register a DTC in the diagnostics screen showing an error trying to communicate with the TCU.

With the TCU (cellular) connection disconnected, vehicle data would no longer be sent directly to Honda for reselling. If you connect your phone via CarPlay or AA, the vehicle will use that connection if you have HondaLink as a redundant communications backup. If you don't have the HondaLink app on your phone then you are pretty much sharing collected communications directly to Apple and Google. Regardless of communication paths, the audio unit is configured to store the vehicle's VIN.

Best option would be to physically disconnect the TCU and do not connect your smart phone to the vehicle at all (Bluetooth, WiFi, or USB connection). Apple and Google would still collect all of your smart phone data but would not be able to see the vehicle to harvest even more data points.

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