License Overview

BYD EV Pro has four tiers: Free, Ad-free, Web and App. The Car App checks your licence online and caches the result locally, so it keeps working through connectivity gaps.

The four tiers

	Free	Ad-free	Web	App
What it is	The Car App with no licence	Free, without the support message	Car App plus integrations and extra displays	Everything, including the phone app
Support message on the home screen	Shown	Hidden	Hidden	Hidden
Companion App	—	—	—	✓
Home Assistant	—	—	✓	✓
Telegram notifications	—	—	✓	✓

Tip

Free is not a crippled demo. The whole in-car experience — live dashboard, climate and access controls, battery detail, trips and charging history, voice control, automations, cameras and Sentry — needs no licence and works with no internet. Paid tiers add reach off the car and extra display surfaces.

Free

The Car App itself, indefinitely and offline. Some flows are reserved for paid tiers, but nothing expires and nothing stops working.

Ad-free

Paid once, valid forever. It does exactly one thing: the support message that the Car App shows on unlicensed cars stops appearing. Nothing else changes — Ad-free unlocks no feature at all, so it is not a cheaper alternative to Web or App.

It exists for owners who are happy on Free and simply do not want to be asked again.

Caution

A car holds one tier at a time. Ad-free is not added on top of a subscription. If a car on Ad-free later moves to Web or App, the support message stays hidden while that subscription is active — but if the subscription then lapses, the message comes back until the car is put back on Ad-free. Ask in the Telegram group and it will be restored.

Web

Adds the integrations and the extra display surfaces:

• Home Assistant sensors and device tracker
• Telegram notifications
• Cluster Mirror — the driver’s display on the centre screen
• Blind Spot — side camera on the instrument cluster
• Info Widget — floating data card over the head-unit screen
• Trip Meters dashboard tab
• Keep-alive connectivity options

Web is sold on its own for owners who want Home Assistant and Telegram without the phone app.

Caution

The Web tier does not include the Companion App, and therefore does not include the phone key either. If you want the phone app, you need the App tier.

App

Everything in Web, plus:

• The Companion App for Android and iOS
• Custom Dashboard — build your own gauge screen for the instrument cluster. In development, not available yet.

For the feature-by-feature breakdown, see Car App Features and Companion App Features.

Trial

New installations get a 14-day trial. Open the licence section in the Car App and use the trial activation option.

One trial per vehicle, identified by VIN. If no VIN is available, the limit applies per installation.

Caution

Older documentation mentioned a 31-day trial. The current trial is 14 days.

How licence checks work

The Car App verifies your licence with the cloud whenever it has internet, and caches the result. The cached verdict is signed, so it cannot be tampered with locally.

If the Car App cannot reach the cloud for more than 72 hours, licensed features stop working until it reconnects. The Free-tier features are unaffected — they never depend on a licence check.

Licence changes are pushed to the car, so an upgrade or renewal takes effect without you doing anything.

Companions per car

An App-tier licence allows two paired phones per car. A third phone is not granted access.

How to get a licence

Licences are issued manually — there is no in-app purchase or self-service checkout, and the Car App does not show a purchase flow.

To request a licence, renew one, buy Ad-free, or move between the Web and App tiers, ask in the BYD EV Pro Telegram group. That is also where to go for pricing and current tier details.

Reporting a licence problem

Report licence problems in the Telegram group too, and include your tier plus the details listed under Collecting information for support.

Check one thing first: a head unit offline for more than 72 hours locks licensed features by design, and simply reconnecting fixes it.