Tesla needs to give us more music options like Spotify

[circleo12]

Slacker has to have the worst algorithm ever possibly made, when it comes to suggesting music similar to any song you manually requested. I have to go through the same 4-5 artists over and over, downvoting them all, in hopes that it will play a different song from the same album I manually requested. I can pretty much name every song that a station will play, every time in the car.

I love the car, but the Music choice/system is absurdly embarrassing, for a vehicle so hi tech.

 

[Reid]

How much does Slacker even cost? I tried to figure out if it made sense to sign up with my own account, pay a little bit, manage channels from my phone or computer, etc. (actually, I have no idea what extra functionality I'd get).

But their website, at least as of 3 months ago, had ZERO pricing information and ZERO information on what functionality you get free vs X price vs Y price vs Tesla default. You need to create an account before you can do anything. I googled it a bit, and the most recent info was some PC World type article from 2012.

It's like they're not even trying to sell their product.

 

[xilex]

Tesla is Plus plan. Pricing is at bottom of their website.

 

[Knightshade]

How much does Slacker even cost? I tried to figure out if it made sense to sign up with my own account, pay a little bit, manage channels from my phone or computer, etc. (actually, I have no idea what extra functionality I'd get).

But their website, at least as of 3 months ago, had ZERO pricing information and ZERO information on what functionality you get free vs X price vs Y price vs Tesla default. You need to create an account before you can do anything. I googled it a bit, and the most recent info was some PC World type article from 2012.

It's like they're not even trying to sell their product.

...what?

https://www.slacker.com/upgrade

Lists each level of service, what it includes, the price, and a link to buy it.

 

[tm34ysun]

Not sure if someone already mentioned. But do you know that you can just ask tesla to play a song and then tesla will suggest other songs similar to you? It displays as "Hello Radio", "Roar Radio", etc. I listened for a few weeks and noticed that if you thumb-up on the songs you like, the recommendations are getting better and better. Now after training different type of radios for months, I don't even listen to my old collection on my phone or computer. I think tesla did a wonderful job on that.

 

[jkcheng122]

Not sure if someone already mentioned. But do you know that you can just ask tesla to play a song and then tesla will suggest other songs similar to you? It displays as "Hello Radio", "Roar Radio", etc. I listened for a few weeks and noticed that if you thumb-up on the songs you like, the recommendations are getting better and better. Now after training different type of radios for months, I don't even listen to my old collection on my phone or computer. I think tesla did a wonderful job on that.

I've love for the "ban this artist" button to be available on the car.

 

[Reid]

...what?
Slacker Radio Featured
Lists each level of service, what it includes, the price, and a link to buy it.

Actually it says:
"Need to sign up?
SIGN UP
Have an account?
LOG IN"

Not sure if someone already mentioned. But do you know that you can just ask tesla to play a song and then tesla will suggest other songs similar to you? It displays as "Hello Radio", "Roar Radio", etc.

Via voice control? I didn't realize that. Actually, I'm generally not aware of what voice commands the car supports, only used it for nav so far.
I don't get the pattern between "Hello" and "Roar" radio, but perhaps I will once I start playing with it

 

[Knightshade]

Actually it says:
"Need to sign up?
SIGN UP
Have an account?
LOG IN"

Actually, it says Choose the Right Membership for you by clicking on the exact link I provided.

And lists all the membership levels and prices.

Picture attached.

 

[Reid]

Actually, it says Choose the Right Membership for you by clicking on the exact link I provided.

And lists all the membership levels and prices.

Not if you're not logged in, which was my original gripe. I don't have an account, and I didn't want to create yet another account with yet another 3rd party just to figure out if I want to pay them or not. Terrible sales/marketing 101 right there. You'd think they'd want to leverage the Tesla relationship to upsell folks.

That said, thanks for the info! That's *exactly* the information I wanted but couldn't find!

I'd definitely like to bump the audio quality. I don't remember ads, but I think that was part of the 'special' free Tesla account.. no ads, but IIRC you don't get unlimited skips (I'm not sure if I've hit the limit, though).
I assume play on demand means "literally any song in our library". That's cool. I'm taking a roadtrip next month so I might use that excuse to sign up. Probably worth the $120/year. I already pay for Spotify family, and I really like it and plan to keep that, so it's a bit annoying to pay for another thing, but I'll at least give it a try and see how I like it.

 

[Knightshade]

Not if you're not logged in, which was my original gripe. I don't have an account, and I didn't want to create yet another account with yet another 3rd party just to figure out if I want to pay them or not. Terrible sales/marketing 101 right there. You'd think they'd want to leverage the Tesla relationship to upsell folks.

