Car Owners' New Gripe: Lousy Wireless Service (axios.com) 84
The biggest frustration among new car owners is that they can't get their car and smartphone to talk to one another, a new J.D. Power study finds. From a report: Consumers want their digital lives to follow them seamlessly in the car, which is why Apple CarPlay and Android Auto have become so popular. But if the wireless connection is glitchy, such features don't work, leaving car owners unhappy. "Owners are caught in the middle when vehicle and phone technologies don't properly connect," says Dave Sargent, vice president of automotive quality at J.D. Power.
1 in 4 problems cited by car buyers in the first 90 days of ownership involves infotainment, according to the J.D. Power 2021 Initial Quality Study (IQS), released Tuesday. For the first time in a decade, voice recognition is not the top problem; instead, it's Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity, which worsened significantly, especially for those trying to connect wirelessly. About one-third of new cars now come with a built-in WiFi hub, which may or may not be compatible with a phone's operating system.
1 in 4 problems cited by car buyers in the first 90 days of ownership involves infotainment, according to the J.D. Power 2021 Initial Quality Study (IQS), released Tuesday. For the first time in a decade, voice recognition is not the top problem; instead, it's Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity, which worsened significantly, especially for those trying to connect wirelessly. About one-third of new cars now come with a built-in WiFi hub, which may or may not be compatible with a phone's operating system.
Wireless connectivity (Score:5, Insightful)
Im not sure id be wild about wireless connectivity to my car. Id probably want it charging anyways, and one of the most infuriating things for me is the bluetooth auto connect when i try to make a call not expecting it to still be connected..
Id much prefer everthing to be connected once i plug the cable in.
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The only wireless part I'm using is Bluetooth for voice calls, no syncing of my data since I'd like to keep my privacy and don't leave unnecessary data in the car the day I sell it.
Re: Wireless connectivity (Score:2)
Re:Wireless connectivity (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, that is my reaction also. When I recently bought a new car, my first one that was "bluetooth enabled", I started having problems with the car connecting to my phone when I was in the house, and someone started the car in the drive way, or drove up in it.
The vision of "bluetooth heaven" is exactly the same as "bluetooth hell" in which everything is constantly connecting with other things just because it can.
And when I am in my car I don't need bluetooth because I always plug my phone in to charge, if nothing else. If I ever need to use map functions I need it to be plugged in because they drain power like crazy.
Re: Wireless connectivity (Score:2)
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Re:Wireless connectivity (Score:4, Informative)
In one of the latest updates, Tesla added a setting to disable bluetooth audio (for phonecalls) when the car is stopped and the driver's seat weight sensor detects no one sitting there.
With a call in progress over the car's hands-free, you get to the destination, move stalk to park, pick up your phone and the moment you get up to exit the car, the call switches to the phone.
All the other car manufacturers can just implement the same thing, with a free OTA updat... wait...
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If you close the center console storage bin too fast, a prompt shows up on the screen, Please close the lid slowly. They have instrumented a sensor to detect the lid closing speed! Touchscreen has a control to open the glove box. OK cute you say. That the only way to open the glovebox. How reliable you need to make this to dispense with a regular latch!
The low level architecture seems to be stunning. Take the ri
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The level of instrumentation in a Tesla is insane. Not sure when other car makers can catch up.
Hopefully, never.
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Right, other manufacturers haven't even deleted LIDAR and bragged about it, much less had to reintegrate after realizing they were wrong! That's truly great leadership. Insane.
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You impress easily, just like other Tesla fanboys.
Note that literally none of the stuff that impresses you as "insane" contributes to a Tesla being a good car, nor is any of this particularly impressive purely from a software point of view.
Pleased you are impressed that a "fart app" is "on the entertainment system layer of the car". How innovative!
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Tesla does use Qt for their infotainment system, and one of the main features of the Qt framework is the signal and slot system. It's been my favorite framework to work with and miss the simplicity when in other frameworks. Essentially it would be as you described, the left turn widget activates and that broadcasts out, not caring who is listening, and anyone interested in it can connect a slot to the signal and do something when that happens.
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Some people are not impressed, but people familiar with OSes used by car
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My car's done this automatically for like 5 years because the moment I exit the car, the ignition is switched off and bluetooth is disconnected.
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Tesla can decide they want to start charging for features already in your car, they start disabling stuff. All the other car manufacturers can just start doing the same thing with an OTA updat . . wait.
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Im not sure id be wild about wireless connectivity to my car. Id probably want it charging anyways, and one of the most infuriating things for me is the bluetooth auto connect when i try to make a call not expecting it to still be connected..
