Things I learned about Slacker Streaming

[drklain]

@Maaz Saw you disagreed with my post. If something in it is wrong, would love to know. Perhaps I am doing something wrong WRT Slacker and Slacker Premium...

 

[Sawyer8888]

I have been searching for the reason as to why my favorited Slacker radio stations dissappear in my car, but remain on my Slacker mobile app on my phone. I found the following on an old thread. Is this accurate?

Do you have the right scroll wheel mapped to audio source selection? If so you might be unfavoriting by accident: all it takes is a tap on the right scroll wheel. I used to do this pretty frequently, and then I'd have to recover the station from the "recent" list.

I gather this has annoyed a number of owners, and personally I've never wanted to favorite or unfavorite from the steering wheel. In my opinion it was a minor design error to make this feature so readily accessible. An easily activated feature shouldn't make changes to user preferences, and when making changes to user preferences there should be an easy way to undo the change. But I suppose Tesla could fix it any time: remove the (mis-)feature, or map it to something useful.

Additional detail from the same thread:

I've gradually learned to use a "long press" to change the dash displays. It's a little clunky to have the scroll wheel doing three different jobs, but I frequently use it to change the audio source so I've left it there.

But if you don't use that feature, you can press the right hand menu button and change the scroll wheel to do something else. Here's what my manual says on p38, under "Using Right Steering Wheel Buttons":

• Menu button
  Press to display a menu that allows you to control the following Model S features:
  • All. Allows you to roll the wheel and choose from all available functions (listed next).
  • Climate Temps. Roll the wheel to change the temperature, or press the wheel to turn the climate control system on and off.
  • Fan Speed. Roll the wheel to adjust the speed of the fan used to cool or heat the cabin.
  • Display Brightness. Roll the wheel to change the brightness level of the displays, or press the wheel to restore default settings.
  • Sunroof (if equipped). Roll the wheel to adjust the position of the sunroof.
  • Media Source. Roll the wheel to control what Media Player is playing, or press the wheel to add/remove the currently playing station or audio track as a Favorite.

The menu button is the lowermost of the right-hand steering wheel buttons, just below the scroll wheel. I'd say "Display Brightness" is the most forgiving option, unless you're especially sensitive to the default 100% setting.​

Both Tesla and Slacker have been unable to pinpoint the cause. The above seems to explain it well. Any confirmation is appreciated.

 

[mblakele]

I have been searching for the reason as to why my favorited Slacker radio stations dissappear in my car, but remain on my Slacker mobile app on my phone. I found the following on an old thread. Is this accurate?

​

Additional detail from the same thread:

​

Both Tesla and Slacker have been unable to pinpoint the cause. The above seems to explain it well. Any confirmation is appreciated.

That misfeature went away in 8.0 and hasn't come back. I almost miss it. Well, I miss changing audio source from the steering wheel. I don't miss accidentally deleting favorites.

 

[Maaz]

@Maaz Saw you disagreed with my post. If something in it is wrong, would love to know. Perhaps I am doing something wrong WRT Slacker and Slacker Premium...

Hmmm no idea. I think I tried pressing the "i" but pressed disagree on accident.

 

[hacer]

I have been searching for the reason as to why my favorited Slacker radio stations dissappear in my car, but remain on my Slacker mobile app on my phone.

If these are custom stations that you named yourself, then if they are in the recents list you can get them back, but if they are not there it seems the latest Tesla interface no longer has the ability to re-discover their existence. Even searching on the station name will not find them.

 

[boaterva]

Hmmm no idea. I think I tried pressing the "i" but pressed disagree on accident.

I have to say, on mobile (phone or tablet), I do this often. The 6 little icons are just *too* close together for a fingertip. I often have to undo and redo a rating... always need to verify what I did.

 

[Sawyer8888]

If these are custom stations that you named yourself, then if they are in the recents list you can get them back, but if they are not there it seems the latest Tesla interface no longer has the ability to re-discover their existence. Even searching on the station name will not find them.

Thank you for your input. My favorited stations are custom stations, but I did not name them myself. I just searched for an artist and favorited their station without altering the name. This is an example from the Slacker mobile app:

​

It appears I may have to enter the custom stations manually once again since the app does not communicate with the car. I can deal with that. I have used Recent to recover some of my lost favorited stations, but recent is limited in how far back it can go, so they're not all there. Hopefully they stick this time around.

Neither my SC nor Tesla CA customer service has an answer as to why my favorited Slacker stations disappeared that one time - only that Slacker is aware that 8.0 should have resolved issues like this. According to My SC, customers don't mention anything about it.

Additional Slacker questions. Any insight is appreciated...

