Yeah - did that, only to see that the media interface orders the songs alphabetically and not by track number!! And a few other features which are missing (playlists, artist->albums, ...). I´m a programmer and as they say developing a half-way decent media interface is not rocket science. For a car so way out in front of the competition in terms of inovation, this seems really sloppy and could be "fixed" with not much effort. Still love the car - but this does annoy me.
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Feature request -- USB audio from phone
- Thread starter lotusland
- Start date
Dan203
Active Member
Their whole entertainment system is a bit disappointing. But at least they positioned the phone charger/holder in a smart place to make that easy to use. And Bluetooth isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Although it still kind of sucks to have to use your tiny little phone when there is a giant iPad right there on the dash.
davewill
Active Member
The car does albums, artists and track number ordering for music on USB. Not sure why you thought it didn't. It doesn't do playlists, however.
New LR 2021 owner getting, blown away by FLAC tiles over USB but very disappointed with streaming and Bluetooth quality, definitely sounds mangled by multiple transcoding steps and low quality SBC codec. The inbuilt apps seem limited to low bitrate.
Audio over USB would fix all these issues. There is noticeable difference when using FLAC.
LDAC would be fantastic at least.
Using Samsung S20.
Audio over USB would fix all these issues. There is noticeable difference when using FLAC.
LDAC would be fantastic at least.
Using Samsung S20.
Agreed, some additional Bluetooth codecs (atpx, etc) would be nice in leu of USB audio.
LBM4
Tesla Fealty
You really think age has something to do with this? Remember, this is the same company that doesn't allow Android Auto or Apple Car Play on the Tesla infotainment display. This is the same company that doesn't include floor mats on some of their cars.
Let me clue you in on something. Just because Tesla does or doesn't do something that YOU think it should has zero to do with age, sex, race, etc... When you get older, and a little more wisdom, you'll come to realize this. And maybe the irony of my statement as well.
As I stated earlier in this thread, I am almost 60. I maxed out on wisdom some time ago.When you get older, and a little more wisdom, you'll come to realize this. And maybe the irony of my statement as well.
FalconFour
Member
Funny thing. USB Music - cover artWe just need a thread here with 20 pages of complaining and they will fix it right away
I hardly listen to music in the car because it sounds so bad. And like most people I don't have an entire library of music on a USB stick.
I keep asking this over and over, why have they made it impossible to get hi-resolution music into the system? It is capable of playing it, why can't we input it?
When I'm done with this car I won't buy another Tesla unless this changes.
I keep asking this over and over, why have they made it impossible to get hi-resolution music into the system? It is capable of playing it, why can't we input it?
When I'm done with this car I won't buy another Tesla unless this changes.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
You can input it. Via USB stick.
The VAST majority of americans still don't pay for HD music streaming services. In fact only about 25% of them pay for ANY streaming subscription at all.... (75.5 million out of a population of about 330 million as of 2020)
Most still own music, including near 2 billion spent last year on records, CDs, and digital ownership of music... and much of the minority who DO pay for streaming are fine with "regular" quality streaming as folks springing for "HD" audio remain a minority of a minority.
People who care a lot about quality AND don't own music remain a tiny niche audience.
I agree with you allowing physical input from a phone would be a nice-to-have... but Teslas cars are largely sold out 3-6 months in advance at this point, the lack of it clearly isn't hurting sales.
It's comical how many defend that approach, or perhaps I should say it is comical how strongly some will defend it. The entire car is minimalist and clean. Suggesting a kluge approach like this does not make sense. Yes, it works, and if you are still living in the Napster era. So would bringing a Sony Discman and headphones into the car. Neither are a good solution.
We are asking for something very simple, that already exists in the hardware and can likely be turned on via a software switch. It would improve the sound quality for many users
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
It's basically impossible with modern phones today given they no longer support USB mass storage mounting and use MTP (which sucks and is much slower). In older Android there was a "USB Audio" option in the dev mode, but that is also gone in most recent versions (plus few devices supported it anyways). IOS is a whole other thing with even less compatibility (can't even do simple copy and pasting of files via USB, only have very basic access to photos, needs iTunes to do anything more complex). So no, it's not a simple software switch, as things are fundamentally different from a USB stick.
