Rivian 2025.26 Update Features: Complete Guide to Every Change (R1T and R1S)

Rivian 2025.26 update features deliver enhanced steering calibration in Sport and Off-Road modes, significant Gen 2 Driver Assistance perception upgrades, a smoother center display and Navigation, Alexa integration with YouTube, and key bug fixes including Apple Music login, Gear Guard video display, and trip efficiency readings. Gen 2 vehicles receive the most substantial improvements. Gen 1 gains steering refinements and a grille shutter noise fix.

Every release notes page covers what changed. None of them tell you which changes apply to your specific generation, why the DRM multi-touch fix matters if you stream video in your R1T or R1S, what the grille shutter noise actually was, or what the community is still waiting for.

This guide covers all of it, including a complete Gen 1 vs Gen 2 feature split table, the full rollout timeline, and a direct look at what 2025.26 did not fix. The full official release notes are a useful reference alongside this guide.

Rivian 2025.26 Update Features: Gen 1 vs Gen 2 Quick Reference

Before reading any further, confirm which changes apply to your vehicle. This table maps every feature in the Rivian 2025.26 update to the generation it covers. No other guide builds this reference.

Feature	Gen 1	Gen 2
Steering calibration upgrade (Sport mode)	Yes	Yes
Steering calibration upgrade (Off-Road modes)	Yes	Yes
Enhanced Perception driver assistance upgrade	No	Yes
Multi-lane vehicle detection improvement	No	Yes
Faster reaction to cut-ins and merges	No	Yes
Reduced lane disengagements	No	Yes
Center display app performance improvement	Yes	Yes
Navigation touch gesture improvement	Yes	Yes
DRM multi-touch display fix	Yes	Yes
Alexa now works with YouTube	Yes	Yes
Apple Music login fix	Yes	Yes
Gear Guard video and thumbnail fix	No	Yes
Cabin climate improvement (humid conditions)	No	Yes
On-demand battery conditioning availability increase	Yes	Yes
DC fast charging “range is too low” notification fix	Yes	Yes
Trip efficiency readings fix (Trips A and B)	No	Yes
Seat conditioning icon calibration fix	Yes	Yes
Vehicle restart option in Settings > Vehicle > Service	No	Yes
Active grille shutter noise reduction at wake	Yes	No

Gen 2 owners receive the majority of exclusive improvements in this update. Gen 1 owners see meaningful refinements to steering, infotainment quality, and several quality-of-life bug fixes that affect daily use. If you drive a Gen 1 R1T or R1S, the steering calibration and display fixes apply directly to your vehicle. If you drive a Gen 2 R1T or R1S, every feature in the table above applies.

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Steering Upgrades: Sport Mode and Off-Road Mode Improvements

The steering calibration changes in the Rivian 2025.26 software update apply to both generations and represent the most tactile improvement most owners notice within the first drive after installation.

Sport Mode Steering Changes

Rivian recalibrated steering in Sport mode to maximize tire feedback and cornering precision. Before 2025.26, Sport mode provided performance-oriented throttle response and suspension behavior, but owners in community forums consistently reported that the steering itself felt disconnected from what the tires were communicating during hard cornering. After 2025.26, the steering wheel transmits more road texture and grip information to the driver’s hands. The result is sharper cornering feedback without any change to power delivery or throttle mapping.

Off-Road Mode Steering Changes

Off-Road modes now reduce steering wheel kickback when driving over rocky terrain. Kickback happens when large suspension impacts travel back up into the steering column, causing the wheel to jerk unexpectedly in the driver’s hands. This is a common complaint on technical rock crawling routes and washboard gravel roads. The 2025.26 calibration adds enhanced steering effort and damping that helps the driver maintain controlled body rotation and smooth gravel drifting. Improved steering torque feedback on loose surfaces also now alerts the driver more clearly when wheel slip begins. All-Purpose, Snow, and Conserve drive modes received no changes in this update.

Tip: If you drive your R1T or R1S on rocky trails or gravel roads, the Off-Road steering improvements in 2025.26 directly address one of the most cited handling complaints in the R1 owner community. Sport mode drivers who push the vehicle through canyon roads or mountain passes will notice the sharper cornering feedback within the first few miles after the update installs.

Gen 2 Driver Assistance: Enhanced Perception Upgrades

The most significant improvements in the Rivian 2025.26 update exclusively target Gen 2 R1T and R1S vehicles. These changes upgrade the Enhanced Perception system that powers Universal Hands-Free, Highway Assist, and Adaptive Cruise Control.

