Using earbuds with XT

[joe68sg1]

I recently bought a Zumo XT.
I want to use my Anker Soundcore Life P3i noise canceling earbuds with the XT while riding.
It pairs up with the earbuds just fine, and the voice guidance seems OK.
But when playing music stored on the XT, the music plays for maybe 20 seconds, and cuts out for 5 seconds, then keeps playing for 20-30 seconds, then cuts out again etc.
Music plays good from my phone to the earbuds, no problems.
Why is this happening?
Is there any remedy for this problem?
Thanks

[jfheath]

This is one of those problems where you might have to eliminate the issues that may be causing it so that you can find out what actually is causing it.

Eg does it only happen when a route is running ? Navigation prompts will cut out the music.

Are your earbuds or your XT repeatedly hunting for other BT devices to connect with ?

Is there something happening with the XT that you cannot hear ? Turn up all volumes in the mixer to see if something else is using the sound output - but your volume is turned down.

Have you paired your phone with the XT via Garmin Drive ? Have you selected the notification settings that Garmin Drive is sending ? if you use social networks a lot, and have all of your alerts going to the XT, this would play havoc with the music.

In cases like this I would perform a hard restart of the XT. Hold in the power button until the screen asks you to turn off. Do that, and then restart.
Break all. BT connections for the XT. Unpair & Forget Devices.
Check the volume and mixer. Turn all volumes up to at least half. Dont forget the master volume.
Play Music from the XT through its built in speaker. Is it Ok ?

Now run a route and play music. Still Ok ?
Then pair your earbuds. Repeat the last two tests - ie without a route running and with a route running.

Then pair your phone to the XT and repeat tests.

Watch the BT screen on the Xt. see if anything is breaking / reconnecting. It may be trying to connect with something else in your house or in your pocket.

I had the same problem with Spotify music playing from my phone by Bt. I think there was too much BT activity, and the choppy playback is what resulted. Passing cars all seeking to connect seemed to be an issue as it got much worse on busy roads. But this never happened with mp3 files on the xt.

[rbentnail]

I'd bet money on it being navigation alerts.

[joe68sg1]

OK, I will try all those things.
Weather not cooperating with riding here, will have to wait for better weather before trying on actual ride.
I will try out the suggestions in the garage.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I am no expert on anything, but just want it to work the best it can.
I do have Drive on my phone and connected to XT. Never thought of to many connections.
I will post results as I get to them.
Thanks

[Peobody]

My bet is on navigation alerts too. I have Cardo Packtalks paired with my pillion. Nav alerts were so disruptive to comm conversations that I turned voice navigation turned off on the XT.

[Oop North John]

Along with navigation alerts I'm pretty sure you can have icon / letter pressing as a selectable "alert", which will also mess up the music etc. That and camera alerts / corners / wildlife alerts you'd probably hear no music.

[Peobody]

I forgot about all of the other alerts. I have them all turned off. I went so far as to add a custom POI file in order to enable a function that would let me set school alerts to a single ding (the default is a double ding). Garmin didn't provide a way to disable them nor is there consideration for non-school hours.

[skellum]

Are the Earbuds connected to your phone directly in addition to your XT? if so, try disabling the Earbud link to your phone and just use the Music app on the XT to play either the stored MP3's you have on the XT, or music streamed from your phone (via the XT)

If required, you should still be able to make/receive calls on your phone via the XT

A bit of a pain having to disable the earbud/phone link each time you ride, but worth it if it solves your problem.

[joe68sg1]

Again, thanks for all the suggestions.
I will try to eliminate each alert and test. Next week is supposed to have a good riding day. I will test it then.
I need the voice guidance as I mostly ride country, so traffic etc is not a concern. Wish they had an alert for critters...lol
Music is nice on longer rides, but I can live without it if necessary.
I do pretty complicated rides, set up with basecamp. Easy to miss a turn.
I live in Kentucky, lots of great riding here ...easy to get lost and hear the banjos start playing
Thanks again

[joe68sg1]

OK, turns out I had my Samsung S10e paired with the XT and the earbuds.
I had tried playing music from the phone to the XT to the earbuds as a test last week.
So, I unpaired the phone from the XT, and the music played fine from the XT to the buds.
So, I re-paired the phone and XT, but disabled music from phone to XT and it still worked fine.
I think that was the problem. I will play around a little more with this, but the problem seems solved.
So, I want to thank everyone that had suggestions and helped me out with this problem.
Great to know people still look out for each other.
Case closed
Thanks again...keep the rubber side down