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V3Pro: can't connect smartphone audio via bluetooth


brianle

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This isn't an earth-shaking problem, but ... it just bugs me.   After a bit of effort I found a sufficiently recent version of WheelLog that works with the V3Pro (yay!).  After a good bit more effort, I figured out the convoluted steps to install the correct InMotion app AND create an account and then dug around in arcane portions of the app to find various pieces of functionality (example: metric/imperial unit change was under 'Me', rather than 'Vehicle', and not in an immediately obvious place there).

So okay, bluetooth is connected, and my smartphone shows the V3 paired under bluetooth.  What I can't do is 'connect' bluetooth in the Android bluetooth menu to play sounds, music, whatever directly from phone to the speakers.  In the Android bluetooth menu, pushing on the paired V3 item results in --- nothing.  Ditto trying to click the associated 'sprocket' icon.  It's like it's paired, but unavailable for use.

I don't find any comments about this issue either on this forum or elsewhere on the internet.  I don't really see me riding down the street with music blaring; okay, I had a brief fantasy of rigging up fake bagpipes and playing loud bagpipe music, but I'll restrain myself.   Still.  It's an advertised feature, I'm a bit curious why it's not working.  I've rebooted the phone, updated the V3Pro firmware to the latest version, which itself required updating the android app first.  I tried connecting the V3Pro via bluetooth on a different device (A Huawei branded android tablet) and the same behavior occurred --- pairs fine, but can't do anything with the paired result.

Any ideas?

Again, not any sort of high priority issue, it just ... bugs me.  :-)    TIA.

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1 hour ago, KingSong69 said:

to make it short:

The Inmotions are NOT able to play/stream music from the phone.

They are not able to play music at all.

 

Afaik only Kingsongs do that

AFAIK Inmotion V3S and V3 Pro are able to play bluetooth music, but not the V3C version which is the cheapest and was for local Chinese market only officially.

While all versions of V5 and V8 are not. But some guys did manage to make some DIY modifications. 

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1 hour ago, z3n said:

AFAIK Inmotion V3S and V3 Pro are able to play bluetooth music, but not the V3C version which is the cheapest and was for local Chinese market only officially.

While all versions of V5 and V8 are not. But some guys did manage to make some DIY modifications. 

the are doing promotion for "TI dual channel audio bluetooth"...for the speaker on the pro...but these are meant only for the tones.

If there is any proof, that this is different...i really would like to see :-)

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5 hours ago, brianle said:

What I can't do is 'connect' bluetooth in the Android bluetooth menu to play sounds, music, whatever directly from phone to the speakers. 

I found a video that says it will play music.  It also says there is a reset button near the power button, that returns to factory defaults, maybe try that?

 

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Thanks all.  Just to be clear, I have the V3Pro.  Bluetooth music is advertised as one of the features of this model.

Now, I presumed by "bluetooth music" that I could in effect use this as a sort of giant and overweight bluetooth speaker.  Perhaps I was wrong, or --- if so --- better say then 'misled'.  Indeed it DOES use bluetooth for the app to communicate with the hardware, but the particular protocol by which the app communicates is hardly a feature to advertise ??

The app is very weird though, in various manners. When I looked at one of the two screens of "Vehicle", last night three items that showed up with english text now just show chinese characters (and I've switched back and forth from 'system' to 'english' for the language under 'Me', restarting the app each time, with no effect).

One of those, the one with the headphones icon, has three sub-screens: "music gallery", "my music" and "DIY".   The first and last are clearly just about the various system sounds, i.e., what sound to play when the light comes on, what sound for low battery, etc.  Under "my music", the only option I have is to turn on or make silent "system sounds".  But neither of those settings impacts whether I can play my own music or other sounds on the V3Pro.

I have to say that whoever built this app had never heard of basic principals of user interface design --- it's like they drafted the low level firmware engineer to knock out a slap-dash UI, late on a Friday night.

