When streaming music from my phone the sound “blinks” (disappears) for less than a second. It does not happen on every trip, it seems to happen more often on the first trip of the day (“cold”, but I live in Florida so not Michigan cold), but when it does it happens about every 2 minutes. It is not the phone because it does not happen when I extensively use rental cars. I finally coerced the dealership to put in a new radio when they could not get it to reproduce the issue a second time after burning through a tank of gas idling, but it did not make an impact. Anybody experience this before and found a solution?
Does it happen when you use a USB cable to connect your phone to the sound system or only bluetooth?
Only bluetooth, but I have only tested with the cable connection a few times since I usually am using mapping while listening and lose that capability hard wired
Perhaps connecting someone else phone can pinpoint whether it is phone or the car’s bluetooth connection problem.
Your Bluetooth connection is having trouble keeping up with demand. Do you have a similar problem when using earbuds? If so, your phone is at fault. If not, it’s your car.
The cause is most likely your phone or the car’s sound system. Since you don’t think it is your phone, the car’s sound system is the most likely suspect. Since replacing the radio didn’t solve it, the problem is likely either some other component in the audio system, or the system’s basic design. In other words this problem may be impossible to solve as it lies in the basic design of the 2018 Accord. To confirm that theory you’d have to use your phone in another 2018 Accord to see if the same problem occurs or not.
The phone might have a different version of Bluetooth than the car (you did not tell us what phone you have, so we cannot tell whether or not this is the case). Bluetooth is supposed to be backwards compatible with older versions of itself, but that doesn’t always work out in practice.
Some of us are tech dorks too - give us your phone specs (including whether or not you have done anything like rooting it) and we’ll go from there.
Thanks, this makes sense! I have never had this problem using earbuds or have had this problem when pairing the phone in rental cars. Do you have any idea where the Bluetooth transceiver is located in the Accord? I had the audio unit replaced and that did not fix the problem
Hi!
I have an iPhone 6, unlocked version where nothing has been done to it out of the box, currently running iOS 12.4.3. The phone had/has worked great, no other issues like this. If it is Bluetooth version incompatibility what options do I have? A quick web search did not give me any hints.
Your comment did make me think to try a really old iPhone to see if I have the same issue. I will try that today and let you know.
Thanks again!
Thanks! I don’t think it is a phone issue as I have used it extensively in multiple rental cars for several hours at a time without the problem. I plan to try an old iPhone to see if that produces the issue.
Have you visited the discussion.apple.com forum? Seems there are lots of connectivity issues with iPhone 6 that sound similar to yours. Problems seem to be focused on specific brand cars. Honda is one of them.
I have not but I will after typing this email!
Thanks again for taking the time to help with this problem! Much appreciated!
I bet it’s related to the chipset Honda uses. (No, I don’t know which one that is). It looks like some chipsets have difficulty with the 6. This would be due to a problem with the phone, not the chipset. I think it would be instructive to grab a friend with a newer iPhone or better yet an Android and pair it with your car. See if the problem manifests then.
It looks like a lot of people started having audio dropout problems with certain receivers at version 12.4.1.
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On older models it’s behind a removable panel to the left of the steering wheel on the lower part of the dash. I’d start there.
And what would you do with it ? If you mess with it you will void the warranty .
I wanted to know if it was part of the stereo system because if it was it would not be the problem as that unit has already been replaced
As noted, AFAIK it’s not integrated into the stereo, which is why replacing the unit didn’t do anything. Your dealer should be able to replace the transceiver with minimal trouble, which is what they should have done in the first place.