Older cars don't understand their younger phone cousins very well

September 18, 2018 7:15 PM

If I have a 2015 Civic and I think the whole way it connects with my iPhone, plays music and does Handsfree really sucks (some being Siri's fault and some being the car's fault), would switching to Android help? And/or could I think about replacing the entertainment unit?

I hate everything about connecting my phone to my car. I have recently figured out that when I get into the car I must do all of this in sequence:
1. Turn the audio to FM Radio
2. Manually connect my phone to bluetooth (it will connect automatically after I've been driving for five minutes and this will shut off my music from playing)
3. Plug in my destination in google maps on my phone
4. Then plug in my phone
5. Navigate to my itunes playlist using the car's playlist nav and NOT my phone. If I use my phone the car gets confused and my itunes smart playlist gets messed up.

Once I'm driving I can use Siri to make a call or send a text but she is pretty unreliable and doesn't really do much. Also once I'm driving, the car software periodically forgets to advance to the next song and I need to press skip to get it to go again.

This experience is very poor in my experience of having driven lots of cars with lots of different audio systems. I should be able to just plug in my phone and never think about any of this.

Would switching to Android help? Would replacing the entertainment unit with something like this help? I have owned cars before but never had a need to customize them so I have no idea what I'm doing.

Yes this is question #5 about me winding up with a car I absolutely hate, and my 100th AskMe.

posted by bleep to Travel & Transportation (20 answers total)

http://handsfreelink.com/Honda/en-US/US/FindAPhone

The above link will tell you if your phone is compatible with your car. A brief trip down Google lane suggests that Bluetooth connectivity with iPhones is a common complaint.
posted by Autumnheart at 7:43 PM on September 18, 2018

I would not count on Android being much better. Though, if I were in your shoes, I might recruit some Android-using friends and see how you fare in connecting their phones to your car.

Does the car have aux-in? In your situation, I would go for a hardwire over all the poorly arranged Bluetooth stuff or the auto manufacturer's built-in attempt to manage your phone. Just mount your phone to the dash, run the aux cable, and use the phone's interface instead of the car's. You can pop a Bluetooth earpiece into your ear if you want to be able to use Siri more reliably.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:47 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

Does the car have a 3.5mm audio jack? If you're considering a switch to Android, you may not even need a new headunit; just a good magnetic mount, the right phone, and something simple like an Anker 3.5mm Bluetooth adaptor. Android Auto now supports Waze in the handset, and I use this combination on my OnePlus 3T regardless of whether I'm driving our old beater Magna (no Bluetooth, just an aux-in on the headunit), my XR5 Focus (which has bluetooth, but only for calls), or my wife's Sorrento (which has a nifty Bluetooth entertainment stack, but doesn't seem to like having multiple devices in memory to pair with).

I'm increasingly of the opinion that there are only two good infotainment options in cars: 1) full CarPlay and Android Auto mirroring, and 2) minimalist 3.5" inputs and charging ports tucked out of the way.

(edited to say that Mo Nickels is right on the... nickel).
posted by MarchHare at 7:49 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

You’re not alone. My solution to this problem was to turn in my 2015 Civic at the end of the lease. With a long commute, the phone issues (which were a little different from yours) were a major thief of joy.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:03 PM on September 18, 2018

I had a similar workflow in my kia soul and iphone. i was going to type it out but i started and it got rediculous. Finally after 5 years i solved the problem by never ever ever plugging my phone in to the stereo, and always using just bluetooth. I now charge my phone using a 12v adapter the stereo knows nothing about. So much easier i am kicking myself for not doing that years ago. I suggest you try the same — never plug your phone in, and always just use bluetooth. Use alternate sources of power if needed.
posted by cgg at 8:38 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I want to still be able to plug it in so I can use the steering wheel controls.
posted by bleep at 8:59 PM on September 18, 2018

There are adapters for Honda factory radios that make a plugged in iPhone look like a 6-cd changer (an option they had). I liked it for the simplicity and economy in a Honda I had. Just a cable coming from under the center dash to plug into, then use the normal controls.
posted by nickggully at 9:02 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Would turning off Bluetooth from the settings menu eliminate the first two steps?
posted by muddgirl at 9:07 PM on September 18, 2018

Response by poster: I need to keep Bluetooth too.
posted by bleep at 9:53 PM on September 18, 2018

would switching to Android help?