I don't have an account either.

I'm not logged into anything.

That screen shot is exactly what my browser shows when I go to the link I posted.

N
I'd definitely like to bump the audio quality. I don't remember ads, but I think that was part of the 'special' free Tesla account.. no ads, but IIRC you don't get unlimited skips (I'm not sure if I've hit the limit, though).

So where this is tricky is the client has to support the extra feature you want.

The Model 3 does not support streaming any higher than 64 kb/sec no matter what type of account you have.

Mainly Tesla folks who pay for the higher end slacker account are doing so for custom playlist support and being able to play the same song more than once every 24 hours.

 

[Yak86]

Slacker has over 1 million users- so the vast majority aren't Tesla owners.

I believe they have over 1M active users of which 585,000 are paid subscribers. I don’t know if they count Tesla users as paid or just active subscribers. I believe Samsung’s MilkRadio was counted as paid subscribers for them. They claimed a huge jump in paid subscribers their past fiscal quarter (60K), which roughly seems close to the number of cars Tesla delivered. Given that there are probably 200K Tesla’s in the US by the end of this year, that could account for ~20% of their user base or potentially 34% of their paid subscribers.

I have no doubt my numbers are a little off, but I would say that Tesla is a major contract for them. Given that they seem to struggle making money and have declining users (dropped from 1.5M users in 2017), I don’t think would survive if they lose the Tesla contract. (Losing 2 distribution partners was the reason for them selling to LiveXLive)

Thus, my belief is that Tesla could be singlehandedly keeping that company afloat.

Sources:
As Revenues and Subscribers Fall, Slacker Radio Acquired by LiveXLive for $50 Million
Slacker Radio Helps LiveXLive Reach Record Revenue in Q2.

 

[Reid]

That screen shot is exactly what my browser shows when I go to the link I posted.

Whoa. Mind blown. I was using one browser, and I was getting the login message I posted. Tested out using another browser, got the pricing detail you screenshotted. My bad, I thought you were just being obtuse.
Only thing I can think of, my primary browser I had spent some time on slacker's site 3 months ago trying to find pricing info. Never did. Maybe it wasn't available publicly then, or maybe I just never found it. And at some point probably triggered a login screen. Gave up.
Now when I go back, it remembers that I was trying to login (or something) and redirects to that login page.

When I use the 'new' browser, it actually redirects from the slacker.com/upgrade to slacker.com/ but that pricing popup is there.

So where this is tricky is the client has to support the extra feature you want.

The Model 3 does not support streaming any higher than 64 kb/sec no matter what type of account you have.

Mainly Tesla folks who pay for the higher end slacker account are doing so for custom playlist support and being able to play the same song more than once every 24 hours.

Noted, thank you.

 

[dave999z]

The Model 3 does not support streaming any higher than 64 kb/sec no matter what type of account you have.

Is this also true for TuneIn? (There are no other built-in streaming services right?)

IIRC, Bluetooth streaming from an iPhone uses 256kbps AAC.

So why are so many reporting low quality via Bluetooth and supposedly excellent quality from Slacker. (I think they're both inadequate on a car at this level. Sad.)

 

[Knightshade]

Is this also true for TuneIn? (There are no other built-in streaming services right?)

IIRC, Bluetooth streaming from an iPhone uses 256kbps AAC.

So why are so many reporting low quality via Bluetooth and supposedly excellent quality from Slacker. (I think they're both inadequate on a car at this level. Sad.)

I've not seen anyone confirm the max allowed for tunein by Tesla- at the source though I believe each station can set its own max bitrate

Buncha bluetooth info here-
Bluetooth Audio Codecs

most relevant bit-

When paired to the Model 3, an iPhone chooses the following codec for Bluetooth streaming: MPEG2 AAC LC Stereo, 44.1khz, variable bitrate @ 256kbps peak

That said- I mostly listen from USB, primarily either FLAC or 320kb/s MP3s... I've literally never used my phone for music in my Tesla because I've got all the same content on the USB stick and it's better quality than BT is capable of.

 

[Mikedrives]

The whole entertainment interface needs allot of work.... period.....

It's very buggy when it comes to pausing.... losing place during playback when exiting car.... etc...

Very much an issue when playing back podcasts.... Also, doesn't cache too much.... Major issue when LTE is sketchy....

Hit the left steering wheel button when you put it in Park: pauses podcasts