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Automakers Struggle With Pairing Smartphones To Car Infotainment Systems

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-make-it-a-terminal-for-pete's-sake dept.

Lucas123 writes "As Toyota owners have often found out the hard way, they cannot use Bluetooth to pair an iPhone to their car's Entune infotainment system in order to use mobile apps. Drivers can set up their iPhones as a WiFi hotspots, but there's a fee for that. Part of the problem is that Toyota bundles all of the available Internet apps — such as Bing, iHeartRadio, MovieTickets.com, OpenTable, Pandora and other data services such as local fuel prices, traffic and weather information — on the infotainment system so it can track how they're being used. The company suggests drivers simply plug their phones into the car's USB port. Toyota's not alone in its wireless dilemma. Part of the problem is automakers can't keep up with mobile app software upgrades, so they use proprietary interfaces. But that may soon be changing. Toyota said its next model year will include Bluetooth pairing, but it still doesn't solve the longer term problem of how to upgrade infotainment systems without waiting the two to four years that new car models typically take to roll off the lines. Some automakers, like Audi, are moving to modular infotainment systems that allow chipsets to be replaced on the fly."

3 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Simple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Allow software update of the system through USB.
    Download the latest version from the Toyota website, put it on a usb key, plug in the car, select Software update in the contextual menu, and boom, you're done.
    Or have it all running directly off an SD card which can be replaced/upgraded if it ever fails instead of built-in storage that can fail over time and is harder to change.

    1. Re:Simple... by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It may sound like a simple thing to send out an update with a USB key and simple instructions on properly evaluating a unit for eligibility prior to upgrade, but trust me on this - in that industry, it isn't.

      Instructions? Please don't make excuses for the incompetence of the auto industry. You should NOT need instructions. The vendor has all the data, all the knowledge. There's no variance, and heck even if there was a modular design would work around that too. Just think about that next time you buy a new video card. Do you write down the name and model, and clock frequency, and brand, and then search through a giant database looking for which sub sub sub model of the GTX 7xx series of card you have? No! You go to NVIDIA's website, click download and click install.

      There is no reason why all validation can't be automatic There's no reason why a simple update process isn't available. There's no reason why this couldn't even be done OTA in the presence of a WiFi connection, not even needing USB.

      This is not "hard" and the lack of a solution is more a case of corporate laziness. It's called modular design and standardisation. The car industry could learn a bit by looking up these terms in the dictionary.

  2. Re:I hate these things. by ElementOfDestruction · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh it sounds like that Prius C her dad got for her is a real pain in the ass.