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Samsung Galaxy S3 Bluetooth Connectivity with Subaru and other blue tooth enabled vehicles

How do you rate Samsung Galaxy S3 Bluetooth Connectivity

  • Should reimburse buyers of S3 if it looses court case against Apple

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    48

Subie1

Lurker
Aug 22, 2012
1
0
Hey Everyone,

I spent the better part of 1.5 hours on with Samsung regarding the connectivity issues with their bluetooth on the Samsung Galaxy S3. I thought some of you would be interested in knowing they have no fix in place at present time for those of us who cant connect our S3 to our cars automatically. I own a 2012 Subaru Forester, before i bought the S3 I owned the Galaxy Vibrant and apple Iphone2, along with other phones, each of which connected seemlesly with my car's bluetooth. With the S3 I am forced to manually connect the phone to my car's bluetooth each time I turn the car on. It is annoying and downright ridiculous. I contacted Subaru because they claim on their sight that the S3 is fully compatible with the 2012 Subaru Forester and that it connects automatically, well that is not the case. Samsung higher echelon tech support claims that the S3 may not be bluetooth compatible with all cars, that to me is a crock. Well bottom line is that Samsung claims they are working on a fix with the next software update "Jelly Bean", but no guarantee it will fix problem and they are not sure when this will be released. I think Samsung has a big problem going forward as possible class-action suits against it, as well as the problem currently in court with Apple. If apple wins this suit Samsung will be forced to take the S3 and their Samsun pad off the market. We should stay tuned as we may need to get refunds from Samsung or our phone providers if Apple wins.
 
It works with my 2012 Lexus just fine. I connect both my phone and music player. I can make and receive phone calls without any issue. I can play my music just fine and the name of the song also shows up on my car stereo's display.

The only issue I have ever had would be if I turn my car off and on in quick succession. For some reason, if you do this, the BlueTooth connection gets confused and I have to restart the phone to fix it. The same thing happened when I used my Nokia N97 phone as an exclusive music player. I also used an HTC Desire Z as a phone and never had any such issues, but I don't use it as a music player.
 
Upvote 0
Try using it for Navigation and you will find that the nav voice comes out at the same time the music is playing. It does not pause the music and the music player can not be paused or stopped.

I have a 99 Camry with a Sony Xplod receiver and I had no problems. I do know if I am listening to I heart radio and I make a call the music stops (function is(maybe built in to the app). I also know that if I recieve a call the music doesn't stop. Maybe the function isn't built into the app. Phone makers/builders cannot take into account all the different types of cars to make everyone happy.
 
Upvote 0
To OP, my GS3 is working fine with my 2011 Subaru Impreza's Bluetooth. I had my iPhone working great too and then I found out on another forum that you have to delete any and all previous pairings using only the voice commands built into the Subie radio and then re-pair the new phone also using the radio voice commands. (If you have the same stock radio as mine)

Not sure why it's different than using the radio control knobs for pairing but it did work. My GS3 connects automatically every time I get in the car now and the hands free works perfectly along with music and Nav over Bluetooth. I can also say definitively that music over Bluetooth on the GS3 sounds much better than the iPhone 4S. Quality difference is quite noticeable. In-call audio is also much better and my customers say it is very noticeable when they are talking to me. I find in the car my GS3 is hanging onto calls in low signal spots that would drop my iPhone 4S calls 100% of the time. Very happy new GS3 convert here! :)

Hope you get it working as it's certainly working great in my Subie. Cheers!

P.S., only thing not working is that I don't get track or song info on the radio display over Bluetooth. The last update I did on the iPhone did add this functionality and it was a nice feature. Not a deal breaker though and I believe it will be sorted out with the Jelly Bean update.

James
 
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Upvote 0
Hey Everyone,

I spent the better part of 1.5 hours on with Samsung regarding the connectivity issues with their bluetooth on the Samsung Galaxy S3. I thought some of you would be interested in knowing they have no fix in place at present time for those of us who cant connect our S3 to our cars automatically. I own a 2012 Subaru Forester, before i bought the S3 I owned the Galaxy Vibrant and apple Iphone2, along with other phones, each of which connected seemlesly with my car's bluetooth. With the S3 I am forced to manually connect the phone to my car's bluetooth each time I turn the car on. It is annoying and downright ridiculous. I contacted Subaru because they claim on their sight that the S3 is fully compatible with the 2012 Subaru Forester and that it connects automatically, well that is not the case. Samsung higher echelon tech support claims that the S3 may not be bluetooth compatible with all cars, that to me is a crock. Well bottom line is that Samsung claims they are working on a fix with the next software update "Jelly Bean", but no guarantee it will fix problem and they are not sure when this will be released. I think Samsung has a big problem going forward as possible class-action suits against it, as well as the problem currently in court with Apple. If apple wins this suit Samsung will be forced to take the S3 and their Samsun pad off the market. We should stay tuned as we may need to get refunds from Samsung or our phone providers if Apple wins.
Good luck getting a refund outside of the 14 day window
 
Upvote 0
Hey Everyone,

I spent the better part of 1.5 hours on with Samsung regarding the connectivity issues with their bluetooth on the Samsung Galaxy S3. I thought some of you would be interested in knowing they have no fix in place at present time for those of us who cant connect our S3 to our cars automatically. I own a 2012 Subaru Forester, before i bought the S3 I owned the Galaxy Vibrant and apple Iphone2, along with other phones, each of which connected seemlesly with my car's bluetooth. With the S3 I am forced to manually connect the phone to my car's bluetooth each time I turn the car on. It is annoying and downright ridiculous. I contacted Subaru because they claim on their sight that the S3 is fully compatible with the 2012 Subaru Forester and that it connects automatically, well that is not the case. Samsung higher echelon tech support claims that the S3 may not be bluetooth compatible with all cars, that to me is a crock. Well bottom line is that Samsung claims they are working on a fix with the next software update "Jelly Bean", but no guarantee it will fix problem and they are not sure when this will be released. I think Samsung has a big problem going forward as possible class-action suits against it, as well as the problem currently in court with Apple. If apple wins this suit Samsung will be forced to take the S3 and their Samsun pad off the market. We should stay tuned as we may need to get refunds from Samsung or our phone providers if Apple wins.


