What settings apps do well
Apps like BimmerCode change settings inside single control units: lights, sounds, displays, comfort behaviour. That is real coding, it is genuinely useful, and for those changes an app on your phone is exactly the right size of tool.
Why option 1CR is a different kind of change
Remote engine start is not a setting, it is a factory option. Retrofitting it changes the vehicle order and recodes every control unit involved: the body controller, the instrument cluster, the stability control, the climate control, the headunit. On current software the car additionally expects signed material through the official channel.
A settings app cannot produce that, through no fault of its own. Which is why the forums tell the same story again and again: everything looks codeable, the indicators blink three times, the car clicks, and the engine never starts.
What works instead
The laptop route: E-Sys over an ENET cable, the changed vehicle order, every module coded by hand and the signed part sourced separately, where your software generation still allows it. Or a coding service that does that work for you.
Or Casto Flasher, built for exactly this class of retrofit: the free check reads your car first, the activation comes through the official channel, and the app writes every involved control unit itself while you stand next to the car.
Honestly: this is not a verdict on BimmerCode
We are not affiliated with the makers of BimmerCode, and this page is not here to talk their tool down: for settings coding it is a good one, and Casto Flasher cannot do its job either. One tool per kind of change.
And 1CR has requirements no tool can code around: petrol, the right software generation, the option supported in your exact build. The free check answers that for your car before you pay anything.
Questions
Does it work with Carly or Protool instead?
Those are capable tools for settings coding as well, but for 1CR the same wall applies: several control units against a changed vehicle order plus a signed activation. We know of no settings app that covers that.
My iDrive shows an error after the attempt. Now what?
That is the typical trace of a half-coded state. The free check reads what your car reports now, and an installation writes all involved control units to one consistent state. If the check says your car cannot take the option, it also costs you nothing.
The app that can actually write 1CR checks your car for free
About 5 minutes at the car, nothing changed, and you pay only after your own car has said yes.