[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by Brucecris

I can't take my wireless BT setup any longer. I get disconnects all the time. It's surreal. No solution in sight. My old Ford was better than this crap. I'm bitter at how prestigious the iDrive system is touted yet the reality is that this software is full of issues that are seemingly invisible and not accounted for. As an experience designer, this drives me nuts!

What phone? sounds like a software bug with your device not the car. Try another Bluetooth device and see if you get the same issues. I've in occasion had things interfere with BT but not in any of my BMWs

[teaston]

Originally Posted by Jeepersjoey

I have one of those little dohickies that tell you the current the USB is pulling.

I have never seen more than 0.9A no matter what I test it with.

I have an iPhone,iPad,Android (pixel 3 Xl) plus all sorts of other items.

Same results on my Samsung 8S (I think it was).

I also have wireless charging. Don't get me started on how unbelievably horrible (not poor...not bad..not mediocre) the wireless charger is with my phone.

No matter how I have it situated there is absolutely no way that I can get the phone to anything more than 3-5% per hour of not using and just sitting in the charger. Trust me...I have hundreds of hours of driving and trying. Purely useless for me.

Great...I got started.

Worst $ I ever spent.
Paul

Originally Posted by MechX3M40i

Interesting! I think I read some member mentioned Android could draw higher current out of certain car charger adaptors vs iPhone, maybe it's true only if the aftermarket USB adaptors support up to 2.4A.

So I assume the 0.9A max output you mentioned was applicable only to the USB plug in front of the cup holders?

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

Here's the readings from my X5 which should have the same output on it's USB-A port next to the wireless charger. I pulled 1.42A at 5.23V ie 7.4W with you S10+ and 5.2V / 1.15A or ~6S with my work iPhone 8. I have fancier meters which log data but they yielded the same results so I didn't take a picture using them.

I also recorded the USB-C port outputs which are 1.3A up front and 2A for the in seat ones. I suspect I could pull more than 2A with certain devices but the key here is the minimum of 5W and Max of 10W

I’ve had a play and found that if the phone’s battery is low it will pull a lot more current, my iPhone XS at 20% battery will get 1.4A from the USB A’s

And regarding USB C, I’ve found that the USB C PD adapter I have only draws a maximum of 2A, but..... at 9V which equals full 18W fast charge! I had to use a genuine Apple USB C to Lightning cable though, the cheap Baseus “fast charge” one would only go to 5v 2.2A (11w)

So I would be interested to hear what voltage the X5 USB C ports will go to with a phone on low battery level and a proper fast charge cable?

The manufacturer of my USB C adpter told me this:

“There are five stages for iPhone X PD charging strategy.

a. Insert PD charger when the iPhone X power is 0% and the phone is turned off. iPhone will detect whether the apple 5V 2.4A protocol is supported. If it is, iPhone will be charged with 5V 2.4A.

b. After the charging is automatically turned on, the iPhone starts communication and shakes hands with the PD, applies PDO2 (second voltage file) to the charger, and then charges at full speed and high power. The peak power reaches 19W, the average power is 14W, until the power reaches 50%, and the length of time is probably 30 minutes or so.

c. As the iPhone battery voltage rises, the saturation increases. In order to consider the life, the input is continuously reduced. The power from 14W is slowly reduced to about 8W. The percentage of power in this period is from 50% to 75%.

d. Into the fourth stage, the power becomes constant, and the power is maintained at about 5W.

e. Charging enters the end, and continues to maintain 5V to the traditional constant voltage mode charging, the current is gradually reduced until full.”

[titomi]

what a turn - from sound to power

[BobsM3Coupe]

Originally Posted by MechX3M40i

Glad to hear that you find Sat radio good. I feel the same, despite some members here found them worse than FM radios :

Maybe location difference leading to signal quality difference? Also, some channels have better quality than others so maybe we pick the right channels to listen to?

