Faulty? Bluetooth questions

[SiDziner]

New XT user. I have some questions about bluetooth. I wonder if the odd things I am experiencing are "normal" and consistent with others experience or if I have a faulty XT.

1) Lispy Navigation voice
MP3 music sounds fine through bluetooth. However, the navigation voice is lispy. for example when it says "stop light" it sounds like "Shhhtop light". I would classify the voice as sounding kind of "noisy" in general over bluetooth. Oddly, the navigation voice playing through the built in speaker sounds fine, no lisp at all.

2) Occasional navigation voice disappearance
This has happened a few times, but it doesn't happen regularly at all. I will start a route and get no navigation voice prompts. Music is still playing fine through the earbuds, just no voice. Visually, navigation is working, just no audio navigation voice. The navigation voice isn't playing through the built in speaker either. I have manipulated the audio mixer in all ways, tried stopping the navigation and restarting, tried stopping the music, disconnected earbuds and reconnected (including turning off and on), muting/unmuting XT, turning bluetooth on/off on XT, turning XT on/off (hold power button for complete shutdown). None of these consistently fix the problem. Eventually after going through these actions several times in different orders, eventually the navigation voice starts working again, but I haven't been able to decipher a pattern of what fixes it.

3) button sounds
possibly related to 2, but not a big deal. I have button sounds turned on. Occasionally, the button sounds aren't transmitted to the bluetooth earbuds. sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

4) driver assistance alerts
I have all Rider alerts turned on (animal crossing, railroad crossing, schools, curves). I have Speeding Alert and Reduced Speed Tone ticked. Under Proximity alerts, I have "single tone" selected in Audio, and "Garmin red light cameras" ticked under Alerts. I thought I was supposed to get an audio beep whenever any of these things happened. I know the XT knows these hazards are present because I see the yellow icons for "school" and "curve" show up on the lower left side of the map, and the Speed indicator is shaded red when speeding. But I have not gotten an audio alert for any of these situations. Am I misunderstanding how this is supposed to work?

[lkraus]

1) Try lowering the volume at your headset while the navigation voice is speaking. Sometimes different volume levels are saved for different sources.

2) Usually this occurs when your maps are in conflict. You may also see that distance to the next turn is not displayed. Go to Settings>Map & Vehicle>myMaps and turn off the duplicates.

3) I have no idea.

4) This might also be related to 2).

[SiDziner]

thanks for responding.

1) I tried lowering the volume while navigation voice is speaking down in increments, all the way down to the point I could barely hear it. i confirmed that it was just the "voice" channel being lowered by playing some music, and the music remained at normal volume, but the voice was really low. That didn't help, the nav voice is still lispy.

2) i will try turning off all maps except the CN North America NT. The issue is so random and infrequent, it will be a while before i can confirm if this "fixes" the problem.

4) I turned all the maps off except CN North America NT and tried. It didn't make a difference. However, while doing test cases, I discovered that if I am not playing Music, I do get an audible tone when entering a school zone. Turn the music back on and no tone. Is this how alerts are supposed to work? If so, that is basically a useless feature.

[BrAtKo]

Hi I can confirm the same behavior during music playing there is no audible alerts of the speed and cyclops. I don't mind that but it is that way.

[SiDziner]

Hi I can confirm the same behavior during music playing there is no audible alerts of the speed and cyclops. I don't mind that but it is that way.

Thank you. At least I know that isn't broken on my XT. Though it makes absolutely no sense why they don't send the alert tones while playing music. Even if they have to stop the music like they do for voice navigation, that would be better than not at all.

What about lispy navigation voice? Is the nav voice clear over bluetooth for you?

[axil]

I think what you are experiencing is due to the way the XT is pairing with your Bluetooth device. Bluetooth has a bunch of different modes, known as "profiles". There are high quality ones for music and lower quality ones for phone headsets. The lower quality ones limit high frequencies which why you would get the "shh" sound rather than a crisp "s" sound. Are you pairing with a comm device? If you go to Bluetooth settings on the XT you should see a picture of either a headset or musical notes or both activated. See if you can turn off headset and just use music and see if that makes a difference, if it even lets you do that. I'm pretty sure the behavior will depend on your paired bluetooth device.

I haven't seen this problem on the XT, but my old 660 would occasionally just switch profiles while I was riding, making the music sound really crappy, and would have to be powered off and then back on to fix it. On that unit I also had to turn on the bluetooth device before powering up the GPS to get it to use the correct setting.

[axil]

Forget what I said! I just tried it and if apparently if you turn off headphone pairing it also turns off voice navigation, only music.

The effect is certainly high-frequency clipping. Some voices may have a less noticeable effect than others. I will experiment with that on my next ride.

[SiDziner]

Forget what I said! I just tried it and if apparently if you turn off headphone pairing it also turns off voice navigation, only music.

The effect is certainly high-frequency clipping. Some voices may have a less noticeable effect than others. I will experiment with that on my next ride.

Thanks for checking. I tested it last night and I was about to respond with exactly that ... Disabling the headphone connection moved voice nav back to the built in speaker, and music remained playing in earbuds.

I have tried it with three different makers of inexpensive earbuds. Same nav voice audio distortion on all of them . Music sounds fine. If others have the same issue, I can deal with it. Not ideal, but at least I could stop trying to figure out if my XT is working correctly.

[SiDziner]

Hi I can confirm the same behavior during music playing there is no audible alerts of the speed and cyclops. I don't mind that but it is that way.

FWIW, after more testing, I determined that red light camera alerts work exactly as you would expect. Music stops, alert tone is played, then music continues. But none of the other alerts behave that way (the tone isn't played when listening to music)

The red light alert is listed in a separate menu. Coincidence? Or maybe an indication they are implemented differently than the other alerts.

[axil]

I have tried it with three different makers of inexpensive earbuds. Same nav voice audio distortion on all of them . Music sounds fine. If others have the same issue, I can deal with it. Not ideal, but at least I could stop trying to figure out if my XT is working correctly.

I am using fairly high quality earbuds and I hear the same artifact, so your XT is probably fine.