I really like my 2015 Civic Hybrid--which I suspect will have the same systems there but I realize that might be optimistic--but even without fussing with any of the plug-in stuff, my Bluetooth is super erratic with my Moto G6. I will say that I don't have any problems about it not being able to continuously play podcasts or Spotify without manually messing with it. It just sometimes blips and reconnects, but even there it starts auto-playing again fine. I have not tried the steering wheel controls; I just don't mess with my phone enough while driving for it to have come up. I will see if I can get a little time tomorrow to try messing with it to see how it goes.

I'll be interested to see if anybody reports good experiences replacing the system, because I'm also considering it.
posted by Sequence at 11:37 PM on September 18, 2018

Have you tried using the steering wheel controls when you are connected via Bluetooth? They work just fine that way on my 2012 Hyundai. Like cgg, my problems went away when I stopped plugging in to the stereo at all.

If you are going to replace it, replace it with something that has Apple CarPlay™ built in.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:18 AM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

you should be able to use the steering wheel controls when just on bluetooth. that's how my 2012 and iphone do it. i used to plug it in to the usb, but that created more problems than it solved.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 6:49 AM on September 19, 2018

I have a different brand of car, but mine also works just fine with bluetooth, but terribly when connected with a cable. I assume you have tested this, but if not it is worth giving it a try.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:50 AM on September 19, 2018

I don't know iphone, but all my android experience says that bluetooth kind of sucks no matter what (with bt speakers, headsets, car radios, PCs, you name it). And factory radios suck worse than aftermarket. And some cars/brands are worse than others. My android S8 and aftermarket radio mostly work. My wife's subaru factory radio and S8 work less well.

I think you might do better with an up to date aftermarket system but check many reviews and google for problems (eg. Ponysonic X97 doesn't connect with Apple XS X or things like that).
posted by jclarkin at 7:27 AM on September 19, 2018

I agree with @jclarkin, Bluetooth + Android kinda sucks. My previous phone, OnePlus, was worse. My Toyota is bad. My headphones are bad. It might be the phone, it might be Android, but it just kinda might be Bluetooth.
posted by RoadScholar at 7:40 AM on September 19, 2018

Is it a better experience if you don't plug your phone in? Just a guess, maybe there's a conflict between the bluetooth audio and your car thinking the phone is a dumb USB drive. If that's the case, Google for "lightning cable charge only".
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:24 AM on September 19, 2018

if you're plugging your phone into a USB port, it's probably expecting an actual iPod rather than a phone, which is confusing and weird. (this is how my Hyundai works, and the Honda Accords I occasionally drive, both of about the same vintage as your Civic. they're not charge ports, they actually hook into the stereo system in the car like a computer does.) I just use a regular car charger instead, and pair the phone via Bluetooth. it takes a sec - literally like 5 seconds, which is annoying but not really a dealbreaker - for the phone to be recognized in my car but other than that works perfectly fine. if I use the actual USB ports, it flits between "oh a Bluetooth phone" and "what's this weird iPod" and ultimately gets confused. FWIW, this is what's happened in basically every modern car with USB ports I've driven.
posted by mrg at 8:35 AM on September 19, 2018

Response by poster: Can we focus the answers on answering the question? “Simply just don’t do the thing you want to do” isn’t that.
posted by bleep at 9:57 AM on September 19, 2018

Best answer: My husband just solved his related set of problems in his 2012 Kia Soul by replacing the head unit with one that is CarPlay-compatible.

It works so well I am now jealous of it and kind of want to do the same thing in my 2014 Hyundai.

Do research on the specific car/phone/unit involved but unfortunately the 2012-2016 or so window seems to be The Era Of Car-Phone Connectivity That Almost Works But Breaks In Super Annoying Ways After A Couple Years of Phone Updates, and the real solution that isn't obnoxious seems to be upgrading the audio system.
posted by oblique red at 2:02 PM on September 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

I forgot to comment this yesterday, but I did actually check and the steering wheel buttons do in fact work over Bluetooth for my Moto G6 with my podcast app, Audible, and Spotify, although they don't all do the same thing. (Forward/back in Audible skips a short span of time but the same in Spotify, I realized, does skip songs.)

It's still not such a great experience that I'd recommend that over getting a better aftermarket version installed, but I will say that I think it's unusual that your current phone is as incompatible as it is, the quirkiness I see is much less pronounced and mostly limited to occasionally losing connection for a moment and taking an unreasonably long time and often multiple attempts to pair. (But this phone is that way about pairing with basically everything.)
posted by Sequence at 6:17 AM on September 20, 2018