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My reaction to reading that this happened when the microphone was turned on was also a mental "well yeah, welcome to Bluetooth". I have literally shifted my ra

My reaction to reading that this happened when the microphone was turned on was also a mental "well yeah, welcome to Bluetooth". I have literally shifted my rating scale for crap technology completely to make room for Bluetooth to be far enough below everything else. The nice part is a monkey brain interprets that as everything getting better, so I am generally more content with software and tech in general. So, thanks Bluetooth?

TylerE 8y ago
Would it be possible for the device to essentially expose itself as two devices, one stereo audio sink and one mono audio source? I mean, yea, it's more of a pairing headache but it solves this whole class of problems without requiring cooperation from the other half of the system.
- loeg 8y ago
  Your SoC probably only has the one BT modem so gluing on a second one might be tricky. I doubt any BT modems do this natively, but I am not familiar with the market.
  - mcny 8y ago
    IIRC Bluetooth 5.0 allows connecting to multiple speakers at the same time, no? I imagine we will see implementations become more common within a year or two?
csours 8y ago
Guess what the number one car infotainment complaint is... I don't have a public source, but for some vehicles bluetooth problems are the number one complain OVERALL.
- pfranz 8y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised, but my frustration is a poor implementation or unintuitive implementation. Quite a few cars go into USB-mode as soon as you attach a phone--almost 100% of the time they just want to charge their phone and already have things set up via Bluetooth or the radio. iPhones won't let you play through the phone if you have an attached audio device. Some cars seem to be able to do album art and track progress via Bluetooth--most will do it via USB but not via Bluetooth, which confuses people. Few cars seem to have a play/pause button. My most recent car would crash the infotainment system when I tried to use Siri. The only way to reset things were to turn off the car--bummer for road trips. I get why car tech lags a few years in cars, but I'm constantly surprised by how terrible it is even in high price ranges. Since stereos are no longer swappable modules in the dash, the buttons have sprawled around the console. I was driving an in-law's Mercedes over Christmas and couldn't figure out how to turn on the stereo. When I did, I couldn't tell which buttons were for the stereo, climate control, or other, more core car functions.
  - marcoperaza 8y ago
    I have a 2017 Mini and I have all these problems. The audio clips and has other issues when played over USB, but not Bluetooth. So I have to choose between good audio and charging my phone. I’m about to buy a USB adapter that plugs into the cigarette lighter just to fix this problem. Just as you describe, the entertainment system UI is god awful too.
    - schrodinger 8y ago
      Wonder if you could get one of those "USB Condoms" to be able to charge without it connecting? http://syncstop.com/ http://syncstop.com/
      - marcoperaza 8y ago
        Thank you. Combined with some other advice in this thread, I’ve settled on this one: “PortaPow 3rd Gen Data Blocker” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QRRZ2QM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_X.LjCbZV8ZJ2C https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QRRZ2QM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_X.... In addition to blocking the data lines, it should also provide faster charge speed.
    - dexterdog 8y ago
      You're better off with a dongle anyway because they almost always charge faster than the car ports.
      - Rjevski 8y ago
        In most cases you can use the car port and just make a custom cable that bridges the two data pins together which tells the phone to use high current charging. The car’s port’s overcurrent protection will kick in if it’s an issue but I’ve got such a cable and so far I have yet to see any issues and I’ve used it for years with hundreds of different devices. No fire yet.
  - briandear 8y ago
    My Audi has two USB ports in the driver center console: one connects to the car, the other is charge only. It’s pretty great.