Sensor Obstruction Improvements

Before 2025.26, the Gen 2 driver assistance system showed degraded performance when sensors faced obstruction from snow, mud, or direct sunlight. All three conditions occur frequently in real-world driving. Snow and mud physically coat sensor surfaces, and direct sunlight creates contrast issues that affect camera-based detection. Rather than simply disengaging when obstruction occurs, the updated system maintains more accurate object detection through these conditions.

Traffic Reaction and Multi-Lane Detection

The system now reacts faster to cut-ins, merges, and stopped traffic ahead. Vehicle detection expands across multiple lanes rather than tracking only the immediate lane ahead. Cross-traffic detection at highway merges and intersections improves directly with this update. Driver display visualizations now reflect the expanded multi-lane detection in real time, so drivers can see exactly what the vehicle tracks rather than guessing at system behavior. The number of unexpected disengagements on poorly marked roads also decreases with this update.

Tip: Owners who use Universal Hands-Free or Highway Assist on daily commutes with frequent highway merges will notice the most immediate benefit from these Gen 2 driver assistance improvements. The expanded multi-lane detection visualization makes system behavior significantly more predictable because the driver display shows what the vehicle sees across all tracked lanes simultaneously.

Infotainment, Navigation, and App Improvements

Both generations benefit from meaningful center display and software improvements in 2025.26. These changes address daily-use friction points that accumulated across previous software versions.

Navigation and Touchscreen Performance

App performance on the center display improved across the board, reducing stuttering and lag during multitasking between Navigation, media, and climate controls. Navigation specifically received stability improvements alongside better responsiveness to swipe gestures. A DRM-related multi-touch bug that accumulated significant community frustration is also fixed in this update. The center display previously stopped responding to multi-touch gestures after streaming DRM-protected content. This specific fix came after SnazzyLabs, a well-known Rivian content creator, reported and documented the issue directly.

Alexa and YouTube Integration

Alexa on Rivian now works with YouTube in 2025.26. Prior to this update, Alexa handled music search and playback through supported streaming apps but could not control YouTube playback. The update enables voice-controlled YouTube access through Alexa on the center display. Some users in the Rivian community forums confirmed that Alexa with YouTube worked for them weeks before the general rollout, suggesting an early access phase for Connect+ subscribers in the staged deployment.

Apple Music Fix

A login bug in Apple Music prevented certain users from signing back into the app after being automatically logged out. The 2025.26 update resolves the authentication failure and restores normal Apple Music login behavior for affected accounts.

Tip: The DRM multi-touch fix in 2025.26 is one of the most underreported quality-of-life improvements in this entire update. If you ever cast a DRM-protected video through your Rivian and then found that pinch-to-zoom and two-finger swipe gestures stopped responding on the center display entirely, this fix resolves exactly that behavior. The fix requires no user action after the update installs.

Battery, Charging, and Climate Improvements

On-Demand Battery Conditioning

The availability of on-demand battery conditioning when the vehicle battery is low increased in 2025.26. Previously, the system restricted conditioning access at lower state-of-charge levels, which created a frustrating situation for drivers planning a DC fast charging stop on a depleted battery. The update makes on-demand conditioning accessible at lower charge levels, giving drivers more control over battery preparation before arriving at a Rivian Adventure Network charger or third-party DC fast charger.

Additionally, a bug that caused the “range is too low” notification to appear repeatedly during on-demand battery conditioning for DC fast charging is fixed. This notification looped incorrectly and created confusion about whether the vehicle could actually proceed to charge. The fix stops the loop and allows the conditioning process to run without interference.

Trip Efficiency Readings (Gen 2)

A Gen 2-specific fix corrects inaccurate efficiency and energy consumption values for Trips A and B. Rivian’s trip tracking feature showed incorrect figures that made it difficult to accurately evaluate real-world efficiency across specific routes or driving styles. The fix restores accurate energy consumption data for both trip counters.

Cabin Climate in Humidity (Gen 2)

Gen 2 vehicles receive improved cabin climate behavior in humid conditions. This fix, originally surfaced by the RivianTrackr community, addresses situations where the climate control system responded suboptimally to high ambient humidity. The fix tunes climate behavior to maintain comfort more consistently in humid weather conditions.

Tip: If you track efficiency per route using the Rivian mobile app and noticed Trips A or B showing values that clearly did not match your actual driving, the inaccurate reading bug in versions before 2025.26 was likely the cause. The fix restores accurate trip data for Gen 2 owners without requiring any user-side action beyond installing the update.

Additional Fixes and Quality-of-Life Changes

Gear Guard Fix (Gen 2)

Gen 2 owners experienced an issue where Gear Guard thumbnails and videos failed to display properly on the Motion Cam and Incidents screens. The Gear Guard system captures video footage around the vehicle when parked. The fix in 2025.26 restores full video preview and playback in the Gear Guard interface, including proper thumbnail generation on the Motion Cam and Incidents screens.

