I might be making a decision to buy a Prime Premium by dealer trade today. I don.t have access to one to check this for myself. Will the Premium model have the capability to play Pandora from my phone via Bluetooth and be controlled through the car audio system? I know that you have to have the Advanced model for accessing charging and climate things through your phone remotely but want to make sure the Premium does have the in car capability to use apps like Pandora through the audio system. Hope this makes sense. Thanks
My understanding is that that requires the Entune App suite, which is only available on the Advanced model. Now of course you could always just play Pandora on you smartphone connected into the P.Prime audio system. BTW, there have also been reports of Bluetooth-audio dropouts with iPhone 6s(plus) and iPhone 7(plus). I don't know whether those reports are specific to Advanced vs. Premium.
I have a Premium and have been able to use Pandora through Bluetooth. I have a Samsung Galaxy 5 and so have not been plagued by the difficulties that I-Phone users seem to have. I can also connect to i-heart radio and slacker.
Thanks. Are you able to change the Pandora stations on the car or do you have to do it on the phone? Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Oh, I think I mis-spoke there: I gather that only the Advanced model includes remote functions, especially remote climate and find-my-car. However, I believe the rest of the Entune suite is available on the lower trim levels.
Used Pandora on my Premium today and was able to use the voice recognition to change genre...speak a performer and voila. It was part of the entune system. You have to connect your account(s) to the entune. Good luck! BTW...love my Prime!
When the EnTune app works, it works well ... until it does not connect and stop working. But it does not happen very frequently for me which is good.
Pandora app does not work half the time on my Prime Advanced. I keep getting "Tether Error" message. The easiest and the most reliable way to use Pandora for me is to launch the app on my phone and stream it via a USB connection on the Prime.
This is an old question, but I'll add my input in case anyone searches for this. The Pandora app is in the dash menu system for even the Plus version of the Prime. I have it, and it lets you select Pandora stations on the dash. But like Dmitriy Soko, I usually get 'Tether Error', or 'Connection Error'. And it takes a few minutes of trying before it even gets this error. Sometimes I get to my destination before the error pops up, which means I've been driving the whole time with no music. So I stopped bothering with the Pandora app on the dash. If I want Pandora, I start it on my phone and connect through Bluetooth (which always works fine). From my experience I would say that there is no reliable working Pandora app on the Prius Prime--they just tease you with the broken app. Of course, others may have better luck.
The “tether error” is likely that you’ve been logged out of Entune on your phone. This has come up in other threads: the failure of Entune to stay logged in for extended periods. I was having that problem, but all of the sudden it corrected itself - the app has stayed logged in and connected (even when it’s not open) for more than a week now. As long as Entune is connected, using Pandora through it (rather than streaming via Bluetooth the Pandora phone-based app) is much more convenient for me.
