prius III problem maintaining bluetooth phone connection when the car is restarted

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Audio and Electronics' started by farkel4251, Apr 6, 2012.

  1. farkel4251

    farkel4251 New Member

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    Hello everyone... I was wondering if any of you have had this experience. I have a Prius III with Navigation and an Iphone4S (and I have had this problem with an Iphone 3G as well). When I turn on my car my blue tooth audio connection comes right up and starts playing the music. However when I go to click to activate a phone call from the steering wheel button nothing happens. So I click the Info/Phone button and select the phone and click connect then the phone is activated and there is no problem making a phone call from the steering wheel voice system. However, when I turn the car off and start it again it seems to lose the connection to the phone again and I have to back thru the process to connect it (not pair it ... connect it). I have paired the phone successfully so I know that works and I have removed and re-added the phone to see if that was the culprit but no luck. Anyone have any thoughts on how I can maintain my phone connects when the car is restarted?
     
    #1 farkel4251, Apr 6, 2012
  2. HaveNoCents

    HaveNoCents Conservative Tree Hugger

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    Do you have more than one person drive your car that is also paired? I had the same problem because my wife drove the car as well. Once she stopped using my car I never had the problem again.
     
    #2 HaveNoCents, Apr 6, 2012
  3. farkel4251

    farkel4251 New Member

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    I only have one phone paired. The Iphone4S.
     
    #3 farkel4251, Apr 6, 2012
  4. jdcollins5

    jdcollins5 Senior Member

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    Do you have your phone configured to Auto Connect? That is the only thing that I can think of.
     
    #4 jdcollins5, Apr 6, 2012
  5. farkel4251

    farkel4251 New Member

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    Well it is auto connecting to the audio. Must you specify auto connect for the phone side. If so where is auto connect (on the iphone or on the car)?
     
    #5 farkel4251, Apr 6, 2012
  6. stream

    stream Senior Member

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    The BT phone connection and audio streaming are 2 different configurations, each with its own settings. Owners (nav) manual has connection info.
     
    #6 stream, Apr 6, 2012
  7. jdcollins5

    jdcollins5 Senior Member

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    The Auto Connect for the phone would be on the phone side. Like Stream stated that the audio and phone are separate bluetooth connections and need to configured as such.
     
    #7 jdcollins5, Apr 6, 2012
  8. jkoutras

    jkoutras Junior Member

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    I totally have this problem and thanks for describing it precisely. It manifests itself on my Gen3+Navi as:

    Stage 1: iPhone3G connected. Able to stream music via BT, able to start/answer phone calls and then switch back to music.

    Stage 2: Having exited the car at some point, I get back in and for the life of me I can't get it to stream music via BT. The phone is connected b/c I can make calls. Also the BT tab from the Audio button is available and I can press the play (>) icon all I want, but no joy. I have to manually go into my iPhone, select the iPod, then press play. After that, it's like nothing wrong happened.

    But here's the thing: it's random. Sometimes when I get back into the car, the BT streaming starts up fine. Other times, it requires going through the process described in Stage 2.

    I've not been able to run a process of elimination, but I think it has something to do with which iPhone app is on when you re-enter the vehicle. ??
     
    #8 jkoutras, Apr 7, 2012
  9. PhysicsGuy

    PhysicsGuy Junior Member

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    It's a known issue with some car/phone relationships, mine included.

    Go to Toyota.com - Connect and check. It's a pretty comprehensive list of compatibility tests and results.

    My Galaxy Nexus has that red X next to:
    "The phone is able to reconnect to the vehicle system and continue streaming music after going out of and returning back into Bluetooth range." Although sometime it does connect and stream right away, THAT'S the anomaly, it's not supposed to so I just consider myself lucky the time that happens.
     
    #9 PhysicsGuy, Apr 7, 2012
  10. farkel4251

    farkel4251 New Member

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    Everyone... I just realized that I may have been describing my problem incorrectly. My Iphone4S connects via bluetooth just fine for both audio and phone. What I'm having a problem with is that the "Talk Switch" (the button on the left hand side of the steering wheel that looks like a guy talking) does not invoke the voice system when I first start up the car. In other words when I start the car and hit this button nothing happens (yet all bluetooth connects are made). That is the voice response unit on the car does not start up. However when I then click on the Info/Phone button and select the phone and click connect and then hit the "Talk Switch" on the steering column the voice system works. To be sure there wasn't a problem with the bluetooth I deleted everything out, all bluetooth connections to the phone, audio and even the bluetooth connection was reset. I then reloaded everything. Once done I tried the "talk switch" again and same as before nothing happened. I'm not sure but could this be a quirk with the Prius? Does anyone know how to make the the "Talk switch" work without having to reset my phone each time I start the car? Any help in understanding and fixing this is appreciated.
     
    #10 farkel4251, Apr 7, 2012
  11. farkel4251

    farkel4251 New Member

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    Everyone... I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. In order to invoke the voice recognition system you must first hit the "telephone switch" on the steering wheel and then hit the "Talk Switch". If I do that everything works fine. Many thanks to this forum and all the help received since it still led me to an answer. Next time I'll read the instructions more carefully.
     
    #11 farkel4251, Apr 7, 2012
  12. jkoutras

    jkoutras Junior Member

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    @ PhysicsGuy, thanks for the link. Good website. It turns out my iPhone3G has all question marks for all of the 51 "Vehicle Audio Streaming Features". Like you, I'm lucky the damn thing connects I guess. As a check, I also checked for the iPhone4S (takinge the luddite in me out of the equation), and many of the audio streaming functions flipped to green check marks.

    So I will chalk this up to backwards compatibility to an old phone.

    Thanks.
     
    #12 jkoutras, Apr 7, 2012
  13. nottenst

    nottenst Junior Member

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    My phone is too old to be on this list (an LG Cosmos 2). My old Prius (2008) had no problems with my phone at all. My new one (2017) randomly drops the bluetooth connection. Do you think it is just a matter of not being backwards compatible with my ancient phone or is there a problem with the bluetooth itself?
     
    #13 nottenst, Jul 14, 2017
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