Seat Conditioning Icon Fix (Both Generations)

A calibration issue caused the wrong seat conditioning icon to display on the center display regardless of the active seat conditioning mode. The fix ensures the icon displayed matches the actual seat conditioning setting in use, removing a persistent visual inconsistency that caused confusion about the current climate state.

Vehicle Restart Option (Gen 2)

Gen 2 vehicles gain a new option to restart the vehicle directly from Settings > Vehicle > Service. This adds a user-accessible soft restart pathway that previously did not exist as a standard menu option. Before this addition, some restart scenarios required contacting Rivian support or scheduling a service visit. The new option gives Gen 2 owners direct control over vehicle restart without external support involvement.

Grille Shutter Noise Reduction (Gen 1)

Gen 1 R1T and R1S vehicles gain a fix that reduces the audible noise from active grille shutters when the vehicle wakes from sleep. Active grille shutters manage airflow through the front fascia to optimize aerodynamic efficiency and thermal management at varying speeds. When the vehicle woke from sleep, the shutters opened and closed audibly as part of the wake sequence. The 2025.26 fix quiets that transition, reducing the sound that owners heard when approaching or sitting near the vehicle immediately after it woke.

How to Get the Rivian 2025.26 Update

Rivian delivers all software updates over-the-air (OTA). No dealership visit, service appointment, or manual file installation is required at any point.

How Rivian OTA Updates Work

Rivian pushes updates to connected vehicles in staged batches. The first batch goes to a small early testing group, and the rollout expands to the full fleet over days or weeks as the update validates successfully. The vehicle downloads the update when connected to Wi-Fi or the Rivian cellular connection. Installation typically runs while the vehicle is parked and not in active use.

Steps to check for and receive the 2025.26 update:

1. Park your vehicle and connect it to Wi-Fi for the fastest download speed.
2. Open the Rivian mobile app and navigate to the Vehicle section, then select Software Update.
3. If 2025.26 is available for your vehicle, the app displays a notification or you can initiate a manual update check.
4. Accept the update prompt on the center display or confirm through the Rivian mobile app.
5. The vehicle installs the update with a progress display on the center display. Do not start driving during installation.

Tip: Connect+ subscribers receive priority placement in Rivian’s staged rollout. If you have an active Connect+ subscription and have not received 2025.26, verify your subscription status under Account Settings in the Rivian mobile app. Connect+ priority typically delivers the update approximately two days ahead of the general fleet rollout.

Rollout Timeline for 2025.26

Milestone	Date
First noticed in early testing fleet	August 2025
Public release date	August 19, 2025
Sub-version 2025.26.01 released	August 2025
Connect+ priority rollout lead time	Approximately 2 days ahead of general fleet

What Rivian 2025.26 Did Not Fix (Community Requests Still Pending)

No other guide on this keyword addresses what owners wanted but did not receive in 2025.26. This section covers the three most frequently cited missing features in community forums and owner discussions following the update’s release.

Missing Feature	Owner Request	Status After 2025.26
Text message integration	Read and reply to SMS messages through the infotainment	Not addressed
Apple CarPlay	iPhone screen mirroring on the center display	Not addressed
Dual motor clunk fix	Eliminate mechanical noise during torque transitions on dual motor models	Not addressed

The absence of text messaging integration stands out particularly because every competitive vehicle in the R1T and R1S price range supports SMS display through Bluetooth. Community discussions following 2025.26 noted the issue first appeared as a “coming soon” feature at delivery in 2024 and remains unaddressed. The dual motor clunk is a mechanical noise some owners experience during torque transitions, most noticeable at low speeds.

Tip: Apple CarPlay has been among the most requested features since R1 deliveries began in 2021. As of 2025.26, it remains unimplemented in the Rivian infotainment system. Rivian’s native platform uses Alexa, Google Maps navigation, Spotify, and YouTube through its own interface rather than CarPlay or Android Auto. iPhone users who want voice messaging can use a Siri workaround: enabling Siri on the connected iPhone allows dictating and hearing messages through the Rivian audio system via Bluetooth without CarPlay.

Rivian 2025.26 in Context: Where It Fits in the Update Timeline

Understanding where 2025.26 sits in Rivian’s software cadence helps owners evaluate the pace and direction of development.

