Fuel Burning Heater - Volvo on Call App

[Paulj1]

Looking at the Volvo on Call app i'm confused.

I believe the T8 comes with a fuel burning preheater in the UK, if so can you program this from the app ?

Also, the remote start option, which can be used in USA, i dont believe you can do this in the UK, is this so ?

Climate control, what can you do with this in the UK ?

[Deman77]

On D5. Starting preconditioning from the app (click on parking climate section on the main page and then hit start button) will start the heater if it's cold or just blow outside air if it's hot. You can set up schedules or one off future pre-heat too from that screen (they are beamed over and stored in the car). Other than instant start you tell it when you need the car to be ready for (it fires up about 30min before which I find a bit extreme - interior gets very warm after 15min in near zero, but I imagine it pre warms the engine a lot more).
As it uses battery they do not recommend to run it for long before very short trips. I once had the car refuse to start it when I burnt it for 30min then went 5min to station then tried to fire it up again after 6 hours. It said battery charge was too low to run the heater. I've been careful to follow the preheat no longer than trip rule and never had car refuse to start it again. I'd hope it would use the large battery in T8 so you won't have the problem (then again it might not as main purpose is to put main battery into ideal operating temperature). You can also set it up in settings to get the car to use it as heater booster (default is not) - that means hot air in the car is almost instant even if you didn't preheat.
One thing to remember with one off remote pre-heat is that it will carry on running it for about 30min unless you switch it off from the app or climate control tab even if you finished your trip and switched off the car. So if you put it on say as you start chasing kids to leave or putting your shoes on and it ran for about 5-10min before you left and you then drive for 10min and turn off the car - you will need to manually switched it off or it will keep on running. The thing is very quiet (just a fan hum) and other than some exhaust smell you can barely tell it's on (never seen any black smoke they talk about in the manual) - the icon on the dash flashes up for about a second as you switch off the car. You can put an ear near front right wheel arch to check it's not running, but once you know how it behaves you will know.
It's a great bit of kit to have - even in south east with our pretend winters (engine is noticeably smoother in the cold) but it's definitely an afterthought and could be made a little cleverer.