Bluetooth interference / noise

kaktus · 4 Jan 2020 at 08:47

Bit stumped on this one

Took delivery of a new car yesterday and for some reason when using bluetooth on my note 9 I can hear static/high pitched whine when using bluetooth connected to the cars speakers.

It doesn't happen with iPhones as I tested it in the showroom with sales guys iPhone in multiple vehicles including mine and also tested it with my wifes iphone in our new vehicle. Only seems to happen when I'm using my phone to interface with the car.

I don't have another android phone to test atm to see if the problem is localised to my note 9 (have recently taken it under water so that may be the culprit as I have never had this problem before with BT). Has anyone else experienced this issue before and found what the problem was ?

mrgubby · 4 Jan 2020 at 10:04

Is the phone plugged into the car / charging ?

kaktus · 4 Jan 2020 at 14:23

Nope, didn't have any charger in the car at the time. I have one now and it made no difference plugging it in or out. It is baffling as I test drive the same vehicle and had one like it on lease but never noticed the issue before now. But the fact that it is localised to whenever I am using my note 9 on bluetooth tells me it must be an issue with this specific phone to that specific bluetooth in the car, or maybe it has gotten damaged from being under water recently

jpaul · 4 Jan 2020 at 15:18

maybe check what BT codec it is using for the communication, versus the iphone - which, may also, have a better range on a BT 5.0 implementation
I don't think you can specify the bt frequency/channel on phones

kaktus · 4 Jan 2020 at 20:27

I'll check but I can't imagine an Iphone 6s has better BT than a note 9. The sales guy used an Iphone XR, wife's is a 6s and both had no static/noise in either our vehicle or any of the other vehicles in the showroom. Immediate noise/whine/static when using my Note 9 with any of those cars though. Very odd. I wish I had another android phone to test it with or even better, another Note 9, as I am 99% sure this problem wasnt there before which leads me to believe it must have something to do with me dunking the Note 9 in a pool to take underwater pics.

mrgubby · 4 Jan 2020 at 22:03

BT is digital and should not get static/whine. Any interference should cause breakup or clicking ?

Terminal_Boy · 4 Jan 2020 at 22:24

mrgubby said:
BT is digital and should not get static/whine. Any interference should cause breakup or clicking ?

This.

Either your Note 9 is encoding some unwanted signal along with the desired audio on the BT connection or the car’s BT system thinks the BT link has lots of data dropouts/errors and is creating the noise trying to fill in the gaps.