• Should the song playing on my phone continue to play when I get in the car assuming I have Bluetooth enabled? Perhaps this is a premium feature? My phone just pauses and the car continues to play whatever was last playing in the car.

• Setting a high bit rate on the Slacker mobile app probably does not carry over to the car? Only the upgraded audio package allows for a higher bit rate?

Thanks.

 

[hacer]

According to My SC, customers don't mention anything about it.

I have complained, not because I lost stations, but because I couldn't create new ones. Now I've found a work-around where they are named like yours, after a first seed. I can them customize them on the PC.

• Should the song playing on my phone continue to play when I get in the car assuming I have Bluetooth enabled? Perhaps this is a premium feature? My phone just pauses and the car continues to play whatever was last playing in the car.

If the car's audio is set to phone Bluetooth, then I think it does, at least it seems to for songs stored on the phone. If the car is set to anything else, that other setting will continue. i.e. it does not automatically switch to Phone, nor should it in my opinion.

• Setting a high bit rate on the Slacker mobile app probably does not carry over to the car? Only the upgraded audio package allows for a higher bit rate?

I don't think it's possible to get the higher rate in the car, not even with premium audio, but I'm not sure.

 

[Sawyer8888]

I don't think it's possible to get the higher rate in the car, not even with premium audio, but I'm not sure.

The 2014 loaner I had recently did have the upgraded audio and it gave me the option the adjust the bit rate on the Slacker sign-in screen. Dolby Surround Sound was also an option on the same screen. These two features are not present with my standard audio system.

 

[Black/Black MS]

I just recently found the Slacker Stories series on the app. Does anyone know if there is a way to access these in the car? Would like to be able to listen when driving (other than through bluetooth, of course).

 

[TrevTremaine]

Question: Has anyone tried in Canada? I've heard that Slacker Premium doesn't work here.

 

[Pinot.Noir]

Is there any way to cache several stations for use when outside cell range? I can do it with Slacker on my phone.

 

[Trunk Gap]

This is so rididuckously annoying Tesla. Get your act together with Spotify already, slacker is horrendous.

 

[Trunk Gap]

I just downloaded the app, upgraded, and tried it for 5m. Immediately canceled.

First off, the library sucks. "Sorry we can't play that song we are working on adding it to our library", if it even shows up at all. Second, the interface is an absolute joke, awful design.

How is this even a real product, when Apple Music, Spotify, etc exist? I don't get it, at all. Tesla, what are you doing with these clowns?!?!

 

[Mattzilla]

I'd prefer Pandora actually. But I'll take Spotify. Hell I'd take about anything over Slacker.

 

[smilepak]

If you click the Sign In button at the bottom of the Slacker screen it takes you to a log in screen that has a "High Bitrate Streaming" checkbox. If you leave that checked Slacker streams 320kbps mp3. If you uncheck it the stream is 128kbps mp3. According to Slacker you can uncheck that if you're having buffering problems, but I've never experience buffering unless I'm completely out of LTE range anyway.

Anyone still having problem logging in with the Tesla account? I've tried a few times the past two weeks and it just hang on login

Also, the whole 320kbps, has it been confirm that is true? I thought reading somewhere it was?

 

[msnow]

Anyone still having problem logging in with the Tesla account? I've tried a few times the past two weeks and it just hang on login

Also, the whole 320kbps, has it been confirm that is true? I thought reading somewhere it was?

It used to be true. Now there's no sense trying to log in with your Tesla credentials because it's setup that way by default and all you'll get is 128. If you try it will just spin. Not sure what happens if you pay for Premium though.

 

[Silverstreak]

I have complained, not because I lost stations, but because I couldn't create new ones. Now I've found a work-around where they are named like yours, after a first seed. I can them customize them on the PC.

If the car's audio is set to phone Bluetooth, then I think it does, at least it seems to for songs stored on the phone. If the car is set to anything else, that other setting will continue. i.e. it does not automatically switch to Phone, nor should it in my opinion.

I don't think it's possible to get the higher rate in the car, not even with premium audio, but I'm not sure.

When I took delivery of my S90D about a month ago, I asked to have Slacker set to high bit rate and I watched as she set it up.

 

[ahkahn]

When I took delivery of my S90D about a month ago, I asked to have Slacker set to high bit rate and I watched as she set it up.

Who was "she"? I'm taking delivery on Friday and hope you mean someone at Tesla.

 

[KyleDay]

Anyone still having problem logging in with the Tesla account? I've tried a few times the past two weeks and it just hang on login

Also, the whole 320kbps, has it been confirm that is true? I thought reading somewhere it was?

Same here