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

Just bought my new 2018 BRZ last Saturday. Been having headaches with the Bluetooth since then but today it drove me bats**t insane.

As a preface, I've used my phone with a bunch of Bluetooth audio stuff. I own Bluetooth headphones, a Bluetooth portable speaker, and a Bluetooth hockey-puck-shaped receiver for my old car. They all work fine, and basically function as if they were plugged into my iPhone's 3.5mm aux port. But, you know, wireless.

This Starlink head unit? Not as much.

- First of all, it takes 15-25 seconds to connect, after I start the car. How is that acceptable when every other Bluetooth device takes 2 seconds? That means if I want to queue up something on my phone to play in the car, I have to sit there just waiting for the damn thing to connect for AGES before I can hit play and drive away.

- Second, after it connects, it seems to automatically try to play whatever I was last playing on my phone. Or it just gives up and plays the first damn song in my library by alphabetical order. Why? If I want to play something from my phone, I'll initiate playback from my phone, just like with every other Bluetooth device I've ever used.

- Of course, once it starts automatically playing, it displays the volume indicator at the bottom of the screen such that it obstructs the play/pause button for 4-5 seconds. WTF.

So up until this point, here's the scenario. I get in my new car. I want to play something (usually a podcast) on the stereo via Bluetooth. Wait 5-10 seconds. The head unit isn't connecting so I decide f**k it and start driving away. Then, as I'm halfway down the road, the head unit FINALLY connects and then starts playing god-knows-what automatically. Which I have to listen to and can't turn off because the f**king button is obscured on-screen. This whole situation is already f**king unacceptable.

But it gets worse. Today I was going to go for a longer drive to a destination I'm unfamiliar with. So I put on a podcast via the stereo and also run my turn-by-turn navigation app. As I've done for the last 4-5 years in my BMW via my $20 Bluetooth receiver plugged into the aux port.

THE SUBARU HEAD UNIT SOMEHOW AUTOMATICALLY MUTES THE TURN-BY-TURN DIRECTIONS. WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. F**K.

So now I'm driving along, listening to my podcast, and it cuts out whenever Google Maps tells me to do something. The screen literally says "MUTE" at the bottom. I don't even know how the head unit can tell that the phone is trying to read me some directions but it seems like somebody at Subaru has actively put a lot of work into inconveniencing me and trying to make me so angry that I might have a seizure.

Am I not understanding something here? Is this how things are supposed to work with this car? Is my brand new car stereo supposed to be unspeakably worse than an $8 Bluetooth speaker that I can buy in the checkout line of my grocery store? I don't even understand what's going on. I can't be the only person thinking this?? Am I doing something wrong here somehow??

It's not you, the factory head unit really is that terrible. It is slow, connects at random with BT and sounds like garbage. The only real solution is to upgrade to an aftermarket head unit, which will fix all of those problems. I bought my BRZ planning from day one to upgrade to an aftermarket head unit because I wanted Android Auto (which wasn't available as a factory option for the 2017 model) and I could tell even on the test drive that the factory 6.2" system was garbage.

Yeah might go that route.

At this point, I've found a workaround... I usually listen to podcasts in my car... so after I start the car, I start playing the podcast I want on my phone and rewind it 90 seconds... when the car finally connects to my phone, it's playing what I want and I haven't missed any content (usually)...

It's an embarrassment that I have to do this, but it's working. (Except that it still mutes turn-by-turn directions. But at least I can listen to my podcasts.)

I contacted Subaru support about this and am in an email conversation with them. Ideally they would release a firmware update to their device to fix these problems but I'm not holding my breath obviously.

The base HU in the 13' is way worse.

shoulda gone with the civic

What's super annoying (other than the head unit being horrible) is that I'm pretty sure I know what the problem is.

Every Bluetooth audio device that doesn't have a screen works exactly as you would expect/hope. Earbuds, headphones, portable speakers, etc. etc.

The car's head unit has a screen and tries to be too smart by half. It wants to display the name of the track you're playing, the album art, the other songs in the current playlist, etc. This presumably requires the head unit to interface with the phone via a different Bluetooth profile and that's causing all the problems.

If the head unit just went the simpler route of just connecting and playing audio, I'm sure it would be fine.