Id much prefer everthing to be connected once i plug the cable in.
Yes, it's handy for podcasts and such. The other features, like using maps and navigation can be useful. A bit snag is that they stop working. Or more precisely, the smartphone gets upgraded and the features chane, but the car stays the same. It's still a brand new car, shiny, only a year old, but in the smartphone realm being 1 year old makes you obsolete. So the maps on my iphone is horribly sucky to use in my car compared to the car's built in but outdated maps. The bluetooth podcast playing is sta
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My issue with cables is that they keep getting loose and have to be replaced too often.
Great... (Score:2)
...wireless lice. 2021 sucks more than 2020. What's next, 5G bedbugs?
WiFi hub? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You might not be aware of this but cars now implement Carplay and Android Auto over WiFi Direct to transport video, audio, touch information, etc.Because of this the implementation of WiFi protocol, WiFi Direct, and Android Auto/Carplay protocols matters to people who want to use those features.
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I'm not the OP, but thanks for explaining this. I had a similar brain-gear-grind as OP reading the summary because my household vehicle is a 2010 and only has a Bluetooth connection. I had no idea that smartphones were connecting to vehicles via WiFi now.
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https://www.wi-fi.org/download.php?file=/sites/default/files/private/Wi-Fi_Direct_Specification_v1.8.pdf
But if they are losing their connections to the AP, its likely because they are too close and their signal is too strong. Same thing can happen at home if you put your device a couple foot from your antennas. The RFC also says that an AP is not even required to do WiFi Direct.
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Car manufacturers seem to be great at screwing up things that should just work. I'm not surprised they've messed up installing WAPs since they still haven't quite mastered USB.
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They screw it up on purpose.
Car makers want to differentiate their models, so they often have a good/better/best head unit which aligns with trim levels, and you can't get the best head unit without the top trim level. They also incorporate vehicle control into the head unit along with customized openings/sizes which make aftermarket replacement more difficult without dash surgery or losing some controls/features.
Along with this comes the outsourcing of head units to OEMs like Harmon. This means you have
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Wireless is another name for radio and predates it by about 30 years (1890). My great-grandparents likely owned a wireless set and their parents may have too.
Here's an example that had wireless in its name from pre-WWII, https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/... [radiomuseum.org] lots of other examples at that site.
Re: WiFi hub? (Score:2)
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Possibly regional differences in English. To me, a Canadian speaker, wireless has always equaled radio.
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When describing technology Wireless applies to cellular carriers
No it doesn't. It applies to all techniques for transmitting a signal without wires.
- Wireless charging does not use a cellular network
- a wireless TV remote does not use a cellular network
- a wireless microphone does not use a cellular network
etc.
Bluetooth, wifi, DECT are all wireless technologies. As another poster said, its etymology is from the use of 'wireless' to describe radio.
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Buy a Mitsubishi - then you'll see the true horrors of how car wifi sucks. First up, it's super-limited, has no open API, and no other manufactuer is ever going to integrate with it because it's so flaky and lets be honest, Misubishi aren't exactly a big market. Instead, they tried to keep it all "proprietary" with an app so terrible and so hideous and security flawed that they just dumped it where it was and started on a fresh app. That too is horrible and will connect with the car maybe one in 10 attempts
Re: WiFi hub? (Score:2)
OTA Updates Required (Score:2)
Any head unit that doesn't update frequently will eventually suck.
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As a Tesla owner I can say that a head unit that does frequently update will occasionally suck (until they fix the bug in the next release or you give up and learn to accept the UI change they pushed on you)
The last thing I would want (Score:5, Insightful)
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That would make GPS use interesting.
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I'm surprised cell phone integration is even allowed in cars.
Then you'd probably also be surprised to learn that the point of cell phone integration in cars is to get the phone out of the driver's hands and out of their line of sight. Human nature being what it is, Faraday cage cars wouldn't sell very well at all. It's better to have most people using hands-free rather than having a all of the phone/text addicts driving while staring at their phones.
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You seem to be using a non-standard definition of "line of sight". If you don't have line of sight to something, you cannot see it, even if you turn your head.
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If it's connected to the car, then you don't have to touch it...
too much auto-everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Just bought a new car for the wife (Mazda CX-30). Too much automatic everything. Went thru a bunch of pain points trying to figure out how to disable/turn off/make things work the way they have for 40 years of driving....
Brights - they come on automatically. And turn off automatically. New headlights are plenty bright, I was driving down my country road and hte brights came on automatically, just at the right time to reflect off a speed limit sign. Blidingly bright light reflected back.
