Which Phone? (2014 BRZ)
 

I am completely new to headunits with cell phone integration. I just got my BRZ and since I just moved back the USA from the UK I need a new cell phone ASAP as well.


How useful is the phone integration? As far as phones go my preferences are Windows > Android > Apple... which as far as I have seen is the opposite of the ability to integrate with our headunits. What am I really missing out on by not having the aha (windows phones don't have aha)?
Is the cell phone integration anything lifechanging enough that it should influence my phone purchasing decision?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4. I really like the phone (rooted and custom rom flashed), was a long time Apple user. The AHA app is a great idea, I really like it. Meaning I really like it when it works, about 1/2 the time it doesn't connect properly. I have to force quit it and reopen, some times even reboot the phone.

If I were in the market for a new phone right now I would get a Nexus 5.

Outside of the AHA connection issues at time, there are no issue with my S4 connecting to the BRZ nav head unit. Works fine streaming via BT, reads my text messages to me, call sound decent for being hands free.

I've had two phones during the short time of owning my BRZ. The first was a Samsung Galaxy S2, and it wouldn't automatically connect 30% of the time. It's easy to manually connect, but that gets old real quick. I now have an iPhone, and it always connects automatically but the car multimedia option is chosen 50% of the time when I pick up a call.

Thanks... I looked at the Nexus 5 and really liked it - but... not available on Verizon :( Grrr stupid Verizon they have the best coverage and good prices but they don't have the good phones (2 phones I was most interested in are the nokia 1020 and the nexus, neither which are on Verizon).

The iPhone 5S is really good at connecting automatically but as @BRZTimeTrials mentioned, it tends to start the music on its own when you don't want to (like turning up the volume knob when in Bluetooth mode on the HU). Becomes very annoying, very quickly.

Also, if you're into that kind of thing, Siri is unusable in my car as it times out before I have the opportunity to speak. And there still doesn't seem to be a way to "trigger" any kind of BT listening mode from the HU (like I've been able to do with my $40 Motorola S305 headset for the last 4+ years...)

I've tried the 5S, Galaxy S4 and my current phone, the Nexus 5. The GS4 would connect 50% of the time but both my iPhone 5S and Nexus 5 connect 85% of the time (phone only). I'm subscribed to Pandora and with my Nexus 5, I can leave Bluetooth and Pandora on and as soon as I get in the car, it starts to play and when I get out, it stops. I can't say I've seen a noticeable difference in battery life in doing this either.

:( more fuel for my "I wish I could get a Nexus" fire... damn it Verizon!!

I've got a Nokia 920 and the 2013 Canadian BRZ head unit - the regular double-din Pioneer. Generally takes about 20 seconds to automatically make the connection when the car is started.


The unit imports my contacts correctly and places and receives phone calls correctly. I also had it reading me text messages for a while, but I must have changed a setting on the phone inadvertently because that stopped.


Audio wise, the head unit functions the same way that a pair of Bluetooth headphones would. So play/pause/next/previous work fine, but choosing songs and playlists must be done on the phone itself.

I have the Lumia 920 and it connects everytime to the factory nav unit, I don't miss not having Aha since I have xbox music and it streams any music I want to listen to. I haven't had any issues at all.

Do you have GDR3 installed? There's an additional option under bluetooth advanced that you might want to check out. I don't have a BRZ, but for what it's worth my Lumia 920 also works flawlessly with my FR-S head unit. :) My 1020 did as well.

I'll check that out, though today hands free texting worked flawlessly. Thanks.

I have the GS4; it's connected every time automatically, and i haven't ever lost the signal for more then a second or two, and even that's only happened a few times. I mostly use it for music, only a few times have i made calls with it. Hands free dialing sucks, at least with the stock HU.

I use a moto x and it connects and stars playing media automatically without fail. It also has really useful driving assists where it detects when you are driving and reads messages out loud through bluetooth and tells you who is calling. It also lets you set your car bluetooth as a trusted device and prevents your phone from activiting the screen lock while connected. It also has really useful voice commands that can be activated without unlocking the phone but I haven't messed with it enough to see if I can get that working in the car.

When in doubt get an iPhone. It will have the most widespread support.

I have had a Samsung S3/S4 and an iPhone 4S/5C (work upgrades) and all have their own issues with our units. This is on a 2013 model, and I'm not sure how much the 2014 head unit has changed.

USB Connection
The apple phones are nice if you have music in your iTunes that you want to play. The connected phone has a better sound quality vs. using bluetooth, so playing from a library the iPhone wins. This also means you don't have to worry about BT connection if you are just interested in playing music.

It wins mainly because I have yet to be able to connect the Samsung phones as anything but a "media device" via the USB port. For me this has meant that I can only BT stream my music from my Samsung phone.

BT Streaming/Connection
My iPhones did connect on a more consistent basis, maybe 80% of the time. The real issue was that many times as soon as it connected it would start playing the first song from my iTunes list. You end up hating that song. Also, many time when trying to stream google music/pandora, the iTunes library will start playing first. It's annoying.

The Samsung did worse in initial connection, maybe 50% of the time, but once connected it did only what I asked it to do.

Hands-Free Calling
Almost totally pointless at highway speeds. Most people I talk to cant really hear me well, or complain about the road noise. In the city it works fine. The hands free button/program works well enough, but is clunky and it's a 5 step process to call anyone.

Hands free navigation almost never works.


In conclusion, our head unit sucks. Hard.

So far connections have been fast and flawless on my Nexus 5.
The only issue is when I receive a text message it sometimes doesn't put who it's from. Instead, it just puts a "." And won't read the message out.

My HTC One S has always had an issue where bluetooth audio will skip every second, toggling bluetooth off/on usually fixes this.