I also think XM sounds decent. Of course not it's not like a CD, but for the variety of songs/content, I certainly can't complain. That's why I've had satellite radio on every 4 wheeler and motorcycle I've owned since 2005.

[BobsM3Coupe]

Originally Posted by TheMooseMan

Abut the wireless charger, I think it's weird... I have a Samsung Note 9 and, despite it has a case, the wireless charger on my X3 charges it pretty quickly! Not as fast as the Samsung wireless chargers, of course, but at least on my car the charger is FAR from bad.
A few days ago it charged around 4~5% in a matter of 20 to 30 minutes and I was using bluetooth audio!

I also think the wireless charger worked fine with my previous S9+ and now with my S10+. And yes, they both were in a case.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by teaston

I've had a play and found that if the phone's battery is low it will pull a lot more current, my iPhone XS at 20% battery will get 1.4A from the USB A's

And regarding USB C, I've found that the USB C PD adapter I have only draws a maximum of 2A, but..... at 9V which equals full 18W fast charge! I had to use a genuine Apple USB C to Lightning cable though, the cheap Baseus "fast charge" one would only go to 5v 2.2A (11w)

So I would be interested to hear what voltage the X5 USB C ports will go to with a phone on low battery level and a proper fast charge cable?

The manufacturer of my USB C adpter told me this:

"There are five stages for iPhone X PD charging strategy.

a. Insert PD charger when the iPhone X power is 0% and the phone is turned off. iPhone will detect whether the apple 5V 2.4A protocol is supported. If it is, iPhone will be charged with 5V 2.4A.

b. After the charging is automatically turned on, the iPhone starts communication and shakes hands with the PD, applies PDO2 (second voltage file) to the charger, and then charges at full speed and high power. The peak power reaches 19W, the average power is 14W, until the power reaches 50%, and the length of time is probably 30 minutes or so.

c. As the iPhone battery voltage rises, the saturation increases. In order to consider the life, the input is continuously reduced. The power from 14W is slowly reduced to about 8W. The percentage of power in this period is from 50% to 75%.

d. Into the fourth stage, the power becomes constant, and the power is maintained at about 5W.

e. Charging enters the end, and continues to maintain 5V to the traditional constant voltage mode charging, the current is gradually reduced until full."

read my post, I showed what the X5's USB-C ports do. They are not PD ports and output 2A at 5V maybe 2.4A Max under the right conditions. I've logged the data on charging standards before but not on an iPhone. I have no desire to do one but if you'd like to see what they look like I'll post the curves I recorded at 1s data polling

[Jeepersjoey]

Thanks for the advice and questions...but yes. Tried everything.

Upside down, right side up, right side down, face up, face down, left, right, backward, forward. In the case, in three different cases, in no case, in blue case, in red case. No way that wireless charger gives me more than a few % per hour.

I have tried two different (new) phones and same results.

But oh do they get hot!!

For grins I tested on the way to work and on the way home.
To work took 42 minutes. Left it was at 92%. Arrived it was a 95%.
From work took 46 minutes. Left it was a 71%. Arrived it was 73%.
Phone was on. Not being used. Not playing music.
While at work for 9.5 hrs I did not charge it and it drained from 95% when I arrived to 71% when I left.

As for the USB only supplying 0.9A: With the bmw plug and one of the dozen off ebay and the half dozen from amazon.

I bought several different 2.4a chargers (I bought a two pack of the ankmar which said it was the best) and all (oh let's say a dozen) show exactly the same 0.9A with no deviation. None. Not one.

If one of you has a setup that gives you more than 0.9A (verified)...send it over to me.

Heck...I even brought it into the dealer to get them to figure it out. Nothing but yea we suck, but this is normal.

Paul

[darrylo]

I've posted this info on wired iPhone charging before, but I guess I should repeat it. This applies to charging via the wired lightning port, which is on all current and slightly older iPhone models.

