Question about Bluetooth

[Scorpion8]

My wife's old iPhone 6 connects with her new 2014 Subaru Forester Harman-Kardon system before she even opens the door (literally). My Samsung (and older HTC) phones won't connect with my Kenwood Excelon KDC-X798 system until I'm halfway down the street. And then each time I get out of the car and it reconnects, I have to push PLAY a couple times to get it to start playing again. Hers picks up at the exact point she turned off the ignition and restarts seamlessly.

Ideas? I've made sure I have the latest BT driver on the phone(s), the head unit might be an older version.

 

[Mbrooks420]

Her car is probably constantly poling, and the Kenwood isn’t.

 

[brokkanic]

Chalk it up to the difference between android and apple.

It's easier for manufacturers to plan for interfacing with apple because they have 1 platform across multiple phones models. Whereas android has multiple platforms across multiple devices. So most manufacturers are left with a 'so long as it connects' approach with android.

 

[Mbrooks420]

The difference here probably isn’t Android vs Apple, it’s the factory Subaru electronics VS an old Kenwood Excelon.

 

[brokkanic]

Lol. That's probably true too.

However I'm also speaking from experience. In my '15 XLT MFT my wife's iphone vs my S8 performs just like the OP's Forrester reference. In my '03 XLT with my Kenwood Excelon double din the story is the same.

 

[Scorpion8]

The Subaru has a really nice HK system (and they don't make them for after-market) but the Kenwood was put in the Explorer about the same timeframe, circa 2014. So I'm not sure it's that "old" or at least no more old than the same vintage factory-HK in the Subbie. I did figure out that I was connecting thru the "BT Audio" source mode, and there is a Pandora and iHeart Radio source modes that I had disabled because they are BT-anyway. But re-enabling the "Pandora" source mode and using Pandora from my Samsung it does connect a lot quicker and also auto-restarts without a lot of fiddling around. It's not as quick as the wife's system, which connects up before she has even thought about it, but it is somewhat quicker.

 

[Scorpion8]

The difference here probably isn’t Android vs Apple, it’s the …. old Kenwood Excelon.

An update on this saga. Turns out it was the HTC phone Bluetooth implementation. About 6 months ago I got a new phone, a Samsung J7. It connects with the Kenwood before I have my seat belt clicked. If the source mode is set to Pandora, it fires it up on the phone and starts to play the listed station without me touching the phone. It's not as fast as the wife's iPhone and Subaru factory HK system, but very close and entirely livable. Much happier now.