I’ve been using my new Fairphone 6 (Murena) for almost a month now.
Overall, I’m satisfied with it, but I’m experiencing a few issues, one of which is quite strange…
I can connect it to Bluetooth devices (speakers, cars, etc.) without any problems.
BUT… from there, I encounter some problems:
I can make calls, but if I receive one, I can’t hear the person calling me (no problems with standard calls or speakerphone).
I can listen to music, but sometimes the sound is very “metallic/robotic”, or sometimes the sound is choppy.
I have tested other smartphones on these Bluetooth devices, and everything works fine…
I use my FP6 with /e/OS 3.0.4 for 1 month now.
I have a similar issue with Bluetooth.
I can connect earpieces, everything seems to be right. I can listen music and make gsm or voip calls. I can hear people and people hear me.
I can connect the FP6 on my car. Music is ok. I can hang up a call, or make a call. But when the call is established, I cannot hear people.
To add to my own post;
The on/off/on/off connection becomes steady when I enable bluetooth tethering in the ‘connected devices’ section of the settings.
On Bluetooth? @PKT - did you establish a connection using a data cable first, or does your FP6 show as a Bluetooth device in your car, which you can connect to, then it plays music through the speakers?
Mine connects via bluetooth, but when I press play, music only comes from the phone speakers, not car speakers. Truly annoying lol. In two year old Toyota Yariss Cross and all other phones (old iPhone, friends android) connects fine. I was thinking it’s an e/OS problem but sounds like it’s possible.
Is the car’s head unit actually Android itself? In which case perhaps the head unit resists connection to a degoogled device for some reason. As a test did you try with Advanced Privacy all toggled off?
No connection via cable before.
I turned on Bluetooth on FP, then start a research with the car and phone was paired.
Everything is OK with music. OK also with calls excepted sound from caller and it seems that the caller doesn’t hear me…
I have the same issue than OP regarding calls.
To bypass this issue I must either call my caller back or take my phone while driving to put him/her on loud speaker (and shut my radio off as its playback resumes).
Until I switched to FP6, I never had troubles.
@aibd My car is older than Android Auto and is a bare bluetooth device.
TBH, it looks like the phone uses phone speaker and mic but considers to be on bluetooth ones.
It’s also not possible to switch to phone speaker/mic.
I dont think it’s Advanced Privacy - it connects to the head unit in the car, and actually shows me alerts for SMS messages. but calls aren’t coming through the car, and music isn’t coming through the car.
I’lll check the head unit settings in case it’s set to Carplay by default for some reason, I’m interested to rule that one out, since all other devices before FP6 have been iPhones (I’ve disconnected my old iPhone too).
I’ll report back on this… back in the car on Saturday
I have sporadic drop outs of my bluetooth audio 1 out of every 4 operations on Fairphone 4. Recent additional problem is the bluetooth is getting choppy and sound is for some reason starting to be affected when I leave the range of wifi?? Not sure why this is happening now. The music app will also completely shut off when the bluetooth drops out.
I sometimes have choppy audio on the FP3 as well. For me, it helps, if I deactivate Bluetooth and then activate it again. I think it also helps if I deactivate mobile data, but I’m not 100% sure about that.
For music, there is also something else that you could try. The phone supports multiple codecs like SBC, AAC, aptX and aptX Adaptive. I don’t know if it’s possible to select which codec is used for your connection on the FP6, but at least on the FP3 I can deactivate aptX. I’d play around with those settings, e.g. deactivate AAC. I found that codec to be quite unstable at least on Windows, not sure if it can be the same for other devices.
My wife and me are both brand new happy users of FP6 under /e/OS since today. (replacing our Fairphones 4, also on /e/).
As everything went fine during the installation of /e/OS + back-up & restore of our apps, etc… We both encounter serious issues with Bluetooth calls in our cars as well.
In our 2 cars “Seat Alhambra 2014” and “Ford Fiesta 2017”, we are not able to use Bluetooth calls properly in both of them. Pairing was done in both system without a glitch, but sound and microphone are still running on the Fairphones 6 and do not redirect to the Bluetooth unit in the cars. However Bluetooth works pretty well to stream music; in this case the music plays correctly in the car’s high speakers. (No Android Auto in those cars).
It was working pretty well with our previous FP4s.
I tried all troubleshooting (de-pair - repair, clean network settings cache - restart everything several times, etc…) nothings works, you can answer or end a call from the car unit, but neither the sound nor the microphone works in the car. This means we have to continue talking on the phone while holding the smartphone to our ear.
I will check if an issue has already been opened on Gitlab, and if not, I will create one, as this is problematic for people who spend a lot of time in the car.
So, now I’ve took a little time to read all this topic, I realize that there’s a major issue with Bluetooth calls in car with FP6. For those who “don’t hear anything” from their car’s speakers, I believe that the sound still comes out on the phone itself.
Thank you very much if you could comment the above issue ticket in Gitlab, indicating your car model and approx. release date year. This would help developers to further investigate and eventually find a fix…
Good news from me, been able to play music in my car! Not tested phone calls yet (I dont get many of those) and get text notifications through the car’s own head unit. But nothing else (not doing Android Auto until the google requirement is gone). But that’s progress for me
I’ve never had any such issue with my FP6. Both 3.0.4 and 3.1.2. My car is a VW Touran 2023.
I didn’t bother installing Android Auto. I’m only talking about calls and music going through the car audio + mic system using Bluetooth.
So unless there is something very specific with my FP6, looks like the car running it also has an impact.
Thank you for your feedback, which is helpful. Do incoming calls also work in your car?
On my 2 cars, if I initiate the call FROM the unit, it works, but if I initiate the call FROM the device, it doesn’t work. Incoming calls do not work neither (calls remain on the smartphone).
