Bluetooth as audio source: what use?

[mathdydx]

I have a pixel 2 XL. I use (Google) play music as pretty much my only music source. You can upload your collection and it works well. If I'm listening to an album it will come up on the head unit screen with the track list and I can pick directly on the screen by pressing the track I want.

I sometimes use bluetooth to listen to my music from my phone and the music player I use for Android is called Gonemad. It has LOTS of customization, has gapless playback, and the developer is always tweaking it (and will reply back to you if you send him a question). I rarely buy apps for my phone, but this is the best $4 I ever spent for an app because I use it every day:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gonemad.gmmp&hl=en_US

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[Micah]

Again, MD Player...

Installed. Danke

 

[frontlinegeek]

I have a pixel 2 XL. I use (Google) play music as pretty much my only music source. You can upload your collection and it works well. If I'm listening to an album it will come up on the head unit screen with the track list and I can pick directly on the screen by pressing the track I want.

This is what I was going to say.

To elaborate some, if you don't use the Android Auto route (Which is good but does come with some limits), when you tell the car to use BT, whatever the latest or current audio playing application will play to the car and the OSD on the touch screen (Assuming you don't have a base stereo Civic) will give you transport control of that app (Track forward/back, etc...). So if you were listening to a podcast on PocketCast but it was paused, the moment you switch the audio source on the car to BT, PocketCast will start playing through the car. Same thing if you were using the native player on the phone or whatever. If the player will play while the screen is off, this behaviour is near universal.

On the upside, if you like AA, then note that Google is soon releasing updates for the Pixel series and for some of the newer top end phones like the Galaxy S9 so you can do AA wirelessly like Apple Carplay does.

 

[Almostfast]

yeah until AA is wireless I'm not using it. not going to wear out the usb plug by constantly plugging and unplugging it all the time.

 

[JoeShades]

You can ask Siri to switch apps, well at least switch to the music app

 

[frontlinegeek]

yeah until AA is wireless I'm not using it. not going to wear out the usb plug by constantly plugging and unplugging it all the time.

If I didn't have USB C on my phone, I would totally agree with that. If your phone is old enough to have a micro-B, then you will be out of luck.

 

[dick w]

Google is soon releasing updates for the Pixel series and for some of the newer top end phones like the Galaxy S9 so you can do AA wirelessly like Apple Carplay does.

Right. But the software in the head unit has to play along wirelessly. No Honda driving off the lot today will ever support wireless AA is my bet. Maybe a new Honda model for 2019 or 2020. Maybe the 11th gen Civic.

 

[frontlinegeek]

Right. But the software in the head unit has to play along wirelessly. No Honda driving off the lot today will ever support wireless AA is my bet. Maybe a new Honda model for 2019 or 2020. Maybe the 11th gen Civic.

Hard to say. The one big element would be that your car's system can connect to wifi from an external device. The Honda systems can so if we are lucky, no changes needed at all. But for those that only have bluetooth radios, they would be hooped for sure.

 

[dick w]

Hard to say. The one big element would be that your car's system can connect to wifi from an external device. The Honda systems can so if we are lucky, no changes needed at all.

WiFi hardware is not the issue. The issue is that the AA server code baked in 2014 that's in my '16 Civic likely doesn't have support for it. And that's an upgrade Honda will never issue. Heck, they won't even fix the bugs.

 

[frontlinegeek]

WiFi hardware is not the issue. The issue is that the AA server code baked in 2014 that's in my '16 Civic likely doesn't have support for it. And that's an upgrade Honda will never issue. Heck, they won't even fix the bugs.

AA is almost entirely in the phone. The only thing the head unit has to do is allow reception of the screencast (Which is what AA really is doing).

 

[dick w]

AA is almost entirely in the phone. The only thing the head unit has to do is allow reception of the screencast (Which is what AA really is doing).

Right. And there's a reason some head units introduced in last several months claim first to support wireless AA and that reason is the minimal support to receive the cast over WiFi isn't in previous HUs. I could be wrong. Bet I'm not.

Update to add: to wit, https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/267568-google-rolls-out-wireless-android-auto-but-almost-no-one-can-use-it.

 

[frontlinegeek]

Right. And there's a reason some head units introduced in last several months claim first to support wireless AA and that reason is the minimal support to receive the cast over WiFi isn't in previous HUs. I could be wrong. Bet I'm not.

Update to add: to wit, https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/267568-google-rolls-out-wireless-android-auto-but-almost-no-one-can-use-it.

Well balls...

 

[SamualSS]

An Audio Converter for Windows can help you get audiobooks from Overdrive Media. You will gain lossless files in common formats like MP3 so that you can freely play them on BT or other players as you like. Moreover, you can download them and listen to them offline on any apps or devices.

 

[dick w]

AA is almost entirely in the phone. The only thing the head unit has to do is allow reception of the screencast (Which is what AA really is doing).

As long as this old thread has come back from the dead, let me add: somewhere along the line, even this entirely in the phone part in my Pixel 2 broke AA pairing with the '16 Civic. For a long list of reasons, my phone lost the pairing. And now, no matter what I do, it refuses to recognize the Civic as an AA device to offer to AA pair with. So now my phone and the Civic won't do AA together from now until, well, maybe forever more. Sigh. This should have been so simple. And somehow Honda (MELCO)/Google screwed even this much up. Ref https://support.google.com/androidauto/thread/12854516?hl=en.

 

[dick w]

Try these troubleshooting steps. They usually fix my AA problems:

1. Clear cache and storage on the AA app. Do this by long pressing the app's icon.
2. Clear out all cached settings on the car, including all saved BT devices.
3. Clear connectivity settings. This will erase all of your saved BT devices, but annoyingly, also reset all of your WiFi settings.
4. finally, if none of that works, a factory reset almost always fixes it.

I'm a long time Pixel and 3a user myself, so I know the frustrations you're going through. If you want better audio quality, also try running Viper4Android on your head unit after you root it.

Thanks for the reply.

#1 solved nothing.
#2 I'm hesitant to do because I don't want to end up in a state where my wife's Pixel 2--which works now and the Civic is her daily driver--won't pair with AA.
#3 It's not my daily driver and my phone has almost two dozen Bluetooth pairings and even more remembered WiFis. So I'd rather live without AA, if this is the only solution. Even in my '18 CR-V, my dd, where AA has always worked and repaired when I was experimenting to make sure that it still was, I rarely use it because of the hassle of plugging in for my vast majority short trips.
#4 is the pain of #3 * near-infinite. Factory reset loses Google Pay settings, VPN settings, email account settings, Google and Microsoft Authenticator pairings, etc., ad nauseum. I'd rather buy a new phone so at least I get something more than just working AA for all the pain that this causes.

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