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  There's also the problem of wireless tech UX being difficult in general. For example, people want the experience of turning on their devices and auto-pairing with their other devices. But headphones, for example, don't have much of a UI to manage this. There's the hellish scenario of everyone in your car hearing the conversation you thought you were having on your back patio in private just because you walked too close to the car (happened to me). But it's not obvious how to prevent that while offering the seamless phone-to-car handoff that people may also expect.
  - shadowoflight 8y ago
    Couldn't NFC or some other proximity-sensing tech largely solve these issues? For instance, AirPods will offer to pair with a new iPhone when they're within some fairly short range (I think around 5ft, but I don't know the specific distance) - theoretically, car stereos (and a slew of other devices, for that matter) could use a similar approach, possibly combined with NFC for pairing-on-contact.
    - hombre_fatal 8y ago
      That may very well be a good approach, though another technology has been roped into the mix. And there's also the case where I indeed do want my headphones to pair with my iPhone that's 15m away in another room instead of the Macbook in front of me. And not my car that my girlfriend just started on the driveway 10m away. And I want to manage this from my headphones which only has two buttons and some multi-tap gestures. The trade-offs get complex. Also, your tether idea is still something implemented per device rather than something Bluetooth as a technology can solve with some simple tweak.
      - _asummers 8y ago
        In the presence of conflicts, the phone could prompt the user for audio source, then persist it in software until the next time they have a new conflict. It really seems to be an issue when you go from no streaming audio to streaming audio, from the UX perspective, so that should minimize the number of times that prompt appears. Could also solve it by the same way we solve SSID preferences: a static list of paired devices with priority orders and an accessible menu to select a specific one, and then persist that until you change your streaming state again.
- joecool1029 8y ago
  I had a 2012 VW Golf TDI. Before VW bought it back for making asthma great again, it had bluetooth issues. Out of the factory it would only play mono, the right channel specifically. VW issued a TSB for it and the radio firmware could be updated by the dealership but it was a 3 hour process. I did it, dealership went in thinking it was 1 hour billable and were pissed that I only agreed to pay 1 hour!
  - Nexxxeh 8y ago
    Wait, the dealership gets to charge you for fixing a bug in the stock firmware? Or are they billing VW?
    - joecool1029 8y ago
      They got to charge me because it's labor and I had the car over a year (trim warranty). They did not get to charge me when the DPF cracked a few thousand miles out of federal emissions warranty because dieselgate scandal already broke and I said "If you can program it to cheat, you can program it to fail"
- nradov 8y ago
  The problem has gone on for years now, to the extent that it has seriously impacted customer satisfaction ratings and JD Power New-Vehicle Initial Quality scores. You would think that the automakers and tier-1 suppliers would devote some serious engineering resources to working with the Bluetooth SIG and mobile device manufacturers in order to improve the situation. But it seems like they don't really care. I don't get it.
- loosetypes 8y ago
  I rented a car from National and drove cross country last week. I don’t know if it was for the reason you mention (to mitigate complaints?) or just to upsell it being bundled with the satellite radio/ gps package, but I was surprised to find that Bluetooth on the infotainment console of the 2018 Camry had been completely disabled. As in there, but all options grayed out. An aux connection worked, but I was more frustrated by the idea of disabling basic functionality than anything. Would they charge to use turn signals if they could?
  - rightbyte 8y ago
    Maybe National was tired of costumers calling them for support to fix the bluetooth link or wrecking the company ranking on review sites becouse bluetooth problems. I dislike bluetooth. It's so much problems. But atleast it has got better since it was introduced in the late 90s(?) when I first tried it with a Ericsson headset. It's the same UI-less problem as I experience with Chromecast. When the magic box doesnt magically work, you are stranded with no clue what to do other then reseting stuff in random order.

