ICOM Compatibility

ICOM Compatibility

Our software set (or Tablet system) is not guaranteed to work with any third party ICOM like A2/ A3 or NEXT, it’s only certified to work with our PRO ICOM A,

BMW Group doesn't sell or build any ICOM(s), all other ICOMs like the NEXT version are third party build, you can check by yourself by searching for the part number they advertise #81312360883 on the official BMW Group parts.

Our PRO ICOM A is custom build hardware with custom firmware, optimized and build best to work perfectly with our ISTA software, BMW Group doesn’t build ICOMs, they require specifics details and third party companies build it for them.


Meaning, when you read ICOM A2, A3,.. NEXT, that’s all internet marketing terminology, unfortunately, most of them won’t work or stop working after a few weeks.


Our certified software set is not guaranteed to work with any third party ICOM like A2/ A3 or NEXT, it’s only guaranteed to work with our PRO  ICOM A, here is why:


The major differences are the cooling technique and firmware stability,


Our certified ICOM A uses heat sink + cooling FAN.


The ICOM A2 and others use a heatsink only.


The idea behind the ICOM A2 and later versions is to minimize the cooling FAN fail possibilities, so they made the heat sink bigger and Fan was removed, well guess what? the excessive heat from the larger heatsink in some versions caused the chip to fail, so it ends up as a design error besides chip component quality and higher price.


So, they added a cooling ‘gel’ underneath the chip (believe it or not) and that causes the LAN component to fail after a while.

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The firmware for the ICOM A2 and other non-certified versions is hit and miss, customers faced hard times to match it to the required ISTA firmware and upgrading the ICOM firmware bricked a lot of them which is a loss of time and money.


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