Update	Key Features	Release Period
2025.06 and earlier	Autonomy, navigation, and charging improvements	Early 2025
2025.26	Steering calibration, Gen 2 perception, infotainment fixes	August 2025
2025.46	Rivian Digital Key (UWB), audio improvements, Connect+	December 2025
2026.03	Launch mode, Unreal Engine 5.5, Apple Watch app, cold weather range	February 2026

The 2025.26 update represents a focused quality-of-life and performance refinement cycle rather than a major feature launch. The next major update, 2025.46, introduced the Rivian Digital Key through the native Wallet app on iPhone, Apple Watch, Google Pixel, and Samsung devices using UWB (Ultra Wide Band) technology for passive entry with significantly improved reliability.

The 2026.03 update followed with the most substantial interface upgrade in Rivian’s software history, moving the center display to Unreal Engine 5.5 and adding Launch mode with track stats for Performance Dual and Quad models, alongside an Apple Watch companion app for remote vehicle control.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the main features of the Rivian 2025.26 update?

The headline features are enhanced steering calibration in Sport and Off-Road modes for both generations, Enhanced Perception driver assistance upgrades exclusive to Gen 2, Alexa integration with YouTube, and a set of quality-of-life bug fixes covering Apple Music login, Gear Guard video display, and trip efficiency readings. Gen 2 owners receive significantly more improvements in this update than Gen 1 owners.

Does Rivian 2025.26 apply to Gen 1 vehicles?

Yes, Gen 1 R1T and R1S vehicles receive the steering calibration improvements, center display app performance improvements, Navigation touch gesture improvements, the DRM multi-touch fix, Alexa with YouTube, the Apple Music fix, on-demand battery conditioning improvements, the DC fast charging notification fix, the seat conditioning icon fix, and the active grille shutter noise reduction. Gen 1 vehicles do not receive the Gen 2-exclusive Enhanced Perception, Gear Guard, humidity climate, trip efficiency, or vehicle restart changes.

What did Rivian 2025.26 change about steering?

Rivian recalibrated steering in Sport mode to maximize tire feedback and cornering precision, giving drivers sharper communication from the wheel during hard cornering. Off-Road modes received reduced kickback over rocky terrain, improved damping during controlled gravel drifting, and better torque feedback when wheel slip occurs. All-Purpose, Snow, and Conserve modes were not changed.

What are the Gen 2 driver assistance improvements in 2025.26?

Gen 2 R1T and R1S vehicles receive Enhanced Perception upgrades that improve sensor performance when obstructed by snow, mud, or direct sunlight. The system reacts faster to cut-ins, merges, and stopped traffic, expands vehicle detection across multiple lanes, improves cross-traffic awareness, and reduces unexpected disengagements on poorly marked roads. These improvements apply to Universal Hands-Free, Highway Assist, and Adaptive Cruise Control.

Does Alexa work with YouTube after Rivian 2025.26?

Yes. Alexa on Rivian gained YouTube integration in 2025.26, enabling voice-controlled YouTube playback through the center display. Prior to this update, Alexa could search and play music through supported apps but had no YouTube control. Some community users reported that Alexa with YouTube worked for them before the official general rollout, consistent with Rivian’s staged Connect+ priority deployment.

Did Rivian 2025.26 fix the Apple Music login issue?

Yes. The 2025.26 update resolves the Apple Music authentication bug that prevented certain users from signing back into the app after being automatically logged out. The fix restores normal login behavior without requiring any manual steps beyond installing the update. If Apple Music login still fails after receiving 2025.26, verify your Apple ID credentials and attempt a fresh login.

How do I get the Rivian 2025.26 update?

Rivian delivers 2025.26 over-the-air to connected R1T and R1S vehicles. Park the vehicle on Wi-Fi, open the Rivian mobile app, and check for a software update notification under the Vehicle section. Accept the update through the app or center display and allow installation to complete while parked. No dealership visit is required.

What is Connect+, and does it affect my update rollout?

Connect+ is Rivian’s premium connected services subscription. Subscribers receive priority placement in Rivian’s staged OTA rollout, typically receiving new updates approximately two days before the general fleet. To check your Connect+ status, open the Rivian mobile app and review your subscription under Account Settings.

What was not fixed in Rivian 2025.26?

The three most frequently requested community fixes that did not appear in 2025.26 are text message integration through the infotainment system, Apple CarPlay support, and a fix for the dual motor clunk that some owners experience during torque transitions at low speeds. All three remain pending as of this writing.

What update came after Rivian 2025.26?

The next major update was 2025.46, released in December 2025. It introduced the Rivian Digital Key using UWB technology for passive entry through iPhone, Apple Watch, Google Pixel, and Samsung native Wallet apps, along with audio improvements and expanded Connect+ features. The following update, 2026.03 in February 2026, added Launch mode, Unreal Engine 5.5 for the center display interface, an Apple Watch companion app, and cold-weather range improvement tools.