TylerE 8y ago

Would it be possible for the device to essentially expose itself as two devices, one stereo audio sink and one mono audio source? I mean, yea, it's more of a pairing headache but it solves this whole class of problems without requiring cooperation from the other half of the system.

loeg 8y ago
Your SoC probably only has the one BT modem so gluing on a second one might be tricky. I doubt any BT modems do this natively, but I am not familiar with the market.
- mcny 8y ago
  IIRC Bluetooth 5.0 allows connecting to multiple speakers at the same time, no? I imagine we will see implementations become more common within a year or two?

csours 8y ago

Guess what the number one car infotainment complaint is... I don't have a public source, but for some vehicles bluetooth problems are the number one complain OVERALL.

pfranz 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised, but my frustration is a poor implementation or unintuitive implementation. Quite a few cars go into USB-mode as soon as you attach a phone--almost 100% of the time they just want to charge their phone and already have things set up via Bluetooth or the radio. iPhones won't let you play through the phone if you have an attached audio device. Some cars seem to be able to do album art and track progress via Bluetooth--most will do it via USB but not via Bluetooth, which confuses people. Few cars seem to have a play/pause button. My most recent car would crash the infotainment system when I tried to use Siri. The only way to reset things were to turn off the car--bummer for road trips. I get why car tech lags a few years in cars, but I'm constantly surprised by how terrible it is even in high price ranges. Since stereos are no longer swappable modules in the dash, the buttons have sprawled around the console. I was driving an in-law's Mercedes over Christmas and couldn't figure out how to turn on the stereo. When I did, I couldn't tell which buttons were for the stereo, climate control, or other, more core car functions.
- marcoperaza 8y ago
  I have a 2017 Mini and I have all these problems. The audio clips and has other issues when played over USB, but not Bluetooth. So I have to choose between good audio and charging my phone. I’m about to buy a USB adapter that plugs into the cigarette lighter just to fix this problem. Just as you describe, the entertainment system UI is god awful too.
  - schrodinger 8y ago
    Wonder if you could get one of those "USB Condoms" to be able to charge without it connecting? http://syncstop.com/ http://syncstop.com/
    - marcoperaza 8y ago
      Thank you. Combined with some other advice in this thread, I’ve settled on this one: “PortaPow 3rd Gen Data Blocker” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QRRZ2QM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_X.LjCbZV8ZJ2C https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QRRZ2QM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_X.... In addition to blocking the data lines, it should also provide faster charge speed.
  - dexterdog 8y ago
    You're better off with a dongle anyway because they almost always charge faster than the car ports.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      In most cases you can use the car port and just make a custom cable that bridges the two data pins together which tells the phone to use high current charging. The car’s port’s overcurrent protection will kick in if it’s an issue but I’ve got such a cable and so far I have yet to see any issues and I’ve used it for years with hundreds of different devices. No fire yet.
- briandear 8y ago
  My Audi has two USB ports in the driver center console: one connects to the car, the other is charge only. It’s pretty great.
hombre_fatal 8y ago
There's also the problem of wireless tech UX being difficult in general. For example, people want the experience of turning on their devices and auto-pairing with their other devices. But headphones, for example, don't have much of a UI to manage this. There's the hellish scenario of everyone in your car hearing the conversation you thought you were having on your back patio in private just because you walked too close to the car (happened to me). But it's not obvious how to prevent that while offering the seamless phone-to-car handoff that people may also expect.
- shadowoflight 8y ago
  Couldn't NFC or some other proximity-sensing tech largely solve these issues? For instance, AirPods will offer to pair with a new iPhone when they're within some fairly short range (I think around 5ft, but I don't know the specific distance) - theoretically, car stereos (and a slew of other devices, for that matter) could use a similar approach, possibly combined with NFC for pairing-on-contact.
  - hombre_fatal 8y ago
    That may very well be a good approach, though another technology has been roped into the mix. And there's also the case where I indeed do want my headphones to pair with my iPhone that's 15m away in another room instead of the Macbook in front of me. And not my car that my girlfriend just started on the driveway 10m away. And I want to manage this from my headphones which only has two buttons and some multi-tap gestures. The trade-offs get complex. Also, your tether idea is still something implemented per device rather than something Bluetooth as a technology can solve with some simple tweak.
    - _asummers 8y ago
      In the presence of conflicts, the phone could prompt the user for audio source, then persist it in software until the next time they have a new conflict. It really seems to be an issue when you go from no streaming audio to streaming audio, from the UX perspective, so that should minimize the number of times that prompt appears. Could also solve it by the same way we solve SSID preferences: a static list of paired devices with priority orders and an accessible menu to select a specific one, and then persist that until you change your streaming state again.
joecool1029 8y ago
I had a 2012 VW Golf TDI. Before VW bought it back for making asthma great again, it had bluetooth issues. Out of the factory it would only play mono, the right channel specifically. VW issued a TSB for it and the radio firmware could be updated by the dealership but it was a 3 hour process. I did it, dealership went in thinking it was 1 hour billable and were pissed that I only agreed to pay 1 hour!
- Nexxxeh 8y ago
  Wait, the dealership gets to charge you for fixing a bug in the stock firmware? Or are they billing VW?
  - joecool1029 8y ago
    They got to charge me because it's labor and I had the car over a year (trim warranty). They did not get to charge me when the DPF cracked a few thousand miles out of federal emissions warranty because dieselgate scandal already broke and I said "If you can program it to cheat, you can program it to fail"
nradov 8y ago
The problem has gone on for years now, to the extent that it has seriously impacted customer satisfaction ratings and JD Power New-Vehicle Initial Quality scores. You would think that the automakers and tier-1 suppliers would devote some serious engineering resources to working with the Bluetooth SIG and mobile device manufacturers in order to improve the situation. But it seems like they don't really care. I don't get it.
loosetypes 8y ago
I rented a car from National and drove cross country last week. I don’t know if it was for the reason you mention (to mitigate complaints?) or just to upsell it being bundled with the satellite radio/ gps package, but I was surprised to find that Bluetooth on the infotainment console of the 2018 Camry had been completely disabled. As in there, but all options grayed out. An aux connection worked, but I was more frustrated by the idea of disabling basic functionality than anything. Would they charge to use turn signals if they could?
- rightbyte 8y ago
  Maybe National was tired of costumers calling them for support to fix the bluetooth link or wrecking the company ranking on review sites becouse bluetooth problems. I dislike bluetooth. It's so much problems. But atleast it has got better since it was introduced in the late 90s(?) when I first tried it with a Ericsson headset. It's the same UI-less problem as I experience with Chromecast. When the magic box doesnt magically work, you are stranded with no clue what to do other then reseting stuff in random order.