Phone Bluetooth quality suddenly awful

[dansev]

2019 M3 dual motor with 94k miles. Well, the Bluetooth might never have been perfect, but all of a sudden I’m getting constant complaints about echoes and horrible road noise coming in through my Bluetooth calls. As soon as I switch from the M3 as the audio source to my speaker phone on my iPhone, everyone says it’s infinitely better. Of course, I have rebooted the car and my phone.

Is there any possibility of fixing this? Could something have physically broken? If only I could use the microphone of my iPhone, while still using the audio of the M3—is that possible? I spend so much time in the car on the phone, this is just a disaster for me.

 

[ODWms]

I don't know if this will solve your overall problem. But ambient (background) noises can be greatly reduced by utilizing the 'Voice Isolation" feature on the iPhone whether on phone, speaker or even car mode in the car. Makes it dead silent to anyone you're talking to, like you're in your living room:

Finally, There’s an Easy Way to Reduce Background Noise on Your iPhone

If people can't hear you clearly, try this new iPhone feature coming with iOS 16.4.

lifehacker.com

 

[EVRider-FL]

Did you update iOS recently?

 

[dansev]

I pretty much update iOS whenever they come out. But as I said, everything is fine if I’m not connected to the M3 Bluetooth. That said, you could have a point.

 

[nstig8]

Whenever I get echoes I have to go into the car's audio settings menu (the equalizer) and turn on or off immersive sound. That 'fixes' it for a while and then it eventually comes back. I don't know why it happens, but that's what makes it go away.

 

[dansev]

Whenever I get echoes I have to go into the car's audio settings menu (the equalizer) and turn on or off immersive sound. That 'fixes' it for a while and then it eventually comes back. I don't know why it happens, but that's what makes it go away.

Wow. How on earth did you ever figure that out? Will try it next time!

 

[dansev]

I don't know if this will solve your overall problem. But ambient (background) noises can be greatly reduced by utilizing the 'Voice Isolation" feature on the iPhone whether on phone, speaker or even car mode in the car. Makes it dead silent to anyone you're talking to, like you're in your living room:

Finally, There’s an Easy Way to Reduce Background Noise on Your iPhone

If people can't hear you clearly, try this new iPhone feature coming with iOS 16.4.

lifehacker.com

I just read some more about this. It relatively new so I don't think it was enabled and then became disabled, causing my problem. BUT...this could really help and I have enabled and will try tomorrow. Thanks for pointing it out!

 

[stopcrazypp]

2019 M3 dual motor with 94k miles. Well, the Bluetooth might never have been perfect, but all of a sudden I’m getting constant complaints about echoes and horrible road noise coming in through my Bluetooth calls. As soon as I switch from the M3 as the audio source to my speaker phone on my iPhone, everyone says it’s infinitely better. Of course, I have rebooted the car and my phone.

Is there any possibility of fixing this? Could something have physically broken? If only I could use the microphone of my iPhone, while still using the audio of the M3—is that possible? I spend so much time in the car on the phone, this is just a disaster for me.

Do you have premium connectivity? If so, you can try setting up a zoom meeting. That will allow you to test the microphone in the car for sound quality.

Another thing you can try is unpairing the Bluetooth and re-pairing it. I'm not sure if iPhone has it, but some phones may have audio settings available for Bluetooth, including switching different compression methods. In Android you can go into the developer options to select different Bluetooth codecs, which may affect audio quality.

 

[dansev]

I don't know if this will solve your overall problem. But ambient (background) noises can be greatly reduced by utilizing the 'Voice Isolation" feature on the iPhone whether on phone, speaker or even car mode in the car. Makes it dead silent to anyone you're talking to, like you're in your living room:

Finally, There’s an Easy Way to Reduce Background Noise on Your iPhone

If people can't hear you clearly, try this new iPhone feature coming with iOS 16.4.

lifehacker.com

Omg. This is revolutionary. It works! One colleague I talk on the phone with from the M3 all the time said she couldn’t even tell I was in the car, once I turned this on! THANK YOU!!!

 

[ODWms]

You are so welcome. Glad to hear it worked out for you!