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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-11-30)
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DATE: Tue 18 May 2021 21:18 By: HexDSL@Posteo.net
I made a pleroma post this morning over on my pleroma instance and I figured I should expand on the issue to make is more discoverable if anyone else was having this issue.
My Pleroma (social.hexdsl.co.uk)
I drive a 2014 Nissan Juke. Its the one with the navigation screen and pointless climate control screen. I know, lots of people seem to fucking *hate* the Nissan Juke but I really like it. It suits me. I'm not here to debate my vehicle choice, I only mentioned it because it required knowledge for the following.
When I connect my phone to my car stereo with the bluest of teeth the audio plays and it seems to be operating correctly. It doesn't show me the track details and the track skip button on the steering wheel doesn't work. Sad. I know. Given that my car is a 2014 I assumed that even though it had a massive screen for the mapping software this was was just a feature it was missing.
I would just hit "play" on my phone and the car would report "Bluetooth audio device playing." I have always used either my Alexa-Auto or my watches physical buttons to skip tracks (.Don't judge me, I like voice assistants!)
Then my daughter connected her phone to my car. Suddenly there were track listings and album and artist and the screens playback controls worked. It was honestly like a different stereo!
Fuming - Angry - livid - confused - these are the hyperbolic descriptions of my emotions.
I check all the settings I could think of on her phone vs my phone. Hers being an older android 9 (or is it 10?) and mine being a Pixel 5 (android 11) I rubbed my chin for long and then it struck me. Her phone was older. It wasn't the android version it was the hardware age.
I ended up spending too long looking around settings menu's before I finally found the bluetooth version information in the "Developer options" menu. the thing that stuck out to me was this AVRCP version. Hers was 1.4 where mine was defaulted to 1.5, I changed the setting (with no idea what it actually was) and restarted by phone.
Joy - levity - thrill - the attention and love of the gods - these where the emotions that I hyperbolically claim I felt!
My on screen controls now work. My steering wheel controls now work. My volume selector now works. Best of all, my information feed is working and I can read the damned track name from the screen now!
I have had this car for 5 months and I could have fixed this problem on day one. HOW is this not a thing that the phone can automatically detect? How does my consumer grade telephone not automatically choose the correct version of some strange Bluetooth setting to talk to the stereo in my consumer vehicle? this seems like quite an oversight!
Even if we assume its not an oversight, can we agree that putting the method by which we fix this in the secret developer menu is quite the oversight. It is insane to me that this is something thats not tell known.
It stands for "Audio / Video Remote Control Profile" if you are wondering and once you search for it online it turns out that audiophile people know all about it. I didn't how did I not? does everyone else? and again, why did my car and my phone fail to mention it?
Good job android.