My SG3 would not work in my 2011 Nissan Murano until i got the firmware update. After that it works great.

There is no way Samsung will take either product of the market, they would pay apple in a settlement before it came to that.
 
Upvote 0
Try using it for Navigation and you will find that the nav voice comes out at the same time the music is playing. It does not pause the music and the music player can not be paused or stopped.

I tried on my Lexus. When the voice for navigation plays, it silences the music and then the music comes back on after the voice navigation stops.
 
Upvote 0
My S3 automatically connected to my 2011 Subaru WRX each time I turned on the car. The only issue I had was that the music would be playing on my phone whether or not I had selected Bluetooth as the source. The stereo would also always display the word "pause" for some reason. On my 2012 Civic Si, it works perfectly, and plays music only if I have selected my phone as the source for music. It also syncs with my contacts and call history, which is really cool.
 
Upvote 0
I have an '07 Sentra, and it works pretty good. The only issue I have is that it plays the caller through the car speakers, but it doesn't use the car's microphone. Instead, it uses the one on the phone. So I have to get the phone out of my pocket which sort of defeats the purpose. Still it's better than my DX, which stopped working all together once I got the Gingerbread update.
 
Upvote 0
I just got a "12 Sonata 2.0T and the bluetooth connectivity is fantastic! I can not only make and receive calls easily but can stream HD quality music from my phone (through the media function) wirelessly and i can't stress enough how amazing the sound quality is - (when you cycle through your mode on the steering wheel for the different stations - preset 1, 2, 3 am/fm, cd, aux, than phone music it starts playing immed. and the channel button works as a track skipper too :D

My only gripe is that randomly sometimes (2% of the time) when i get into the car it wont auto connect and i have to manually connect - but other than that it usually connects the minute i get in the car -
 
Upvote 0
I have a Honda 2012 CR-V and my bluetooth experience pairing the S3 has been a nightmare! IT worked the first time OK. But after that, either the call audio would pair but not the music, or the music would pair but not the call audio.

I have removed and reinstalled the BT device with the car more times than I remember -- and the experience matches the above.

I've seen dozens of threads about this problem spread across several forums, and while this seems to affect Toyota owners the most, it affects others as well.

And, before anyone says it must be the head unit in the car, before I made the mistake of upgrading to the S3, I had an "old" HTC Dinc (Droid Incredible) and that paired the first time -- and every time thereafter -- with no problems at all.

I'm so fed up with having to remove and reinstall the phone every time I want to pair with the car, that I considered taking the phone back and getting an HTC OneX instead -- until I read that this problem affects those as well.
 
Upvote 0
I have a Honda 2012 CR-V and my bluetooth experience pairing the S3 has been a nightmare! IT worked the first time OK. But after that, either the call audio would pair but not the music, or the music would pair but not the call audio.

I have removed and reinstalled the BT device with the car more times than I remember -- and the experience matches the above.

I've seen dozens of threads about this problem spread across several forums, and while this seems to affect Toyota owners the most, it affects others as well.

And, before anyone says it must be the head unit in the car, before I made the mistake of upgrading to the S3, I had an "old" HTC Dinc (Droid Incredible) and that paired the first time -- and every time thereafter -- with no problems at all.

I'm so fed up with having to remove and reinstall the phone every time I want to pair with the car, that I considered taking the phone back and getting an HTC OneX instead -- until I read that this problem affects those as well.

I think this is a Honda bluetooth issue since my wife has the '11 accord and her old Epic 4g stopped connecting and thus never worked again after a few times - but ever since she got the 4S its worked perfectly, .. :thinking:
 
Upvote 0
How about a " works well overall with minor issues"?

So far pretty well with my Mazda, but I haven't encountered every situation yet. Incoming & outgoing calls work fine while streaming music. All my steering wheel controls work fine.

when using the nav voice guidance and streaming music it does not pause the music, but I've yet to try it with other sources such as cd or radio.

It auto connects fine, but only seems to auto connect with the last connected device (if my phone was connected last, my wife's phone won't auto connect; it has to be done manually and vice versa).

Another minor issue is that while "auto play on reconnect" is selected, the S3 stops streaming music when the car is turned off, when the car is restarted and the phone reconnects, I have to start the music manually.
 
Upvote 0
Try using it for Navigation and you will find that the nav voice comes out at the same time the music is playing. It does not pause the music and the music player can not be paused or stopped.

I've found this has to do with the music app rather than the S3 itself.

For example, when I use the Google Music App, the music volume automatically lowers when the Nav Voice is active, then resumes normal volume once the nav voice is done (to me, that's preferable to cutting the music completely).

When using Mixzing, the volume doesn't change and the Nav Voice is mixed in with the music audio.

Another difference I noticed is that when the head unit is disconnected, both Mixzing and Google Music will stop playback. When reconnecting however, Google Music will automatically restart the song where it left off; Mixzing requires me to manually restart the song.

My advice would be to try different music players until you find the one that works best with your preferences.
 
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