6.2" Starlink worse than $8 Bluetooth speaker?!?!

[HKz]

Originally Posted by motrek

This has literally nothing to do with how much they spent on the unit or what corners they cut. They didn't save a single dollar or man-hour of work by having the head unit be s**tty. I can get an $8 portable bluetooth speaker at the supermarket that works better, and that includes the speaker driver and a battery. The software in this head unit is simply poorly designed and it would take them minimal effort to sort it out if they were so inclined.

you just answered your own question...they weren't inclined to do it because in the end, they did save the money and we get an affordable car that is focused on driving....why else do you think this was a cost savings project split between Toyota and Subaru to begin with?

[NCtoBRZ]

Originally Posted by motrek

Yeah, that's a shame. Designed correctly, embedded versions of Linux can boot in 1-2 seconds and then a head unit based on Linux could recognize that it should just function as a Bluetooth receiver (if it was set to that mode the last time it was used) and start doing that. Initializing all the other features could be done afterwards, in parallel, in the background.

Thanks for letting me know that other head units are also kinda s**tty these days. I was worried about that possibly being the case if I tried to solve the problem by buying another head unit.

The Pioneer AVH-2330NEX that I installed in my BRZ is by no means s**tty. BT connects within a couple of seconds from bootup... unlike the factory head unit that often took half a minute or more and then was very unreliable in displaying the correct track information. Even after the factory HU finally connected, it sounded like garbage and was very laggy in operation. The Pioneer HU is quick to boot up, connect and operate and sounds exponentially better. I use Android Auto 99% of the time and it is connected and ready to go before I even finish backing out of the garage.
That being said... if you totally cheap out and buy some sub $100 head unit, it may very well be just as frustrating to use as the factory pile of trash. Buy a decently high end head unit or hold your breath until you pass out waiting for Subaru to do something about it, it's up to you. Even the upgraded factory head unit in the 2018 Limited BRZ would be better than the 6.2" system found in the 2017 or in the Premium 2018 BRZ.

[motrek]

Originally Posted by HKz

you just answered your own question...they weren't inclined to do it because in the end, they did save the money and we get an affordable car that is focused on driving....why else do you think this was a cost savings project split between Toyota and Subaru to begin with?

Oh come on. You're acting like the software for this head unit was designed exclusively for the BRZ.

The head unit is also used in the base model Forester. Do you think it's shitty in the Forester because the Forester is a joint venture between Toyota and Subaru where the top priority was making it (the Forester) a driver-focused sports car?

[Victorscp]

would it be an easy swap to go from the premium brz head unit to the limited one? i have a 2018 premium model and ya it lags bad at start up i use amazon music and i cant get the track info to show up

im gonna see what the starlink app does maybe that will help but overall ya not impressed. i did buy the premium with the long term intention to switch to a android headunit

[NARFALICIOUS]

maybe it's your phone

[motrek]

Originally Posted by Victorscp

would it be an easy swap to go from the premium brz head unit to the limited one? i have a 2018 premium model and ya it lags bad at start up i use amazon music and i cant get the track info to show up

im gonna see what the starlink app does maybe that will help but overall ya not impressed. i did buy the premium with the long term intention to switch to a android headunit

I've read some posts saying that it isn't hard to swap the units but I don't know where to get a cheap 7" Starlink unit. They probably cost a fortune from the dealership. Probably much cheaper to just buy an aftermarket one, although I've been reading some threads about aftermarket head units and they don't have that weird trapezoid shape of the stock units and I'm not sure if anybody has come up with a super good looking solution to that problem.

[motrek]

Originally Posted by NARFALICIOUS

maybe it's your phone

Everybody seems to agree that the 6.2" unit takes forever to pair. We can't all have problematic phones.

Also, my phone (an iPhone 6S) works perfectly with every other Bluetooth thing I've ever used it with... I use it with a pair of Bluetooth earbuds almost every day...

[Victorscp]

ya looks like aftermarket is the way to go...

[Mr.ac]

I think it's due to some shitty headunits.
The few local guys 4 of us been talking about the Bluetooth. Two of them have issues one of them has a '14 BRZ premium one year newer than mine and his headunit has a long time connecting to Bluetooth. Where as mine takes about 40 seconds.

We both synced out iPhones in both cars, he had zero problems in my car, I had to wait about two minutes to finally connect. So eh? Who knows.

[NCtoBRZ]

Originally Posted by motrek

I've read some posts saying that it isn't hard to swap the units but I don't know where to get a cheap 7" Starlink unit. They probably cost a fortune from the dealership. Probably much cheaper to just buy an aftermarket one, although I've been reading some threads about aftermarket head units and they don't have that weird trapezoid shape of the stock units and I'm not sure if anybody has come up with a super good looking solution to that problem.

The OEM 7" head units are well north of a grand based on what has been said in other threads.
The Scosche SU2032B Dash Kit looks great, it matches the OEM black plastic radio surround perfectly.

[motrek]

So my pain points with this stereo are more or less sorted out now.

1) I figured out a solution for my phone so I can have it visible for turn-by-turn directions, so now I don't need to have the phone speaking the directions at me, so it no longer matters that the stereo mutes the spoken directions.

2) For podcasts, when I get in the car I start my podcast app and rewind the current podcast by 60 seconds and drive away. When the stereo finally connects to the phone, I haven't missed anything in the podcast. It's pretty stupid that I have to do this but it's better than sitting and waiting for the stereo to connect for ~30 seconds before driving away, and I've gotten kinda used to it by now.

