6 ms·

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 O

by 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.
  - pfranz 8y ago
    I had hoped that was the case in the car I was borrowing, but all of them were data connectors (not sure what happens if you attached multiple devices).
- cptskippy 8y ago
  > I'm constantly surprised by how terrible it is even in high price ranges. Car makers don't really care. They want features on a list to check off and don't care how well they work. You can't return. The car easily after a month of frustration and realization that the car is the problem not you or your phone trying to interface with them.
  - pfranz 8y ago
    That's odd because you know they spend a lot of time/money on interiors. I remember a 2001 German car I owned had terrible cupholders that broke easily(I noticed that is a lower priority for foreign cars). The next model year changed to a more sturdy design. But on the flip side, I've greatly preferred the tactile buttons on the low-end over the touch screens and menus on the high-end. I'm confident most people care a lot about the infotainment systems. Even 10 years ago, the Millennials cared about getting their iPods to work. I had modded so many friend's cars or upgraded their head units. Their parents, boomers, just assume it's too complicated (which it is) for audio and navigation. I feel like after literally a decade they've all just given up on everything except basic Bluetooth audio (when it works out of the box). I've ended up renting, borrowing, and test-driving (and buying) a surprising number of cars over the past 5 years and it's pretty uniformly terrible. I remember being sheepish a couple years ago when the most important thing in a new car was phone compatibility. I would have happily preached and bought something that just worked well.
    - cptskippy 8y ago
      > I remember a 2001 German car I owned had terrible cupholders that broke easily(I noticed that is a lower priority for foreign cars). The next model year changed to a more sturdy design. Volkswagen Jetta?
      - pfranz 8y ago
        Yep! A plastic coke bottle was just big enough to fit. When the bottle warmed and expanded, it was slightly too big and would break the flimsy cup holder. After replacing it once and having it break twice I gave up. I remember later seeing a different model year (I'm pretty sure with the same body style) where they had replaced it with a more normal cup holder. I would also have the mirror adjustment knob on the door snag on my clothes and snap off.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  You can cut the data lines in a cable and it should solve some of the issues with unwanted behaviour. The album art and track progress I don't really care about (eyes on the road!) but via Bluetooth that's AVRCP and there's a stack of standards for people to butcher there, too.
  - ebrewste 8y ago
    I was wiring in a charge only USB port in my car today and found out that cutting the data lines limits the charge rate to a uselessly low rate. You need to tie the data lines together to put it in usb bc1.2 mode. Or 2.7 v on each line for 2.4 a iPhone charge or other modes. It isn’t simple. Simpler than Bluetooth, but not “hook up ground and 5v” simple.
    - voltagex_ 8y ago
      Jeebus. Might be easier to wire in a 12V compatible USB charger in that case.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      iOS devices will outright not charge if there’s just 5V on the port. Even the lowest charging current requires some sort of resistor arrangement. Fortunately it seems like bridging the two data lines (essentially a 0 ohm resistor) is what’s needed to allow high-current charging (I think it’s 2 amps), so as long as your supply can withstand it (which pretty much every single device can, given that it’s tied to its own 5V rail which can supply many amps) you can just bridge the two pins together. Worst case scenario the overcurrent protection on the port will protect the source device.
    - robk 8y ago
      There's a fast charge dongle for this. Portapow makes one.
      - robocat 8y ago
        Looks like there is a StarTech one too with a button to change modes - search for USB2CHADP (although currently out of stock at Amazon).
- puzzle 8y ago
  A few weeks ago, I asked for a compact rental car, but was given a 2018 or 2019 Chevrolet Equinox. It had an USB-A as well as an USB-C port. I already had Android Auto on my Pixel, so I was up and running in a few instants. I did NOT miss setting up Bluetooth or Ford's Sync thingie. Maybe there's hope at the end of the tunnel.
  - pfranz 8y ago
    Often in cars (especially when traveling and there's no dock) I get a poor wired connection. I suspect it's just lint caught in the connector, but it makes wired CarPlay or USB audio very frustrating because if anyone bumps the wire the connection stops and you have to wait for the handshake to continue. It's much less of an issue with charging.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    My Ford has Android Auto and CarPlay. And it never messes up Bluetooth if I don’t plug in ‍️. My WRX is kind of a hot mess. Plugging in never worked. It does fine with Bluetooth, usually, but when it gets confused it really shits the bed. Does not have AA or CarPlay. Is a newer car.
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.