Parking brake comes on automatically. Gotta tap the gas or flip a switch to turn if off.
Radio on/off isn't.... it is radio mute/not mute. Mute it and turn the volume and it immediately un-mutes. I've given up, when I get in the car I simply turn the volume all the way down and act like the car doesn't have a radio.
Fun one we found out on a drive - you can't pair a device to the bluetooth speakers if the car is in gear. Kinda makes sense for driver, but passengers are affected also.
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One feature I'm happy for is turning off the one headlight when the turn signal is on. Now you can finally see signals when the old fucks are driving around at noon with high beams and fog lights on.
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We need automatic lights. Too many dumbasses driving around at night with only their DRLs on.
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As someone with a 56 year old car that has a 6v electrical system, I gotta say... The day time running lights/fog lights/driving lights on new cars today are already more/better light than the regular headlights on my ancient, rusty street legal car. I don't care what the lights are designated as - do they give you enough to see by and are visible by others on the road?
(and yes, when I finally restore this thing it will have 12v electrics and MUCH better headlights...)
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DRLs dont include tail lights, so the cars are virtually invisible from behind at night.
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One reason is because idiot auto engineers decided to illuminate the dashboard at all times instead of putting them on the headlight switch. So with LED DRLs lighting the way, oblivious drivers have no indication that the rest of their exterior lights are off. Before LEDs, they were doing the same thing with those god-awful high-beam DRLs.
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Parking brake comes on automatically. Gotta tap the gas or flip a switch to turn if off.
I kinda like this feature, as it enables me to stop at traffic lights and then rest (or forget about) my foot until the traffic lights turn green. I find that "hold-the-brake-or-else-it-slips-forward" mode a much more annoying default - possibly because the situations where that mode is optimal are very rare (at least for me).
"New" gripe? (Score:1)
The first time I tried to pair a car and phone was, I think, 2009. Moto flip and BMW Z4. Nothing but trouble. Bluetooth audio is still rubbish today with my iPhone 11 and Lexus. Small 1/4 second gaps in the audio every few songs. Phone audio quality is awful.
I also have bad luck with bluetooth headsets. Motorola, Plantronics, Samsung, all the majors. Samsung was the best, but didn't stay paired, and died after a year.
Has bluetooth audio every been any good?
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The first time I tried to pair a car and phone was, I think, 2009. Moto flip and BMW Z4. Nothing but trouble. Bluetooth audio is still rubbish today with my iPhone 11 and Lexus. Small 1/4 second gaps in the audio every few songs. Phone audio quality is awful.
I also have bad luck with bluetooth headsets. Motorola, Plantronics, Samsung, all the majors. Samsung was the best, but didn't stay paired, and died after a year.
Has bluetooth audio every been any good?
My 2019 and 2021 Jeeps pair up pretty flawlessy with Appleplay. The map program is the shitz, especially since the phone maps get automatic updates, and my Sisters Jeep, only a couple years earlier, has a built in program that needs updated at the dealership - and it's pretty expensive.
As for Bluetooth quality in general, I have a Bose Noise Cancelling headset at home that pairs simultaneously with my iPhone and My Mac. The quality is pretty decent, and I don't have to be tethered to the computer, and wo
Re: "New" gripe? (Score:2)
That's why the hero always picked red, not blue.
Different priorities (Score:3, Interesting)
1/4" audio jack, please. (Score:2)
Anything else is just extra hassle.
Now get off my lawn.
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Add this to the list (Score:2)
I've yet to own or rent a car where the bluetooth doesn't suck in some annoying way.
e.g. My equinox wouldn't connect reliably with an iPhone 6 and required re-pairing every drive
e.g. The same vehicle would say "Call Ended" after every "call"* with no way to disable it.
e.g. Our CX-9 plays a deafening 100db two note tone every time a "call" ends.
* A "call" is defined as Siri telling me to turn left or an actual call or a notification tone.
I want to tune out... (Score:3)
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Android Auto (Score:2)
Although Google claims it's fixed, I've still experienced problems.
Cat Owners New Gripe: Lousy Wireless Service?? (Score:1)
Boo hoo. (Score:2)
A car's main function is not to serve as a networking hub. Mobile hotspots that stay charged have been a thing since forever, so if some dork wants to have awesome wifi for their kids to all watch their separate cartoons while cruising the road at 75 mph, good for them. Some of us just want a fucking car to be a car. I'll take a stereo with a hard-point for my old beat to shit iPod, thanks. 1/4" TRS still works just fine after all the decades it's existed. Plus I can charge and listen at the same time
Bluetooth is not ready for prime time (Score:1)
once Bluetooth can connect as effortlessly as Wi-Fi, then people will stop complaining. however don’t hold your breath until the SIG gets its act together. they are clearly more interested in cramming in features instead of fixing the basic connectivity issues.
