8 replies to this topic

[hdebo]

I just purchased an Alpine CDE-135BT head unit with Pandora capability. The phone pairs and works fine and I can stream Pandora over BT Audio fine. The problem is when I select Pandora BT I get No Pandora on the display. Seems like a communication issue. Alpine and Motorola techs seem to be no real help.

[DonDraper]

What exactly do you mean by "no Pandora on the display"? You get it to play but it doesn't display track info? One thing I can tell you about Alpine is that they are NO f%$kING HELP WHATSOEVER when it comes to cellphones and bt. I have a one of their older head units and the KCE-BT400 BT adapters, and they were worthless for support. Not only that they NEVER updated the firmware to officially support anything on Android.

One question I have is, how well does it pair when you stop the car, get out with your phone at say the gas station or a store, then get back in with your phone and start up the car. Does it re-pair correctly?? I'm thinking of the CDE-138BT

[hdebo]

When I leave then re enter the car it pairs perfectly. My options for source are tuner, CD, usb audio, BT audio, aux, and Pandora BT. If I run Pandora app on the phone it streams fine using BT audio. If I go to Pandora BT it should load the app on the phone and all functions are done through the head unit. Now if I select Pandora BT the head unit displays No Pandora so it seems it cannot communicate with the phone. Alpine tried saying it was a profile issue with the phone.

[DonDraper]

Does it display track info when you run the Pandora app using "BT Audio" ?

[hdebo]

Not on the head unit

[cyberKICK]

I have a similar problem. I've been playing with it and discovered that if you turn off your car, then turn it back on, and go directly to Pandora it will work. If you change source to anything NOT on BT (like radio or disc) then you will lose the ability to use Pandora and Music on your phone. It seens to be some sort of timeout (somewhere between 2 and 5 minutes.

According to Alpine, it is my phone. Thing is, my Droid 4 works fine with other devices. It works fine with the Alpine as long as I never take it off of BT audio or BT Pandora. Also, if it dies, I can simply unpair and pair it and it works (after clearing out the old device).

Any help would be appreciated.

[mainegrw]

I have the CDE-133BT and have issues with it as well that go beyond Pandora: Whereas I occasionally use Pandora, most of my in-car listening is via AmazonMP3 or Slacker Radio, with the additional use of Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO Go, or the Xfinity Player while parked (i.e. on my lunch or dinner break). My issue is that no matter what app I use, when I load a song to play the display on the radio shows "Pause" and no audio plays, yet the media is playing on my phone. I found that by pausing a song on the Razr, and then hitting the play button on the radio several times will get it to work, but the process must be repeated with every song. It has bugged me to the point where I have disabled BT media streaming and I use an aux cable instead. However, when connected to the aux cable and my car charger I get all sorts of digital noise out of the radio unless there is something playing in which case it just distorts the audio over a certain volume level. I had purchased this stereo to replace an older Alpine CDA-9856 for the BT cabablity and to avoid having to listen to the distortion and digital noise, and have been left rather disappointed. Subsequent calls to Alpine has yeilded one answer: "It's Motorola's fault that the Razr and Razr Maxx don't work with their products due to the fact that every other manufacturer's devices work with the stereo and that makes the problem Motorola's to solve". I was also told that a firmware update would be coming out "sometime in the future, maybe in a few weeks or a few months", but it probably wouldn't fix the Razr/Maxx issue. I am thinking about replacing the radio again (after owning it for only 2 months) with a Kenwood KDC-BT952. I had a Kenwood KDC-BT945U in my Mazda 6 before I traded it in for my truck and I have regretted letting it go ever since then. I never had an issue in the year and a half I owned the Kenwood, with any of the android devices I connected it with, including the original Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, and the Droid Razr.

I am however currious if anyone could shed some light onto what makes the Razr's Bluetooth configuration so much different from every other phone on the market?

[cyberKICK]

Yea, I took my phone in to a local stereo store, and sure enough, works fine with every BT compatible stereo except Alpine. Lesson learned.

[mainegrw]

I did try the exact Alpine stereo that I bought at Best Buy before I purchased it, and at the time it seemed to work. I was disappointed later after putting the effort into installing everything that it didn't work right. Such is life I suppose.