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Voice Quality Issues with in car bluetooth

Is anybody else suffering with poor quality audio when using their iPhone on in car bluetooth while wearing an apple watch? I have noticed that the sound quality from my BMW 3 series is now very choppy when making and receiving calls. I am using a iPhone 5s with the latest iOS. I have tried putting the watch in airplane mode and the sound quality was back to normal. Anybody else having similar issues or resolved a similar problem? I have logged it with Apple Support. Interestingly enough I found a thread on a similar problem with iPhones and the pebble watch and poor sound quality using in car blue tooth, but no solution.


Thanks,


Allen.

Intel iMac, Macbook, iPhone and iPad, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on May 13, 2015 11:37 AM

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Posted on May 31, 2015 2:23 PM

Hi everyone,


I am having issues here as well with my new Apple Watch and my existing iPhone 6 (AT&T in the USA) in my car where the iPhone is connected to the car via the b/t interface that came with the car.


I have been using this connection for 3 years in this same car using an iPhone 5, 5s and 6 without any issues. When I got the 6, I was able to start using LTE for calls to other LTE users on AT&T and get crystal clear VOIP-like connections whether I'm talking on the iPhone or through the car speaker system.


Since I got my Apple Watch last week, when making calls in the car from the iPhone 6, it always seems to drop to regular 4G quality from LTE (hence the "worse" quality using the Apple Watch). (I am not making the calls from the Watch!) Also, the phone call audio connections "break up" frequently sometimes dropping the call or other times just going away for a few seconds and then they come back. It seems like the phone is intermittently dropping the b/t connection as the radio will come back on and then go off when the phone call comes back. I don't think the call is breaking up or dropping from the network.


When I power down the Watch, everything works as normal in my car with my iPhone 6.


It appears that the Bluetooth radio in the Watch is definitely causing issues. BTW, I have my iPad Air 2 with me many times in the car with it's bluetooth radio turned on (but like the Watch, NOT paired with the car), and I have never seen possible;e interference issues like what I think is occurring with the Watch.

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May 31, 2015 2:23 PM in response to ashute

Hi everyone,


I am having issues here as well with my new Apple Watch and my existing iPhone 6 (AT&T in the USA) in my car where the iPhone is connected to the car via the b/t interface that came with the car.


I have been using this connection for 3 years in this same car using an iPhone 5, 5s and 6 without any issues. When I got the 6, I was able to start using LTE for calls to other LTE users on AT&T and get crystal clear VOIP-like connections whether I'm talking on the iPhone or through the car speaker system.


Since I got my Apple Watch last week, when making calls in the car from the iPhone 6, it always seems to drop to regular 4G quality from LTE (hence the "worse" quality using the Apple Watch). (I am not making the calls from the Watch!) Also, the phone call audio connections "break up" frequently sometimes dropping the call or other times just going away for a few seconds and then they come back. It seems like the phone is intermittently dropping the b/t connection as the radio will come back on and then go off when the phone call comes back. I don't think the call is breaking up or dropping from the network.


When I power down the Watch, everything works as normal in my car with my iPhone 6.


It appears that the Bluetooth radio in the Watch is definitely causing issues. BTW, I have my iPad Air 2 with me many times in the car with it's bluetooth radio turned on (but like the Watch, NOT paired with the car), and I have never seen possible;e interference issues like what I think is occurring with the Watch.

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May 13, 2015 11:51 AM in response to ashute

It's likely that the bluetooth from both devices and your car are interfering with each other's signals. I can't imagine that's an easy thing to fix. It sounds like your best option is to airplane mode your watch while driving or to disconnect your car from bluetooth connection to your iPhone for now.

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Nov 7, 2015 10:22 AM in response to ttrq01

I just got my watch. Same issue. Music playing stops and starts in audio even though watch shows music still playing. I start from the synced playlist on my Mazda 6 which worked perfectly before watch. Still happening. Hope there is fix. Using watch OS 2.01

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Voice Quality Issues with in car bluetooth

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