This is why we have security problems (Score:2)
Christ, people are dumb.
New Gripe (Score:1)
Farmed out, same cost (Score:1)
1) Bring double-din back
2) Choose ANYTHING from a brand you know
And THESE even come with MAPS if you run out of cell.
Bad UI from stem to stern (Score:2)
Buttons you could feel have been replaced by smooth flush buttons, or worse turned into touch screen commands buried multiple levels down.
Shifters have been replaced by buttons, knobs, paddles, joy sticks, etc. It is harder than ever to hop in a rental car and get going. Emergency brakes are also scattered through the cockpit, some as a peddle, some as a button by the radio, others by the center console, others I have never found at all (looking at you GMC).
Touch screens are a raging dumpster fire that ca
I can't use BT to do navigation (Score:2)
In a Toyota, BT connection with my phone works great for taking calls from the steering wheel, but I have to keep remembering to disconnect BT when I do navigation. The connection steps on the first three seconds of every direction the phone gives me. When the phone says "In 500 feet, turn left at the signal for Elm Street," what I hear through the car audio is "...Elm Street."
Re: I can't use BT to do navigation (Score:2)
This, no wonder the navsat on the rental was spotty as f***-all.
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A relative of mine bought a Honda CRV. She wants to be able to listen to podcasts on long car trips. When we connect any source to the car's Bluetooth, the audio is interrupted every ~5 seconds by ~0.5 seconds of silence. It's maddening to try to listen to. And they only provide an aux connection on the highest trim level of the vehicle; the head unit (I am told on the Internet, I haven't tried to look at the back of it) physically lacks an aux header or port. So the Bluetooth is so bad to listen to, it's u
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In a Toyota, BT connection with my phone works great for taking calls from the steering wheel, but I have to keep remembering to disconnect BT when I do navigation. The connection steps on the first three seconds of every direction the phone gives me. When the phone says "In 500 feet, turn left at the signal for Elm Street," what I hear through the car audio is "...Elm Street."
Sygic has a setting to adjust delay before playing audio to account for switching time. Would hope all mapping software does the same as otherwise this would be a fairly major oversight.
Got to love Tesla (Score:2)
Stupid Car (Score:2)
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When I ordered a new car in 2004 I requested an mp3 player because all my music was in mp3 format. The sales guy looked at me like I was from another planet. We don't have a radio that can play an mp3. We don't offer an AUX input. I was like, Really? The mp3 music format is the most common format in the world. Stupid car company.
See, the real kicker is that it's a pretty safe bet that you could have replaced the stock stereo with an aftermarket unit in 2004. My 2006 Xterra had an AM/FM/CD with no aux, but pretty much the week after I got it (used, circa 2012), I got a Pioneer deck that had Pandora integration, hands free bluetooth, both USB and aux...and still did AM/FM/CD. Swapping it out was an afternoon with some electrical tape, a screwdriver, and a dash kit. If I wanted to go really fancy, I could have had a nav system.
But now
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Double DIN was a great standard. I've got a 04 GM and I've changed over the unit a couple of times now. I've got a modern head unit that has Android Auto & Apple Carplay. Also has a reverse camera integrated in to that wasn't a option on my car in 04. My car's getting old so it's getting to the point where I need to upgrade to something newer but a newer car has got to have at least functional a infotainment unit in it or one that can be replaced. Drove a rented new Toyota a month or so ago, the head un
Thank goodness for USB cords (Score:2)
Sync 3 on my Ford used to be snappy fast when I got it, after a few updates the Bluetooth connection became questionable and the touchscreen slow and unresponsive. Thankfully, the USB connection still charges the phone when driving and Carplay works smoothly over it. Bluetooth devices in general tend to be flaky as hell and I'm rather disappointed in it.
Car industry needs to give up on proprietary (Score:2)
They need to give up on proprietary head units. They should establish a standard set of dash openings for head units and a common data interchange format for status messages and menu/settings control between the head unit and the CANBUS/computers.
They want custom head units which are hard to replace so buyers are forced to make trim level decisions relative to what head unit a car has. This drives buyers into higher trim levels, as often the best head unit isn't available in lower trim levels.
Proprietary
Ford sucks (Score:1)
Conventional car infotainment systems pointless (Score:2)