So what kills me is that there isn't a button to do exactly this in the UI somewhere. It seems like it would be super easy to add via firmware, maybe have it be a setting somewhere, or hell, even an easter egg that they could tell customers about if they complained...

As a software developer myself, I'm pretty sure I could sort all of this out if they gave me access to the source code and a couple weeks. But of course that's never going to happen.

Yes, yes, if I want to listen to a podcast in my BRZ then I'm not "getting it."

I should just drive the car to the closest track and leave the keys in it and Uber home.

IMO, Bluetooth sounds terrible. I have a headphone-in cord that I use on my new Sony head unit for music. ( I suppose that a pod cast would sound the same though) The sony is my third head unit. I replaced the stock unit with a DVD Pioneer screen that I never used.


The Sound is MUCH better from my new sony compared to either of the older units.


A software developer; you must have listened to your career counselor. :thumbsup:

Talk about your #firstworldproblems.

There is a delay at start-up, but I think you are forgetting that most of the devices you are talking about working better are single function devices. They are remote speakers. The headunit allows control of the device which means there is more handshaking going on, etc. Also as it starts up it is potentially connecting to GPS, looking for satellites, etc.

In my several vehicles I have higher end Kenwood and Pioneer units in most. They basically all have some delay when you start the car, and all of them try to automatically play the last thing you were playing. The integration varies between the models but there is some "pain point" in every one.

That said, the '14 Scion Pioneer I have in my 86 probably is the worst of them in terms of connectivity. Overall, I think the headunit is underpowered (CPU wise) and that is the primary issue. Oddly enough it is the one where the voice recognition seems to work the best though.

well yes it does appear you aren't getting it if the headunit is already this aggravating this early in the relationship lol. in that whole thread we warned you this car is literally about driving, most everything else is pretty shitty even compared to a typical compact/midsize sedan as toyota and subaru spent the bare minimum for non driving related features. either way, it is very simple and affordable to replace the headunit...

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.

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.

I wouldn't go that far, but they all have their quarks. For example the Pioneer 4200NEX I have in my Suburban starts playing Bluetooth almost the instant you turn on the car, but it takes it "forever" (probably 15 seconds) to get to the point where you can enter a waypoint in the GPS. The Kenwood in MomHawk's Mustang is the opposite. Mapping comes up quickly but Bluetooth takes a few seconds.

I agree that would make the most sense is for it to focus on whatever you were using last, first.

Overall The 4200NEX seems to be the best all around of the three or four I have except for it's insistence on a playa' 70's disco color schemes and interface. It has a control app for your phone where your corider can enter things into the GPS, and it updates maps through your phone.

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?

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.

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?

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

maybe it's your phone

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Firmware updates are presumably done by putting the new firmware on a USB flash drive, plugging in the drive while the car is off, turning on the car, and waiting for the update to finish.

There's no reason why the firmware couldn't be distributed on a web page and consumers could update their own head unit firmware. This is what happens with firmware updates for other devices like wifi routers and AV receivers. And, I assume, third-party aftermarket head units that are better supported.

But you're right, without some kind of legal obligation, of course these companies aren't going to be motivated to fix performance problems with head units like these.

I agree that that's shortsighted but for a different reason. Rather as an incentive to get customers back into the dealership, I see that as a mitigation for frustrating customer experiences. I mean, it's just a stereo, not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but these "infotainment" units are becoming more and more important to people. Even in the mid-2000s, Ford used Windows CE for their head units for a while and they experienced a record number of car returns under lemon laws because it kept crashing and otherwise eff'ing up. Before I bought my BRZ, I read a review of a Toyota 86 that had nothing but praise for the car except that half the review was negative because the author was constantly furious with the infotainment unit. So it clearly matters to a lot of people, just not to the point where any of these companies are literally forced to do anything about it.

My 6.2” factory head unit is giving me the shits over the last couple of days. It only connects to my phone (iPhone 6s) after a couple of cycles of rebooting the phone and powering down the head unit.

Then when it does connect, it’s gotta play something, so it plays the first song on the thing. I’m a little over Take on me, by ah-ha. I mean it’s a great song and all, but every time I drive out the driveway?

And never mind actually trying to choose an album to play using the head unit. The user interface might be able to cope with ten or twenty artists, but I’ve got more than that just under “a”.