I do note that under the "music gallery" sub-screen, if I click 'preview' for 'English', I see quite a variety of system sounds listed, things like 'welcome', 'stand by', 'danger,please slow down', etc.  Included in those are four different bluetooth references: "music bluetooth connected" (and another "disconnected"), and "data bluetooth connected" (and another "disconnected").   Pretty clearly implies that the bluetooth connection isn't only used for their app to communicate with the hardware.

Again, NOT a big deal really, just ... beyond merely clumsy, and puzzling.  So much of this machine seems to have been done well, the user interface and user manual are pretty limited, and this advertised feature seems to be either broken or accidentally well hidden due to the interface.

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@brianle  there is another video where two guys reviewing the V3Pro showed that you can change the warning messages from factory to anything you want to record.  In a funny bit, they recorded a message so that when the wheel falls over, it would say "damn you, Joe!"  and then let their friend Joe try riding it, knowing that he would drop the wheel sooner or later.:lol:

From your description, I wonder if you can stream spotify and connect to the wheel speakers the same as pairing with any bluetooth speaker.  I mean, turn on the wheel bluetooth, pair with the phone, then try streaming pandora or something.:mellow:  

DId you press the reset button as shown in the video,  it's soon after the part about the bluetooth at 3:10?

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1 hour ago, steve454 said:

@brianle  there is another video where two guys reviewing the V3Pro showed that you can change the warning messages from factory to anything you want to record.  In a funny bit, they recorded a message so that when the wheel falls over, it would say "damn you, Joe!"  and then let their friend Joe try riding it, knowing that he would drop the wheel sooner or later.:lol:

From your description, I wonder if you can stream spotify and connect to the wheel speakers the same as pairing with any bluetooth speaker.  I mean, turn on the wheel bluetooth, pair with the phone, then try streaming pandora or something.:mellow:  

DId you press the reset button as shown in the video,  it's soon after the part about the bluetooth at 3:10?

@brianle when  i remember correct, this discussion was also held on the v5f or v8 so.

The announcement of "bluettooth two channel" is/was just misleading and perhaps just an translation fault?

 Yes, you are able to change the sounds and tones to your own sound files, and play for example darth vader instead of a speed warning and yes, you can listen to these sound files like is said in the video "the music is awesome" ;-)

But streaming audio like on the KS wheels was never possible. And btw. with this one or two little mini speakers does also make not much sense.

If i am wrong and streaming music IS possible...nice, i learned something. But i really would like to see that :-)

as you have said in your opening thread....it just wont work...

 

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Thanks, Steve.  I don't see why streaming audio would be any different than playing a .mp3 or whatever audio file that's local on my phone, it's all going from the phone over bluetooth to the bluetooth speaker. Or in this case --- isn't going.  It DOES pair as a bluetooth device, it's just that when I go into the android bluetooth settings and try to CONNECT the paired 'speaker', nothing happens --- it's like it's greyed out, not selectable to connect, this after various rebooting, firmware update, etc.

I did not reset the machine.  I guess I could try that too, but I got it brand new out of the box (and then updated the firmware); why would I have to factory reset it when I presumably just got it from the factory??

What I'd be interested to know is if any V3Pro user has ever figured out how to play their own audio (yes, I know I can record my own canned message sounds ...).  If no one has, then I'm very content to just stop thinking about this (and really, I guess I am anyway, it's sort of like an itch you can't stop scratching ...).

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1 minute ago, KingSong69 said:

But streaming audio like on the KS wheels was never possible.

Thanks, KingSong69, this is becoming my conclusion too.  In which case I would say that their marketing goes a bit beyond 'misleading'.  As an American I hesitate to use the awful term "alternate fact" for what is too close to just lying for my taste.    Or perhaps it's just the resellers getting it wrong --- now that Inmotion isn't selling the V3 line anymore, I find none of their marketing stuff online.  But one online retailer says "Other additional feature such as built-in Hi Quality Stereo Speakers with Bluetooth where you can connect to any Bluetooth devices to listen to your favorite music.

