Bluetooth woes

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

TheMagster

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2018
Messages
23
My wife and I share our 2015 Leaf SV. We both would love to use Bluetooth streaming from our phones (she has an iPhone 6+, I have a Google Pixel XL, we both like to stream music from Spotify and podcasts from other apps). When we first got the car the Bluetooth just worked, now a few months later it has become an exercise in frustration. My observations:

When we're both in the car, the Leaf attempts to pair with my phone first (I assume because it was the first one I connected to the car). If I turn off the Bluetooth on my phone, it will attempt to pair with my wife's iPhone. If only my wife is in the car, it attempts to pair with her phone. This all seems normal to me.

As of a few weeks ago, the Bluetooth fails to pair/connect with anything without repeated tries. The steps are:
1) Press the 'aux' button on the car to cycle through the various modes, one of which is Bluetooth.
2) Power cycle Bluetooth on the phone, or even reboot the phone.
3) Repeat both steps while cursing until it eventually works (takes up to 5 mins sometimes).

My fallback has been to play music from a USB flash drive, which is far more reliable, but of course doesn't let you play any current content such as news podcasts.

Anyone else experiencing this or have any suggestions? We share several other Bluetooth devices (such as speakers and headphones) that are able to handle being connected to two phones at once, or at least handle switching between two phones more fluidly, so I know it is possible. Is there just a low quality Bluetooth antenna in the Leaf?
 
Sorry I can't help much since the only person that uses my Leaf is me, but perhaps you could resort to aux cable?

I normally have my personal iPhone 8 paired w/my car but I carry along two other phones which are never paired: a work Android phone (Pixel 3) and another iOS test device (one of many different iPhones, currently carrying an XS Max). For the iOS test device, I just use the aux input, a cable and unfortunately a @!#$@$ dongle due to Apple's "courage" for that iPhone. I almost never hook up that Android phone to my car's stereo (and would need to use the Pixel 3's USB-C to headphone jack dongle).

Unless you've never updated Android and iOS from when things worked until now, something on the phone side likely changed. Also remember that on iOS, starting around iOS 11 (IIRC), turning "off" Bluetooth (and wi-fi) from the control center doesn't shut it off (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208086 and https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/20/16340460/apple-ios-11-control-center-wi-fi-bluetooth-tricking-users). It only disconnects. You need to go to settings to actually turn it off.

How about both of you shut off (for real) Bluetooth on both your phones first (before powering up the car) and don't turn it back on until you've driven away so that the car and the other phone are way out of range?

I suspect it has nothing to do w/the Bluetooth antenna but rather a race condition where the timing/behavior has changed on the phone side(s). Also, you mention other Bluetooth devices (e.g. speakers and headphones). They might be on, in range (or sorta) and causing confusion for the car and phone(s).
 
Good ideas, thanks. I would be more than happy to use an AUX cable for my phone and let my wife has sole dominion over the Bluetooth connection. I think I might just do that. I had forgotten that the car even has an AUX input, I thought it was Bluetooth only...

All other Bluetooth devices we use (speakers, headphones, etc.) are powered off unless they are actively being used, so there shouldn't be any confusion there. I think I'm also going to try to get the Leaf to 'forget' the two phones, then only pair my wife's phone and leave mine off it. See if that helps make it more stable going forward. I think the system works well enough when paired with just one phone, as you are using it.

I also just ordered a 128 GB small profile flash drive ($20 on Black Friday sale!), so I plan to load that up with all the music I'll ever need. Reading through the lengthy thread on USB drives now...seems they are their own set of issues.
 
cwerdna said:
Also, maybe try forgetting (removing) all Bluetooth devices you no longer use/have on both phones.

Ten years later this is still great advice: My Galaxy S7 phone would not connect to bluetooth on my 2019 Leaf.

It turns out that I already had a "MyLeaf" connection on my phone from when I used a same-model courtesy car! I just had to go into the phone bluetooth connections and remove "MyLeaf".

Anrdoid phone instructions:

Delete Paired Bluetooth® Connection - Android™
1) From a Home screen, do one of the following: Ensure Bluetooth is turned on. Navigate: Settings > Connected devices > Connection preferences > Bluetooth. ...
2) Tap the appropriate device name or the Settings icon. (right).
3) Tap 'Forget' or 'Unpair'.
 
Back
Top