Apple OS Bluetooth: Not Fit For Purpose

2020-04-18T23:16:44Z

I have a serious peeve about my Macbook and bluetooth. Compared to every other device I own, the Macbook’s behavior around my headphones is rude to the point of being unacceptable. I can’t speak for Microsoft products, as I don’t own any (well, any software; I’m hacking this on my Surface Pro, which is currently running Linux Ubuntu 19.10).

I own a nice pair of bone-conducting headphones that “route around” a problem I have with my inner ear. Since they’re tiny and go around the back of the head, they’re practically invisible during conference calls, which is something of a necessity as we’re all working from home during the Coronavirus crisis. I wear them a lot, and I currently have them paired with two devices: the Macbook, which is my work laptop, and my Android phone.

When I wasn’t working from home, I paired the headphones with my personal laptop, which is running Linux PopOS 19.04.

You know how, when you turn on your headphones, it will pair with the last device it associated with, if that device is available? It’s a lovely feature but it can be inconvenient for headphones with multiple pairings. Both the Android and Linux devices however have a setting to handle that: if you manually disconnect (but not unpair) the headphones, the device will not automatically re-connect with the headphones the next time they start up. This is pretty nice; I can connect between my phone (for listening to music) and my laptop (for watching movies) without trouble.

But not with the Macbook. If I manually disconnect from the Macbook and then put the Macbook away, literally unplug it and put it into sleep mode, the next time I turn on the headphones the Macbook actually wakes up and grabs the headphones. I have to remember, when I shut the Macbook down for the day, to turn Bluetooth off.

There’s a word for this sort of behavior: rude. MacBooks assume you only every want to associate with a MacBook and ignores this idiomatic method of freeing up a multi-pair device like my headphones to connect with something else.

The MacBook is a pretty little fondleslab of aluminum, but it hides a possessive, abusive heart, and if work hadn’t required I take it home I wouldn’t have allowed it into my house.

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How to pair a Google Pixel phone to a Subaru car

2019-03-18T14:09:17Z

How to pair your Google Pixel 2 phone to your Subaru Outback.

The Google Pixel is a lovely phone, but it's notoriously bad at connecting with Subaru cars. It was the one feature I missed from my previous Samsung, which always connected reliably and automatically to the car every time I started the engine. Since I have "unlimited" 4G and a Spotify account, I found this breakdown highly annoying. It is possible to connect the phone to the car, but often it takes two or three minutes of sitting there with the car running, pressing the "connect" button on the phone's Bluetooth app over and over until, mysteriously, it would finally connect.

I have gotten it to work, and now when I sit down in my Outback, the music that was playing in my headphones in the office automatically starts right back up, reliably and automatically.

So here's why it fails:

Most people, when they want to create a Bluetooth Pairing between the phone and the car, go to the car radio, press the "Menu" button, and go through the Bluetooth pairing dialogs from the radio's LCD display. And that's where the problem lies— that dialog is for pairing with the radio and is therefore looking for an audio source, but the phone isn't programmed to prioritize being paired as an audio device, it prioritizes being paired as a phone. Every time thereafter, the protocol mismatch causes the automatic connection to fail. I'm not sure why manual connection sometimes works, but it should work reliably.

Here's the solution:

If you've already paired your phone and your car, go to the car's dialogue and delete the phone from the car's list of Bluetooth connections. Likewise, go to your phone and delete the car from the phone's list.

On the steering wheel, there's a button with a voice label. This is the HandsFree Talk Button. With the car parked and the parking brake on (this is important, as the car will not let you do this otherwise), but the key turned far enough to turn on the radio, press the Talk Button.

A female voice will say, "Welcome to the Subaru HandsFree Control. Press the Talk Button and choose from the following menu items: Setup. Go Back."

Press the button and say "Setup."

"Press the Talk Button and choose from the following menu items." One will be "Pair Phone". Do as the nice lady says and say "Pair Phone."

"Searching for phone. Searching. Searching. A device has been found. The passkey is 1234." Now go through the dialog on the phone and type in the stupid passkey.

"Phone paired. Press the talk button and say the name of the phone."

Press the button. "My Phone"

"Pairing Complete. Press the button and choose from one of the following menu items: Setup. Go Back."

"Go Back."

"[Beep]"

And now the car will use the connect to phone protocol whenever you start it, and your phone will respond accordingly. In short, the quicker and more obvious interface on the car's radio dial will activate the wrong protocol, and you'll get the bug. The only way to pair the phone to the car correctly is through a really stupid voice control menu tree.

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Elf Sternberg

Apple OS Bluetooth: Not Fit For Purpose

How to pair a Google Pixel phone to a Subaru car