I need to rant about Bluetooth

[The Shocker]

A lot o this will deal with car audio, but all this applies to home audio also.

Wireless and Bluetooth are all the rage these days. Phone makers are dropping 3.5mm headphone jacks assuming we're all going Bluetooth.

Well, Bluetooth is very prevalent is car stereos, and I have been using it in my car with my phone for years with a whole lot of frustration. Some problems I have been having:

1. I start up the car and my kids' phones in the house connect to the car before my phone has a chance to, and they use up all available slots, so my phone doesn't connect.
2. Even with no other phones around, my phone still fails to connect half the time and I have to go manually into my phone and connect to it.
3. When I take my kids to school in the morning, their phone and mine will be paired to Bluetooth. My son gets out of the car, and I start up a song or an audiobook. As I drive away, his phone gets out of range and disconnects. My audio immediately starts to stutter and I need to pull over and disconnect from Bluetooth and reconnect for the stutter to go away.

I have very similar issues at home with Bluetooth, where my kids will turn on a Bluetooth speaker, and then a minute later they yell down to me to please disconnect my phone from the speaker.

I was actually going through the motions of getting a price on a new receiver for my car when I decided to just go "old school" and pulled my 3.5mm aux cable out of the glove box and plugged it in. I unpaired from the stereo in my car, and now all my problems are gone.

It's amazing how much BS I was putting up with just to eliminate one wire. I was totally not worth it.

Perhaps someday wireless audio will get where it needs to be. But Bluetooth audio isn't it.

Bluetooth is some kind of wireless dumping ground. Every time they want to communicate between two devices, they tack it onto Bluetooth.

I tried to use Bluetooth with my phone when I was mowing the lawn, because the wire kept getting caught on the lanwmower handle. When I sat down and thought about it, I just ran the wire under my T-shirt down to my pants pocket and that problem was solved. And now I don't have to charge headphones anymore before I mow the lawn.

Give me a wire any day over Bluetooth.

 

[GChief]

In some cars you can set a device as the primary. Did that with my last rental for work when one of the guys keep trying to hijack it and play pop country crap. I don’t remember the menu setting but I do remember it was very easy. It was a Jeep

 

[The Shocker]

That's fine. But then I am still going to pull out of my driveway and have another phone disconnect and cause stuttering. I like the wired world. It's simple and it works well.

 

[Alobar]

I'm with ya brother! I have hated BT for years now.. Not Barter town, the other one..

 

[GChief]

Just set your phone up as primary. Haven’t had those kind of problems with BT so don’t know what else to do

 

[tom67]

Yeah, they need to find a way to give it some type of signature where you can lock in one specific unit(with an exclusion of others) with the option of leaving it open for all

 

[Steven Tate]

Another scenario -- you get in your car, start it up, the radio pairs with another family member in the house who is having a phone conversation. You are sitting in your car listening to their conversation without really wanting to. Hope they don't say something they would regret you hearing. Or if reversed and you are in your house and they are in the car, hope you don't say anything you would regret. I would be willing to bet that divorces have happened because of unexpected bluetooth pairing.

 

[CoogarXR]

Easy- delete the kid's devices. Tell them they can control the radio when they get their own car. That's what my dad said back in the 80s when me and my sister wanted to play a cassette, lol.

 

[RTally]

I tried Bluetooth in the car. It was a bad experience.

My car has a USB port, though. I loaded up a 64GB memory stick with >10k of MP3 songs. I mostly listen in shuffle mode. The music starts as soon as the car starts and stops when I open the door to get out. Much, much better than Bluetooth.

 

[GChief]

I actually love car BT since I am in rentals so much. I have all my music I want on my phone. It’s iTunes but that’s good enough for a rental car.

 

[tom67]

Good way to spy on your kids....sit in driveway and listen to their calls..

 

[The Shocker]

When do long drives, the kids control the music, while my wife and I talk. So, it's a lot easier to have them do it wirelessly from the third row of the van, rather than drag a super long aux cord over. Wireless definitely has it's uses. But using it as the primary method of getting music from it's source to the destination is far more complicated than just plugging a cable in.

 

[kaplang]

Blue tooth connectivity is marginal at best. Get use to it.

 

[RTally]

Another scenario -- you get in your car, start it up, the radio pairs with another family member in the house who is having a phone conversation. You are sitting in your car listening to their conversation without really wanting to. Hope they don't say something they would regret you hearing. Or if reversed and you are in your house and they are in the car, hope you don't say anything you would regret. I would be willing to bet that divorces have happened because of unexpected bluetooth pairing.

Good way to spy on your kids....sit in driveway and listen to their calls..

That is not how Bluetooth works. You cannot eavesdrop with standard BT tech. When you connect a phone via BT, the handset transfers audio to the BT receiver. If you start your car while someone is talking on a phone paired with the car, the phone conversation is transferred to the car's audio system, basically moving the conversation from the handset to the speakers. The phone no longer uses its built-in speaker or mic.

 

[The Shocker]

In my perfect world, Bluetooth would NOT auto-connect, and I would have the ability to auto-connect to it doing one click on my phone. I own an iPhone and it takes me at least 3 clicks to connect to a Bluetooth device. I was hoping Siri shortcuts would give me this capability, but sadly it did not.

 

[GChief]

I own an iPhone and it takes me at least 3 clicks to connect to a Bluetooth device.

Really that’s to much effort? I also use an iPhone and think it’s pretty convenient. I usually have a group of Co-workers all using my rental in the evenings and we all are jacked into the cars BT so I know exactly what everyone is saying but never gave it a second thought as that big of a pain . I guess to each their own

 

[robgmn]

Hmmm.
We all keep BT off on our phones to make our batteries last longer. BT gets turned on if we intend to connect to a device.
Never once has my stereo or any of the home devices connected to anyone's phone without us causing it to.

 

[Steven Tate]

That is not how Bluetooth works. You cannot eavesdrop with standard BT tech. When you connect a phone via BT, the handset transfers audio to the BT receiver. If you start your car while someone is talking on a phone paired with the car, the phone conversation is transferred to the car's audio system, basically moving the conversation from the handset to the speakers. The phone no longer uses its built-in speaker or mic.

All I know is that my son lives close to me. He works from home and is on the phone almost all day. Several times, I have left his house, started my car, and after a few seconds, I hear his phone conversation on my radio. It’s possible it disconnects his microphone, but he has never mentioned any interference with his calls when I leave. I might add, his phone has been paired with my car in the past, so it is recognized by the car’s BT.

 

[83Hertz]

Another scenario -- you get in your car, start it up, the radio pairs with another family member in the house who is having a phone conversation. You are sitting in your car listening to their conversation without really wanting to. Hope they don't say something they would regret you hearing. Or if reversed and you are in your house and they are in the car, hope you don't say anything you would regret. I would be willing to bet that divorces have happened because of unexpected bluetooth pairing.

I'm a mechanic and I've had this happen with customer's cars... there should be some sort of BT etiquette that requires you to shut off BT before giving your car to the mechanic...

 

[The Shocker]

Really that’s to much effort? I also use an iPhone and think it’s pretty convenient. I usually have a group of Co-workers all using my rental in the evenings and we all are jacked into the cars BT so I know exactly what everyone is saying but never gave it a second thought as that big of a pain . I guess to each their own

For me that is too much effort, especially when the alternative is to just plug a cable in and pull out of the driveway.