Samsung S23 Drive app with XT w/o calls or media

[jnkern]

Have a Samsung s23 phone with Garmin Drive app installed.
My headset is a Sena 50s.
I want to pair the XT with the Sena as a GPS and pair the phone to the Sena for calls and media audio.
I want to pair the phone to the XT for traffic and weather data only.
The problem is that the XT keeps changing the settings so that phone calls and media audio go through it.
How can I prevent that?
I am located in the USA.

Norm Kern

[raesewell]

With the XT connected to your phone go into bluetooth settings on the phone select the XT and disable the features from there.

[jfheath]

Welcome to the forum Norm.

I'll have a go at answering this - but I do not know the Sena 50s, so someone else may need to help out.
But I do know the XT.

First though - have you send your email address as your user name ? That means that it will be published with every post you make. Let us know if you don't want thatto be the case - I can't change it but @Stu might be able to.

Have a Samsung s23 phone with Garmin Drive app installed.
My headset is a Sena 50s.
I want to pair the XT with the Sena as a GPS and pair the phone to the Sena for calls and media audio.
I want to pair the phone to the XT for traffic and weather data only.
The problem is that the XT keeps changing the settings so that phone calls and media audio go through it.
How can I prevent that?
I am located in the USA.

Norm Kern

What you are describing is possible with the Packtalk Edge but the Edge allows two separate BT connections. One to the phone, one to the GPS.

You don't get to choose what data goes to which device on the phone, but you can control it on the XT. But you are fighting against the way that the Zumo wants it to be set up, so there are things that you need to be able to do.

Looking at the manual - the 50s gives instructions on how to pair a phone and/or a second phone, and separately how to make a connection to a GPS. So that suggests to me that the 50s can indeed have two separate BT channels - one to the GPS and one to the phone.

On the XT, these two channels will be identified separately. One pairing for the heaset. One pairing for the phone.

18629.png (44.21 KiB) Viewed 1312 times

So in the Bluetooth connection list on the XT, you should see something like this.

GLIBBT18 is my cheap headset for testing things on at the desk. It does the same job as your Senna as far as the phone is concerned.
Galaxy A41 is my phone. It is running the drive app - but i have not allowed it to install the link with Explore. This means that data can come from drive through to the XT.

The phone symbol implies that the headset is also acting as the phone - which you do not want.
So you need to set this up before the Sena is connected and then click on the list of connections on the XT.
You then need to tap on the phone connection to get a menu that looks like this for my Galaxy A41.


In the BT list shown above, there may also be a 'Smartphone Services' depending upon whether or not you have an Apple phone or an Android. It controls notifications. Android devices control notifications inthe Drive App. iPhone notifications are controlled from the Smart Notifications.

97760.png (40.01 KiB) Viewed 1312 times

Garmin Dive is connected. OK
Phone calls is connected. Not OK - you want that unticked.
Media is connected. Probably not -you want your media to go to the Senna, not to the XT. Untick it.
Drive is connected to the XT.

=====

Now that all sounds very simple - but the problem is that Devices tend to remember what they connected to last. And for devices like the Senna, there is no menu. So if this process doesn't work, then you may have to go round the house and turn off every BT device that any of these - Sena, XT, Phone have ever connected with. Destrol all of the connections in the BT settings in your phone. XT has a 'forget device' option. for each device - use that.

Then do a factory rest of your Sena. Ditto your XT. Destroy all connections in your phone and turn it completely off and let it reboot.

Then start again. Pair the phone with the Senna first.
THen pair the phone with the XT and break the link with the phone.

Restart those a few times to make sure that the pairing is correctly re-established. Its a good idea to make sure that your XT is on when you turn on your Senna - becaue they tend to give up after a short time span (its a minute from my Cardo).

The bit below the ===== might not be necessary, but its what I have had to resort to from time to time. And if I do this, I can always get the links set up exactly as I want them.

Once set up - reconfigure the other connections.

If you don't want the Explore features on the XT, then you can install Drive without enabling Explore - and still keep traffic, weather, road works, up ahead places like fuel. See this and subsequent pages on how to recognise whether or not you set up Explore when you first got your XT; how to setup Explore and how to break the connection with Explore if you have already set it up and no longer want it.

[jnkern]

Thanks for your reply. I've done all the things you have suggested many times.

When I begin a ride, the phone is already on and the Drive app is running on it. I turn on the Sena 50s and let it boot up. The phone connects to it right away, as intended.

When I turn the key on the bike, the zumo XT comes on. Once it gets fully booted up, it connects to the phone and the Sena. When I go to the Bluetooth settings, the phone will be connected for Drive, Calls and Audio. No matter how I had set it before turning it off previously.

I go to the Bluetooth phone settings screen on the XT and uncheck the phone and audio boxes to use only the Drive connection. I start riding. Within 5-10 minutes the XT has reconnected the phone and audio functions and the boxes are checked again.

[Stu]

Hi And welcome to the forum

As @jfheath says let me know if you want to change your email address to a username as thats not very secure and everyone can see your email address

Drop me a private message and I can sort this out for you

The settings you need to change are on your phone not on the XT

connect everything up then go to bluetooth settings then click on the settings for the XT

This is the settings I have using a Cardo Edge

Screenshot_20241214-180409.png (153 KiB) Viewed 1302 times

This is the settings for the Zumo

Screenshot_20241214-180424.png (123.46 KiB) Viewed 1302 times

[jnkern]

Stu,

I think you just helped me with this problem! I followed your instructions and I think the phone settings are what I needed to do. In addition I went to the Drive App settings and removed permission for calls and contacts.

Now when I go to the XT Bluetooth screen, it says Galaxy S23 Connected, plus about every ten seconds it says "connecting." BUT it does not succeed in doing so. I will test it on a ride, but this could be the solution to my problem!

Norm

[danham]

Norm,

I hope your latest settings do what you want, but as mentioned above, you are fighting against what the XT wants to do. I have an XT and Sena SRL2 and tried many pairing combinations until I finally gave up and let the XT be the hub, which is what it desperately wants to do.

The Sena options of pairing as a phone or GPS are very useful as long as the Sena is the hub. I've used those features many times with previous GPS units. But once you bring the XT into the mix, everything has to go through it or you risk unpredictable results.

I think you can get close to what you want by deleting any BT connection between your phone and Sena and then pairing your Sena and your phone to the XT and then digging into the XT settings. That is working for me, but I try not to use my iPhone for calls when riding, so I don't miss the Sena ability to do that and am willing to put up with the XT's clunky phone call interface for rare occasions when needed.

-dan

[jnkern]

One of the reasons I want to have my phone paired to the Sena 50S directly rather than through the XT is that Sena will soon have a firmware update in conjunction with the introduction of the 60S model which offers Mesh 3.0, which has advantages over 2.0 which has been in use the past 4+ years. You will be able to switch between 2.0 and 3.0 but only by using the Sena phone app and rebooting the device.

I ride with lots of different people, and some of them will not have upgraded their firmware so for much of 2025, I will need to easily flip between the two versions so I need ready access to the Sena phone app.

If I can't get the XT to leave my phone alone, I will unpair the phone from the XT and give up the weather and traffic options. I can use Waze and some other app on the phone for live radar in that case.

Will post back on how things go.

Thanks for replies and advice