Request to Tesla about Bluetooth user interface

[pavankp]

In my Model 3 I mostly listen to music from the phone over Bluetooth. The Bluetooth interface is rather rudimentary. You don't see progress of tracks you are playing (like you see with Slacker), and you can't select playlists and tracks from the UI. The latest update (2018.18) seems to give us the ability to switch sources more easily, which will be a big improvement.

I wrote to Tesla about this today and received a response that they have passed it on to the right team to look into this. If you, like me, are a big user of Bluetooth on the phone and would like to see this improved, I suggest that you contact Tesla and let them know. One way to contact them is:

1. Login to your Tesla account on a computer.
2. Click Manage on your Model 3.
3. Click Ask A Question and complete your question. There is a checkbox to Report to Tesla executive team -- up to you whether you want to choose it.

There may be other ways to reach them as well. Given the large number of items they are working on, it is important that Tesla hears from users who care about this so they give it the appropriate priority.

 

[TexasEV]

In the meantime you could put the music on your phone onto a micro USB drive. It has been uncommon for Model S and X owners to use Bluetooth for music. Either people have used Slacker or if they prefer their own collection, use USB.

 

[pavankp]

In the meantime you could put the music on your phone onto a micro USB drive. It has been uncommon for Model S and X owners to use Bluetooth for music. Either people have used Slacker or if they prefer their own collection, use USB.

That is not an option if you stream from your phone. For phone streaming, Tesla should show the progress indicator just like so many other cars with Bluetooth do.

 

[KiddFunkadelic]

Do you see album art?

My Grand Cherokee does not show it but I believe the latest Android Bluetooth stack supports the feature, so I believe it needs to be implemented on the car side to be leveraged.

 

[pavankp]

I see album art, but more often than not, it is the wrong album art. It seems to search the web by the name of the album, rather than use the album art shown on the phone.

 

[Pkmmte]

In the meantime you could put the music on your phone onto a micro USB drive. It has been uncommon for Model S and X owners to use Bluetooth for music. Either people have used Slacker or if they prefer their own collection, use USB.

Is there a way to search between songs and albums on a USB drive? I haven't tried it yet but that sounds like an appealing solution.

 

[slappy]

This may sound like a nitpick, but one of the reasons I skipped an S was the poor Bluetooth music functionality. Pretty much every car I’ve encountered, from the crappiest of rental cars, will let you browse the music and podcasts on your phone and display track info. Slightly more advanced cars, like the ultra-premium Toyota Carolla, even accurately display album art.

This is key for podcasts, since no one wants to manually download those to USB. I’m on the list for a 3 so I’ll suck it up, but the lackluster Bluetooth interface has been a long-running complaint so I doubt we’ll see a fix anytime soon.

 

[TexasEV]

This may sound like a nitpick, but one of the reasons I skipped an S was the poor Bluetooth music functionality. Pretty much every car I’ve encountered, from the crappiest of rental cars, will let you browse the music and podcasts on your phone and display track info. Slightly more advanced cars, like the ultra-premium Toyota Carolla, even accurately display album art.

This is key for podcasts, since no one wants to manually download those to USB. I’m on the list for a 3 so I’ll suck it up, but the lackluster Bluetooth interface has been a long-running complaint so I doubt we’ll see a fix anytime soon.

You do know that you can listen to podcasts directly in the car through Tune-in, right? There’s no reason for your phone to be involved at all.

 

[slappy]

Yes, fully aware but i listen to podcasts in multiple places (gym, airplane, rental cars, trains, etc) since I travel quite a bit, so my iPhone serves as a “single source” to keep subscriptions up to date and hold my place I. Whatever I’m listening to.

 

[Pkmmte]

You do know that you can listen to podcasts directly in the car through Tune-in, right? There’s no reason for your phone to be involved at all.

Is it possible to listen to my personal, uploaded music collection through Tune-in?

I'm not a fan of many streaming services because they rarely ever have any songs I like. Instead, I use Google Play Music for all my music since it allows me to upload songs to my library and stream them through all my devices.

 

[TexasEV]

Is it possible to listen to my personal, uploaded music collection through Tune-in?

I'm not a fan of many streaming services because they rarely ever have any songs I like. Instead, I use Google Play Music for all my music since it allows me to upload songs to my library and stream them through all my devices.

No, Tune-in is for radio stations around the world and podcasts. Your solution would be to put your music collection on a micro USB drive and play it from there. No streaming required.

 

[pavankp]

Yes, fully aware but i listen to podcasts in multiple places (gym, airplane, rental cars, trains, etc) since I travel quite a bit, so my iPhone serves as a “single source” to keep subscriptions up to date and hold my place I. Whatever I’m listening to.

Same here. I want to continue listening in the car to whatever podcast I left off listening to at home. It is not unreasonable to ask Tesla to implement a feature that many five-year-old cars have.

 

[Pkmmte]

No, Tune-in is for radio stations around the world and podcasts. Your solution would be to put your music collection on a micro USB drive and play it from there. No streaming required.

Mmm, that could work, but would require updating it every time which can be cumbersome. I currently have around 17,000 songs uploaded to my library, so I'd need a 256GB drive. Still worth exploring, I guess.

What else can you do via USB playback that you cannot do via Bluetooth yet? Can you search and filter the library on the screen? That ability alone would make it worth it for me.

 

[TexasEV]

Mmm, that could work, but would require updating it every time which can be cumbersome. I currently have around 17,000 songs uploaded to my library, so I'd need a 256GB drive. Still worth exploring, I guess.

What else can you do via USB playback that you cannot do via Bluetooth yet? Can you search and filter the library on the screen? That ability alone would make it worth it for me.

You can sort by artist, album, or song title. Search TMC for threads about USB media player— some heavy users have complaints about various bugs in the media player and workarounds for them, in case any apply to what you want to do.

 

[Dugknight]

My biggest complaint about Tune-In is not being able to continue a podcast where I left off if I turn off the car. Sometimes it will start where I left off, but more often than not, the podcast starts over at the beginning. Very frustrating.