• "Unknown" USB ports charge at 5W or 1A.
  
  
• To get faster charging rates, a USB port must support Apple's charging protocol.
  
  
• The USB ports in the 2018 X3s do not support Apple's charging protocol. That means that they charge at a slow 5W/1A. I've verified this -- see the D+ and D- voltages, which do not indicate a higher-power charger:
  
  
• Someone said that BMW did a silent upgrade of these ports (late 2018MY/early 2019MY?), and that they now support Apple's charging protocol (to 12W/2.4A). While I have no reason to disbelieve this, I haven't seen any verification of this. either.
  
  
• The cruddy BMW cigarette lighter charger is a slow one. It does not support the Apple charging protocol, and will only charge iPhones at a slow 5W/1A. Perhaps it works better with android devices. Cruddy BMW freebie cigarette lighter charger:
  
  
• If you have the slow (5W/1A) USB ports in your X3, you really should use a better cigarette lighter charger that supports Apple's charging protocol. This Aukey one is good, although it's certainly not the only one. I have one, and it works well. Here it is charging at slightly below 12W or 2.4A (note the D+ and D- voltages, which indicates to the iPhone that this charger supports 12W/2.4A):
  

Slow wired (or wireless) charging is a problem for people using carplay. That's because the phone can be heavily using wifi, which sucks away power that could instead go to charging the battery (results in even slower charging). If you use carplay, you really should be using fast wired charging.

[teaston]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

read my post, I showed what the X5's USB-C ports do. They are not PD ports and output 2A at 5V maybe 2.4A Max under the right conditions. I've logged the data on charging standards before but not on an iPhone. I have no desire to do one but if you'd like to see what they look like I'll post the curves I recorded at 1s data polling

Read my post! I said for full fast charge you have to use the genuine Apple cable and the phone battery has to be very low!

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by teaston

Read my post! I said for full fast charge you have to use the genuine Apple cable and the phone battery has to be very low!

I read it as tested with the OEM cable too it made no difference. My battery was at 10%

[sinbad4]

Originally Posted by teaston

SBC is more than enough then, CD quality is only 1.4Mb/s!

Sorry guys... I was talking out of my ass. I am old and miss remembered my numbers.

I redid tests and posting screen shots. Don't focus on graph, but total Bytes Sent near bottom. Keep in mind, this does not speak to quality of compression. AAC definitely sounds better than SBC.

SBC = 3,312,075 bytes / 60s = 55 kBps
AAC = 2,662,086 bytes / 60s = 44 kBps
AptX = 53,035,510 bytes / 60s = 917 kBps

Bluetooth bandwidth limit is roughly 2MB/s/

[teaston]

Originally Posted by sinbad4

Sorry guys... I was talking out of my ass. I am old and miss remembered my numbers.

I redid tests and posting screen shots. Don't focus on graph, but total Bytes Sent near bottom. Keep in mind, this does not speak to quality of compression. AAC definitely sounds better than SBC.

SBC = 3,312,075 bytes / 60s = 55 kBps
AAC = 2,662,086 bytes / 60s = 44 kBps
AptX = 53,035,510 bytes / 60s = 917 kBps

Bluetooth bandwidth limit is roughly 2MB/s/

So are you saying SBC is only 1/16th the quality of Aptx and only 1/25th the quality of CD audio!?

[dinan5m3]

As for the usb cable for audio, anyone know if following cable is charge only?

Or, also do data?

(disclaimer: not saying buying this, but just curious)

[Klippe]

Originally Posted by TheMooseMan

Is there a way to play audio from Android devices using something else besides Bluetooth? I wish we could use the USB port on the car for audio playback.

Off-topic:

Abut the wireless charger, I think it's weird... I have a Samsung Note 9 and, despite it has a case, the wireless charger on my X3 charges it pretty quickly! Not as fast as the Samsung wireless chargers, of course, but at least on my car the charger is FAR from bad.
A few days ago it charged around 4~5% in a matter of 20 to 30 minutes and I was using bluetooth audio!