So the only thing left is that a lot of people have complained about the audio quality from this stereo. There's no reason why a modern stereo (amplifier) shouldn't have basically perfect audio quality as long as it isn't turned up too loud, so the problem must come down to the settings. I noticed that by default, there are a lot of sound processing settings enabled on this stereo. For example, I believe there's a bass boost that's enabled, and also a "sound restorer" that's supposed to fix up compression artifacts in audio, but I figure features like that almost certainly do more harm than good.

The big offender though is that they seem to have a voice-tracking system to make it sound like voices (vocals) are coming from a different virtual point in space than the rest of the sound. I have NO idea why anybody would ever do this, but if you've ever used a karaoke machine that attempts to remove the vocals from songs algorithmically, you know how crap this can sound. So I think it's super important to set up the system so that the vocals are coming from the same point as the rest of the music. This is displayed by two dots on a grid and you need to move the dots so they're in the same location--I assume this disables the system.

Once all this extra processing stuff is turned off, I think the stereo sounds fine, although I'll admit that I only listened to it for a few minutes with this processing turned on so I can't be sure I'm hearing the same thing you guys are hearing. But, food for thought if you're using this stereo and you're unhappy with the sound quality.

[Go Frogs]

isn't the 6.2" Starlink HU the same HU used in other Subaru models?

If so, those models will experience the same BT connectivity and sound reproduction issues as the BRZ. I don't think you are alone in your plight.

I believe that Clarion makes the Starlink HU [see link --> LINK ]

so it is Clarion you need to vent frustrations to, although, I guess in the end, it all comes down.back to the Subaru product team and their design specifications for the base head/multimedia unit.

I'm guessing faster would have equaled more expensive; however, on large scale auto production across 100ks/1Ms of vehicles those costs get minimized, but they still add up over time.

The longer Subaru can milk a 2014/2015 design, money can be "saved" and diverted into other areas. One less thing to think about.

of course nowadays, when AA/ACP are so important in vehicle purchases, people skip cars that don't connect or play nice with their phone and the technology, or lack thereof, dictates a purchase and not the overall vehicle function or performance.

I guess manufacturers now need to put more emphasis on the HU functionality/performance than in days pasts.

[motrek]

Originally Posted by Go Frogs

isn't the 6.2" Starlink HU the same HU used in other Subaru models?

If so, those models will experience the same BT connectivity and sound reproduction issues as the BRZ. I don't think you are alone in your plight.

I believe that Clarion makes the Starlink HU [see link --> LINK ]

so it is Clarion you need to vent frustrations to, although, I guess in the end, it all comes down.back to the Subaru product team and their design specifications for the base head/multimedia unit.

I'm guessing faster would have equaled more expensive; however, on large scale auto production across 100ks/1Ms of vehicles those costs get minimized, but they still add up over time. ...

I don't think it's a question of cost. I have cheap Bluetooth earbuds that only cost like $20 and they must have been designed many years ago and they connect to my phone within about a second. So that's the performance you can get from cheap, old electronics that are size- and power-constrained as much as tiny little earbuds. So there's no reason for a head unit to perform any worse than that no matter how cheap and s**tty it is. It clearly suffers from a design flaw that could probably be fixed pretty easily with a firmware update, if only they would get off their asses and put a little effort into correcting their mistakes. (Or they could make the firmware open-source and other people, like me, could correct it for them!)

Now that I think about it, my car stereo was stolen in... 2009?... and I replaced it with the cheapest possible head unit that was available on Crutchfield that had Bluetooth support... I think it cost like $60 at the time... it was a POS that didn't even have a dot-matrix display, it was still all 7-segment LEDs, and it would automatically connect to my phone via Bluetooth in like 2 seconds... so if THAT thing could do it from back in 2009, there's really no excuse other than a horrible programming flaw that's probably pretty easy to fix, except that nobody has bothered...

[Go Frogs]

Originally Posted by motrek

I don't think it's a question of cost....It clearly suffers from a design flaw that could probably be fixed pretty easily with a firmware update, if only they would get off their asses and put a little effort into correcting their mistakes. (Or they could make the firmware open-source and other people, like me, could correct it for them!)

If Clarion is contracted out to provide Subaru HUs, they agreed to a spec and price. Unless updates were written into that contract, Clarion doesn't have to do squat to make their units/HUs perform better as long as all contract obligations were met in the design.

I think this issue is rampant through the auto industry, from a technology standpoint, not including Tesla who sends vehicle updates over the air.

Imagine your car HU/Infotainment getting as many updates as your phone over the first 3 years of its life. The downside is you would be at the dealer every 6 months, which can be good or bad, depending on how you accept it.

Very few manufacturers offer post sales support on infotainment systems. You are stuck with the factory design shortcomings until you decide to change the HU itself or the manufacturer is forced to make a firmware update on newly released cars and makes the update available for cars already sold with similar equipment.

Mazda, as of recently, is guilty of this with their MazdaConnect system offering firmware update #59.X from #55.X or #57.X on certain HUs that administer a certain fault or performance problem, assuming the car comes back to the Mazda dealer.

Personally, offering updates to already sold cars is a great way to get people back into the dealer and establish a rapport with the customer, whether they are the original owner or the 2nd/3rd owner. And service after the sale, sells cars as much as the new car itself. Too bad this logic is lost in the current automotive environment.

Manufacturers are required to have parts available 10 years after a car's production, but the same thing isn't true for updates to the software inside.


hope the work arounds remain positive.