[motrek]

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??