Originally Posted by TheMooseMan

Is there a way to play audio from Android devices using something else besides Bluetooth? I wish we could use the USB port on the car for audio playback.

Off-topic:

Abut the wireless charger, I think it's weird... I have a Samsung Note 9 and, despite it has a case, the wireless charger on my X3 charges it pretty quickly! Not as fast as the Samsung wireless chargers, of course, but at least on my car the charger is FAR from bad.
A few days ago it charged around 4~5% in a matter of 20 to 30 minutes and I was using bluetooth audio!

is there a way to play audio from an Android phone via USB? I just changed from Apple to Google Pixel 3XL and now I'm regretting my decision. I'm not a big fan of bluetooth audio as the sound can be really compromised. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[TheMooseMan]

I connected my Android via USB cable and it seems you can play, via USB, mp3 (or other audio files) stored on your device, but I didn't find a way to play audio from Spotify.

[teaston]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

I read it as tested with the OEM cable too it made no difference. My battery was at 10%

Well you didn't say that in your post!

[sinbad4]

Originally Posted by teaston

So are you saying SBC is only 1/16th the quality of Aptx and only 1/25th the quality of CD audio!?

No, no. I said no such thing. I merely published data throughput rates.

CD audio had zero compression. Compressing audio can dramatically affect the sound. You can compress audio better by throwing out much of the range, or by using much more processing. AptX supports (but doesn't insist upon) lossless compression, that is, none of the sound is thrown out. AAC and AptX use much more processing to compress audio than SBC.

So, data rate alone does not give you the whole picture.

Look at file size for music MP3 files. On CD, a song may be 50 MB. Compressed in a bad, 128kbps MPC, it might only take up only 4.5 MB.
320kbs VBR @ 10MB. FLAC (lossless compression) is @ 28MB. My ears cannot distinguish between a 320VBR MP3 and CD.. though 128 MP3 sounds terrible.

https://dsd-guide.com/size-compariso...3#.XJOHOy2ZMi4

[dinan5m3]

Originally Posted by TheMooseMan

I connected my Android via USB cable and it seems you can play, via USB, mp3 (or other audio files) stored on your device, but I didn't find a way to play audio from Spotify.

I would have thought any media formats that the android plays on the phone would be fair game for audio through usb (pcm format).

Not being able to stream Spotify through cabled connection would be a deal breaker, however i did see few other forum members showing (with pictures) their Android phone setup with Spotify on the screen with BMW logo, with USB cabled (and phone cradle from proclip ???). Will look them up from searching.

[teaston]

Originally Posted by dinan5m3

I would have thought any media formats that the android plays on the phone would be fair game for audio through usb (pcm format).

Not being able to stream Spotify through cabled connection would be a deal breaker, however i did see few other forum members showing (with pictures) their Android phone setup with Spotify on the screen with BMW logo, with USB cabled (and phone cradle from proclip ???). Will look them up from searching.

I've got cabled connection from my brodit mount to the USB2 port on the back of the HU, but tbh I can't really tell any difference in quality compared to BT, and on ID6 you have to turn BT audio off in order for USB audio to be available, so is a pain when you're just popping out quickly and want to leave your phone in your pocket! It wasn't like this on my F30's ID4.

[teaston]

My iPad pro charges at 15v! Not in the car obviously.

[Brucecris]

Originally Posted by AndroidRobot

What phone? sounds like a software bug with your device not the car. Try another Bluetooth device and see if you get the same issues. I've in occasion had things interfere with BT but not in any of my BMWs

iPhone XS Max. My kids phone does the same. I've already had it in for the issue. No dice.

[AndroidRobot]

Originally Posted by Brucecris

iPhone XS Max. My kids phone does the same. I've already had it in for the issue. No dice.

Have you taken it to the dealer?