Bloody hopeless. Everything else I own works flawlessly with my phone. I think i’ll prioritise swapping something in with CarPlay, as every CarPlay car I’ve driven has just worked.

I use an iPod Classic in my car that has about 5,000 songs on it (fits nicely in the pocket next to the USB port and is black so you can't see it from outside the car). Even directly plugged in, every once in a while my headunit and the iPod decide it needs to start over. My first song is "Dancing Queen" by Abba.

I share your sentiment.

Yeah CarPlay would clearly be better... it's disappointing that the car doesn't come with CarPlay on all models when many other cheaper cars do... although there IS an argument that it might be a cost-saving measure since I imagine that Apple does charge a licensing fee for CarPlay. :/

It might have been lost in a flurry of posts above, but the way I deal with the delay in connecting via Bluetooth is to start playing a song/podcast on my phone when I get in the car. It plays via the phone's speakers, then I start driving to where I'm going, and after a while the phone connects to the stereo and it switches to the stereo. So everything goes as expected except the podcast is playing from my phone in my pocket for ~30 seconds, which is stupid, but I've gotten used to it.

If the stereo isn't connecting at all then I'd would ask Subaru to replace the head unit under warranty. I doubt they would give you the option, but MAYBE they'd be willing to put in the 7" unit with CarPlay instead, to solve the problem... ?

You know, I always figured the 2013 base HU was a piece of junk too, but I tried streaming BT audio last weekend and it worked like a charm. Connected instantly to my phone (Moto X4) on startup too. :iono:

I didn't even know the HU supported BT audio streaming to be honest. :bonk:

First thing I always do when I get in my car is plug my phone in. Bluetooth audio is horrific, and frankly every stereo in any car outside of the luxury realm is on the poor side.

Subaru's are known to be even worse. It just comes with the territory.

I tried plugging my phone into the stereo but didn't like it for some reason... is it possible you can't use the stereo's phone functionality when an iPhone is plugged in via USB?

I do it all the time. Now from what I've seen about the actual head units issues, I would not be shocked if the one you have has some sort of idiotic screw up that wouldn't allow it. Different years seem to have different software, which have different idiosyncrasies, but the basic gist is that Subaru has never included a stereo in their vehicles actually worth having. If you have a free day it probably wouldn't hurt to drive by the dealership and talk to them about it, I am sure someone there has some sort of way to beat them into relative submission. If you actually like reasonable sound quality and music odds are even a mid tier aftermarket head unit will be both vastly superior sound quality wise and easier to figure out.

My wife's 17 Impreza has the upgraded, top of the, bestest of the best, super-duper, extra $5,000,000,000, ultra great, optional 10" HU in it. It has been back to the dealer 6 times because it just stops working or there is a recall on it. About 10% of the time when you start the car it freezes up on the load screen just to decide to reboot 30 seconds before you shut the car off at the end of the drive. The phone connects or not like some electronic version of Deal or No Deal. Sometimes it decides it is 1 PM (no other time always 1 PM) at 6 PM (always 6 PM) and all in all is the simply the biggest piece crap electronic device I have ever dealt with. And I have dealt with some pretty crappy electronic devices in my day.


I have never once had any issue of any kind with the stock Pioneer unit in my 14 FRS. Not a single hic up.

Cool, I'll try plugging my phone in via USB again sometime then.

As for sound quality, I have no complaints. The stereo factory defaults have a TON of sound post-processing. No wonder people complain about the sound quality. Once you turn all that s**t off, I think it sounds fine.

Specifically, for the 6.2" head unit, I would say make sure the graphic equalizer is flat, turn off the "Sound Restorer", turn off the "Volume Smoother", turn off the "Virtual Bass", and make sure the "Vocal Image Control" point is the same location as the overall balance point.

Come on now.. every head unit in these cars have always sucked. Waiting to listen to audio without frustration isn't really that crazy of a thing. I forgot how terrible the HU was until I drove my new-to-me brz off the trailer. It is worse than every head unit I've had in any of my cars for at least the last 8-9 years.

ok but when did I ever say the HU was good? Still a silly thing to cry over, I was way too busy enjoying the ride the first few thousand miles on both my twins, screw listening to a half baked sound system, whereas OP was already worried even before buying his twin ;)