I have a plan to start over on Jan 15th. Should I get the galaxy S4 for mad cheap or should i wait for the S5?

Actually I think it's far more phone than head unit when it comes to connectivity issues. My phone works 100% of the time, every time, which is a hugely awesome compared to my "expensive" head unit in my Ford Focus. It works great in the "base" FR-S head unit, and the 10 series which is a different head unit. If the head units had issues in general then I should be having issues as well at least part of the time. I think most of the variation lies with phone OS versions, not just Android or iPhone but also what version of the OS they have, custom ROM, etc. It does not work via USB, but it's not supposed to. Once again not a head unit "issue" per se since it's not supposed to be supported in the first place. I prefer bluetooth anyway for convenience, and I think most do. I'm guessing the USB cable support is more for older devices like iPods. And in terms of Bluetooth connectivity, there are lots of Bluetooth profiles that various phones support, for example:


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3647
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/Ho...aq?signin=true
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile"]Bluetooth profile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Android of course will be all over the place based on OS version, ROM, manufacturer, etc. And the mic quality/cabin noise isn't really the fault of the head unit. People hear me fine in mine, more so when I angle my head towards the mic when talking. That's not really a function of the head unit I'm guessing since mic's are probably universal?

I have a Galaxy S4 Google Play edition and I never have any issues with bluetooth connecting or playing music and making phone calls. Only takes a few seconds to connect when I start my car.

Since you have Verizon I'd say get the Moto X. It runs almost completely stock Android and gets timely updates. It actually got it faster then my Nexus 4 and S4 GPe.

Just for kicks I went and looked up the BT profiles the base head unit supports. Here they are from page 38 of the manual:

A2DP: Advanced Audio Distribution Profile
AVRCP: Audio/Video Remote Control Profile
HFP: Hands Free Profile
PBAP: Phone Book Access Profile
OPP: Object Push Profile
SDP: Service discovery protocol


To make things even more fun, there are version numbers of those profiles, who knows what is supported in terms of that. :P


DOH! I completely forgot you said BRZ, let me try to find that info for you. When I was making my point about there being far too much variation between phones while the head unit stays the same, I somehow switched to FR-S mode. :) Sorry!


Okay found this link:


http://www.subaru.com/owners/resourc...oth/index.html# (click phone compatibility on the left)


It's likely outdated but could be useful. I didn't see an audio manual anywhere to check bluetooth profiles, I'll keep looking. Then you can compare the head unit to whatever phone you research to see what profiles are supported.

Im in the car for longer trips so the USB works well for me. I guess thats not normal though. I do notice a distinct difference in sound quality between the USB and streaming (when I had the iPhone) so if someone is an audiophile direct connection could be a big deal.

Thanks for the help. After lots of research and going to the store to try them, I settled on the Moto X. I will post an update once I get it and work with it and the BRZ HU for a while (phone will take approx 1 week to arrive from Motorola).

An update now that I have been using the Moto X with the BRZ for a few weeks.


Bluetooth: The Bluetooth connection strength between the car and the phone is amazing. I left my phone in my bedroom (which is 3 rooms over from the garage) and the phone still connects. I have never had a Bluetooth disconnect.

Aha: The Aha connection is a bit weird, it doesn't always work. Aha is aware of this problem with all Subaru head units and says they are working on it. I finally figured out how to make it work nearly 100% of the time - keep your Bluetooth turned off on your phone until after you start the car (and turn on head unit if not on) then turn on the bluetooth on the phone and allow it to connect. If you do that it will work almost every time - if still not close all the apps on your phone, turn off the Bluetooth and turn it back on, it will work then. The sound quality of Aha varies a lot between stations and some stations don't work at all on the Moto X. I have a trouble ticket open with Aha on this and they said they were able to reproduce my problem and are working on a fix

Call Quality: Everyone I have called via the Moto X and the BRZ has said the sound quality of the car is great.

USB:

This was a big downer for me. I special ordered a Moto X with a lot of memory in order to direct connect USB only to find this does not work on any of the newer versions of Android. The BRZ head unit only accepts USB from iOS or a connection as Mass Storage - which google disabled on the newer Android phones. This means only streaming with Bluetooth with the issue that you cannot use the headunit for browsing / skipping etc when connected as AUX or Bluetooth like you could on USB so that is a bigger letdown than the sound quality.

Bluetooth Sound Quality: From what I have been able to read Bluetooth sound quality is held back by the codec, not the bandwidth. Bluetooth audio has the bandwidth to support lossless CD quality level but it uses a crappy codec that is worse than MP3. There is a new much better codec but apparently most head units, including the BRZ, do not support it. The new codec is aptX and Motorola has it on their phones - and while they have not listed aptX explicitly on the Moto X, it would be strange for them to have it on all their new phones except the Moto X (and the moto X chipset should support it). However I must say though not nearly as good as CD the sound over Bluetooth between the BRZ and the moto X is not as bad as I have heard with other car + phone connections and is certainly better than the FM transmitter method I had to use on an older car.

Overall: All in all I am quite pleased with the Moto X, all the downsides are downsides with Android integration or the Bluetooth standards (from what I have read the moto X can support Bluetooth audio that should be as good as lossless if the head unit supports it, which ours doesn't) and are not anything specific with the Moto X.


Outside of the car stuff the Moto X is small, light and actually will last a full day of usage without a recharge. I am a bit cranky that only a couple weeks after I ordered they cut the price of the wood from 100 down to 25 and have 4 woods to choose from (when I bought it was only bamboo) as well as lowering the price of the phone... but that type of thing is unavoidable - it seems every time I buy a phone only a week later there is a price cut or better features LOL.