by 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.
- pfranz 8y ago
  I had hoped that was the case in the car I was borrowing, but all of them were data connectors (not sure what happens if you attached multiple devices).
cptskippy 8y ago
> I'm constantly surprised by how terrible it is even in high price ranges. Car makers don't really care. They want features on a list to check off and don't care how well they work. You can't return. The car easily after a month of frustration and realization that the car is the problem not you or your phone trying to interface with them.
- pfranz 8y ago
  That's odd because you know they spend a lot of time/money on interiors. I remember a 2001 German car I owned had terrible cupholders that broke easily(I noticed that is a lower priority for foreign cars). The next model year changed to a more sturdy design. But on the flip side, I've greatly preferred the tactile buttons on the low-end over the touch screens and menus on the high-end. I'm confident most people care a lot about the infotainment systems. Even 10 years ago, the Millennials cared about getting their iPods to work. I had modded so many friend's cars or upgraded their head units. Their parents, boomers, just assume it's too complicated (which it is) for audio and navigation. I feel like after literally a decade they've all just given up on everything except basic Bluetooth audio (when it works out of the box). I've ended up renting, borrowing, and test-driving (and buying) a surprising number of cars over the past 5 years and it's pretty uniformly terrible. I remember being sheepish a couple years ago when the most important thing in a new car was phone compatibility. I would have happily preached and bought something that just worked well.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    > I remember a 2001 German car I owned had terrible cupholders that broke easily(I noticed that is a lower priority for foreign cars). The next model year changed to a more sturdy design. Volkswagen Jetta?
    - pfranz 8y ago
      Yep! A plastic coke bottle was just big enough to fit. When the bottle warmed and expanded, it was slightly too big and would break the flimsy cup holder. After replacing it once and having it break twice I gave up. I remember later seeing a different model year (I'm pretty sure with the same body style) where they had replaced it with a more normal cup holder. I would also have the mirror adjustment knob on the door snag on my clothes and snap off.
voltagex_ 8y ago
You can cut the data lines in a cable and it should solve some of the issues with unwanted behaviour. The album art and track progress I don't really care about (eyes on the road!) but via Bluetooth that's AVRCP and there's a stack of standards for people to butcher there, too.
- ebrewste 8y ago
  I was wiring in a charge only USB port in my car today and found out that cutting the data lines limits the charge rate to a uselessly low rate. You need to tie the data lines together to put it in usb bc1.2 mode. Or 2.7 v on each line for 2.4 a iPhone charge or other modes. It isn’t simple. Simpler than Bluetooth, but not “hook up ground and 5v” simple.
  - voltagex_ 8y ago
    Jeebus. Might be easier to wire in a 12V compatible USB charger in that case.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    iOS devices will outright not charge if there’s just 5V on the port. Even the lowest charging current requires some sort of resistor arrangement. Fortunately it seems like bridging the two data lines (essentially a 0 ohm resistor) is what’s needed to allow high-current charging (I think it’s 2 amps), so as long as your supply can withstand it (which pretty much every single device can, given that it’s tied to its own 5V rail which can supply many amps) you can just bridge the two pins together. Worst case scenario the overcurrent protection on the port will protect the source device.
  - robk 8y ago
    There's a fast charge dongle for this. Portapow makes one.
    - robocat 8y ago
      Looks like there is a StarTech one too with a button to change modes - search for USB2CHADP (although currently out of stock at Amazon).
puzzle 8y ago
A few weeks ago, I asked for a compact rental car, but was given a 2018 or 2019 Chevrolet Equinox. It had an USB-A as well as an USB-C port. I already had Android Auto on my Pixel, so I was up and running in a few instants. I did NOT miss setting up Bluetooth or Ford's Sync thingie. Maybe there's hope at the end of the tunnel.
- pfranz 8y ago
  Often in cars (especially when traveling and there's no dock) I get a poor wired connection. I suspect it's just lint caught in the connector, but it makes wired CarPlay or USB audio very frustrating because if anyone bumps the wire the connection stops and you have to wait for the handshake to continue. It's much less of an issue with charging.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  My Ford has Android Auto and CarPlay. And it never messes up Bluetooth if I don’t plug in ‍️. My WRX is kind of a hot mess. Plugging in never worked. It does fine with Bluetooth, usually, but when it gets confused it really shits the bed. Does not have AA or CarPlay. Is a newer car.

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.