SXS compatibility with in-built car bluetooth

[RussianOne1]

Given: Xperia S and Volvo XC70 in new body (4 years old). Connection to factory installed bluetooth system goes well. I can access phone book and call lists. Call lists, however, are synced only once at connection.

Outgoing calls - no problem.

Incoming call - when I push a button on the steering wheel to accept the call in 80% of cases there is no sound via loud speakers. The phone still receives the call and I can talk using the phone. After 30-40 seconds while I speak over the phone my car bluetooth says connection to the phone is lost. When I finish the call on the phone it shuts down! It would re-start after 5-7 minutes only!

I had the same with Arc after it got upgraded to later versios of OS (I do not remember when it started).

Tried many things. Any suggestion?

[Markus1 · Accepted solution]

This sounds like a compatibility issue to me. It's unfortunately not very uncommon that the inbuilt Bluetooth systems in cars can't keep up with the updates given to the phones.

I would suggest you try your Xperia S with an accessory listed as compatible to ensure the phone is working as supposed (e.g. Sony Ericsson MW600) before moving on with the troubleshooting.

[RussianOne1]

Thanks, Markus.

I bought suggested device and tested it. It worked fine so far.

The car still gives me the problem. Last time the phone would not disconnect after incoming call but when I tried to call someone it would give me "phone.android.com is not responding". I might not remember exact order though.

In Google Play I found a SE program Car Connect. Does it do any good?

On a dedicated web page on Sony web site I saw that Volvo is a car manufacturer in the list of partners for Xperia devices. It does not mean much apparently....

I also saw a lot of posts here about loss of compatibility after 2.1 upgrade. What did it do to BT? Can it be reversed?

Any other patches or suggestions?

[Markus1]

If the phone works with MW600 I'm pretty confident it is a compatibility issue.

You can try that app you found but there's no guarantee it will help. No harm in trying though.

One of my colleagues had a chat with a user once who had a similar issue. When this user turned off WiFi it worked much better when connected to the car system. Try this if you have WiFi active.

Android 2.1 is nowadays pretty old and since then there's been many updates for most of our Android phones. I don't have a change log for every update so I can check what exact changes that's been made for Bluetooth. I don't think it would help you or me to know either since the issue most likely is down to the incompatibility between these two devices.

It is not possible to revert to old software.

[RussianOne1]

Thanks, Markus.

Wi-Fi is always off thanks to NFC tags.

The program is useless. It even could not find my car's BT.

After a few manipulations to add and remove phone the car stopped connecting to the phone at all. Something reported by other users as well. It does connect to Xperia mini though.

I will try to upgrade BT soft in the car.

Otherwise I found some program, which supposedly fixes BT issues in the phone but requires rooting, which I would not want to do before ICS upgrade.

[RussianOne1]

I finally convinced Volvo dealer to flash new soft into the BT module of the car.

For those with the same problem:

My car: Volvo XC70  MY2009

New firmware: issued week 19 2011

As a bonus it updates 2 other multimedia modules in the car.

Most importantly now BT connection works flawlessly. I will report back if any issues. If you do not see anything on this from me then consider problem solved.