Well, and in the little "user guide" included, there's a graphic with the text "Blue Tooth Loudspeaker, enjoy the music".
AND on page 10 of the included User's Manual, it has this text:
"The INMOTION SCV V3 is equipped with Bluetooth 4.0 BLE connection and an interface for music Bluetooth 3.0. The user can use the former to connect the Bluetooth speaker on the V3, or use the latter to communicate with the app on a mobile device.  When the V3 is powered on, turn on the Bluetooth of your mobile device, search and connect with the Bluetooth module of the V3, and when the audio Bluetooth icon is on (shown in the figure above), you can enjoy the music on your mobile device by playing it on the V3's implanted speaker."

That seems pretty clear to me that the unit was marketed as something that could be used as a bluetooth speaker.

I DO appreciate your input --- despite all of that, my best guess here is that you're right!

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I'm no help, but thought I'd chime in just to echo the frustration about the state of the apps with these wheels.  I have had a nightmare of a time trying to get my wheels to work with their apps.  I like to think I'm a fairly sophisticated PC user, but android drives me insane and leaves me feeling like an elderly person encountering computers for the first time.  I'm losing out on a lot of functionality of my wheels because it's not worth the frustration.

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19 minutes ago, KingSong69 said:

It is just that i definitly know this misleading advertisement from the v8 also...

I have never heard of the V8 being advertised to have speakers to play music, and I own one.

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the wheel isn't streaming the custom sounds from the phone. it has local storage it is putting small audio files you upload on to replace the default beeps and warnings. it's probably very limited and likely wouldn't provide enough storage for even a single full mp3 audio track ripped at low quality. probably not more than a meg or two of flash storage, like a tiny thumb drive.

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6 hours ago, brianle said:

presumed by "bluetooth music" that I could in effect use this as a sort of giant and overweight bluetooth speaker. 

There was a recent Inmotion firmware update to fix the Music pairing with IOS. Could you try this?

For clarification the V3Pro is fitted with two BT modules, just like on the KS series, one for the App, the other supporting A2DP. In the BT Discovery this later one will be reported as V3Audio-nnnnn.

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1 hour ago, Jason McNeil said:

There was a recent Inmotion firmware update to fix the Music pairing with IOS. Could you try this?

For clarification the V3Pro is fitted with two BT modules, just like on the KS series, one for the App, the other supporting A2DP. In the BT Discovery this later one will be reported as V3Audio-nnnnn.

Hi Jason. I updated the firmware in the wee hours of this morning and then went back to ensure there weren't additional updates.
And ... I have an Android phone, so IOS issues wouldn't related.

Outcast00096: thanks for the video!  The mystery continues.  Not that I plan to waste any more time on it, just puzzling, I can't think of why it's working for you and not for me.  Possibly one of those things that makes a person slap their forehead and feel foolish later ...

Maybe indeed it's the iPhone thing and they didn't test for Android.

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1 hour ago, Jason McNeil said:

For clarification the V3Pro is fitted with two BT modules, just like on the KS series, one for the App, the other supporting A2DP. In the BT Discovery this later one will be reported as V3Audio-nnnnn.

Hmm, this is possibly the issue ... in Android settings I only saw one V3 item, so maybe I was trying to "play" via the data connection.  Makes sense.  I'll look again.

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43 minutes ago, outcast00096 said:

 

 

 

Cool, thanks!

I noticed the V3 has an Inmotion cover!  I never knew you could get a cover for it.  It seems that Inmotion is the only company that makes covers for their wheels!

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4 minutes ago, brianle said:

Hi Jason. I updated the firmware in the wee hours of this morning and then went back to ensure there weren't additional updates.
And ... I have an Android phone, so IOS issues wouldn't related.

Outcast00096: thanks for the video!  The mystery continues.  Not that I plan to waste any more time on it, just puzzling, I can't think of why it's working for you and not for me.  Possibly one of those things that makes a person slap their forehead and feel foolish later ...

Maybe indeed it's the iPhone thing and they didn't test for Android.

Hey, this is interesting!  I'm learning things about Inmotion wheels that I don't seem to recall ever being mentioned!

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