Getting Started 4 Choose Data

4. Choose which data to stream

BMW only streams the descriptors you tick under Data Selection in the portal, and it offers no API to set that selection — it is portal-only. Rather than hand-picking hundreds of technical fields, the integration builds the selection for you. There are two routes, and which one you see depends on how you got here:

• Guided setup (and later Configure → Choose streamed data) use a one-click Activate BMW data bookmarklet — the same activator described on the guided path. Pick your clusters, run the bookmarklet on the portal's stream-setup page, and Home Assistant turns the fields on for you. This route is additive (see Widening or narrowing later below).
• Manual first-time setup hands you a browser-console snippet for the portal's Data Selection page instead. Those steps are below.

Manual setup — the Data Selection snippet

This is the route the Manual setup path takes right after authorization.

1. Pick the clusters you want (Electric vehicle, Vehicle status, Tire data, …). The defaults are a sensible starting set; your choice is remembered and the picker re-opens pre-filled next time.

   

2. The next screen shows a browser-console snippet generated for exactly those clusters. Copy it.

3. In the BMW portal, open Data Selection (Datenauswahl ändern) and click Load more until every field is listed. Open the browser console (F12 → Console), paste the snippet, and press Enter. It ticks only the checkboxes belonging to your chosen clusters — leaving any other selections untouched — and logs how many it matched.

4. Save the selection in the portal, then press Submit in Home Assistant to finish. Repeat the portal step for each vehicle.

5. Trigger something in the MyBMW app (lock/unlock) to nudge the car into sending its first update.

Widening or narrowing later

Re-run this any time from Configure → Choose streamed data. Reconfiguring uses the one-click activator rather than the console snippet: pick your clusters, then run the Activate BMW data bookmarklet (the same one guided setup uses) on the portal's stream setup page — Home Assistant turns on the fields for you and continues automatically, no copy-paste. See guided setup for how the bookmarklet works.

Additive: re-running the activator adds the chosen clusters to your live stream; it never removes a field you already stream. To stop streaming a field, untick it under Data Selection in the portal (the console snippet above only ticks boxes — it does not untick them either).

Requesting per-descriptor streaming scopes instead of a portal selection is rejected by BMW — see stream-scope-investigation.md. The full field-per-cluster breakdown lives in telematics-fields.md.

Which clusters power which features

Some derived features need specific clusters in the stream:

• Extrapolated state-of-charge helpers need the Electric vehicle cluster — specifically vehicle.drivetrain.batteryManagement.header, vehicle.drivetrain.batteryManagement.maxEnergy, vehicle.powertrain.electric.battery.charging.power, and vehicle.drivetrain.electricEngine.charging.status.
• Charging history, cost and battery health need charging power from the Electric vehicle cluster.
• Charging Cost per 100 km additionally needs the odometer (Vehicle status cluster).
• Trips are reconstructed from live GPS in the stream.

Did it work?

If you enabled a cluster but no entities appeared, run the bavariandata.get_coverage_report service (or Configure) — it compares the descriptors your selected clusters should deliver against those that have actually arrived, and lists any missing ones. It answers "is it my selection, my car, or a bug?" and spends no API quota. See Services reference.

Done! Head to The dashboard card to build a dashboard.