Basically the rest of the industry has moved on to Android Auto and/or Apple Carplay for phone connections, giving up cross compatibility, and I doubt USB audio will ever come for Tesla.
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I can plug my iPhone 11 into my 10-year-old Mazda CX-5 with base stereo and it gets USB audio. Not sure how "modern" you are talking about but my phone is only about a year old. The phone is not the issue.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I don't know about iPhones (I don't use them at all), but I know a long time ago, modern android phones (since around version 4.0) no longer supported USB mass storage and thus can't function as a USB source (no longer looks like a USB stick). I do have an old android phone from 2012 that does still function like USB mass storage and it looks just like a USB stick to a computer (not a MTP device). I haven't tried plugging it into my Tesla, but maybe I'll try when I have the chance. But it'll likely function just fine for USB audio, and if that's the case, it's definitely a phone problem. Edit: I just tried plugging into my computer, don't have my car nearby, and it seems I may have updated it and it only has MTP as an option now, so actually unable to test. My other older phones I have disposed of already, so I don't think I have a device anymore that supports USB mass storage.
I found an article the covers this change actually:
Car Tech's guide to using your Android phone in the car
Your iPhone may be using some proprietary iPod mode that older infotainment systems supported (given the popularity of iPods back then), but given Tesla uses a Linux based system, the chances it supports that natively is almost zero.
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It has noting to do with looking like a memory stick, you are confusing two different things. If it was then any needed decoding would be done on the car side rather than on the phone. Instead the actual analog audio is routed over USB.
Routing audio over USB has been around forever. It works with streaming, with MP3s on the phone and even with phone audio. It is simply routing audio over the USB connection.
Routing audio over USB has been around forever. It works with streaming, with MP3s on the phone and even with phone audio. It is simply routing audio over the USB connection.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Read the article I linked, I'm not confusing anything. Almost all infotainment systems supported USB Audio on Android simply by treating the phone as a USB stick (which worked perfectly fine before Android decided to switch to MTP). And the only infotainment system that offered MTP support was BMW and only in some obscure business version. But even if Tesla adds MTP support, I doubt it would work well, especially for higher quality audio (not just mp3s). MTP is a very slow protocol, takes forever just to load the file structure, and is much slower than even the USB 2.0 connection.
Yes, there is a USB Audio protocol, but close to no devices supported it (I think the only popular devices that supported it were Playstations). None of the infotainment systems and Android phones used it, otherwise it wouldn't have broken USB audio to infotainment systems when Android switched to MTP. Now the focus is all on supporting Android Auto (which is proprietary), so there is zero reason to go back to revive something that no one adopted.
"Accessory mode audio has not been widely adopted, and is not currently recommended for new designs."
USB Digital Audio | Android Open Source Project
They even completely removed that with Android 8.0.
"Caution: AOAv2 audio support has been deprecated in Android 8.0."
Android Open Accessory Protocol 2.0 | Android Open Source Project
So no, there is no simple non-proprietary way to support this for Tesla (MTP is the only viable one, but that doesn't work for iPhones as they don't expose their music folders via MTP). So I don't think we'll see support for USB Audio (for phones without USB mass storage) until Tesla adds Android Auto / Carplay.
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I don't really care about Android TBH. As far as which vehicles have supported this in the past, read this very thread we are writing in. In addition to every car I have owned in the last decade, a crappy rental truck I tested included it. It is borderline ubiquitous. I'm OK with it not working with Android -- if it is this common among vehicles that have USB then Android should have included it years ago.
Also -- and this is my final post on this -- it has nothing to do with "folders" -- it is a pure audio pass-through from the device to the car. You are confusing two different technologies, although admittedly it seems your phone does not include one of them.
Also -- and this is my final post on this -- it has nothing to do with "folders" -- it is a pure audio pass-through from the device to the car. You are confusing two different technologies, although admittedly it seems your phone does not include one of them.
When I plug a USB dongle in to my USB-C Samsung phone, I can plug in a USB headset. That's audio passthrough.
That's why headphones are going USB-C too.
It's a pretty standard feature. It just passes the raw audio stream to an external DAC like headphones. That's all.
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure one sentence of fact, basically right out of owners manual, is "comically strong defense" of something, but you do you my dude
As I pointed out, you're the one in the vast minority of music listeners here.
There's been that same tiny minority asking for what you're asking for since the Model S launched in 2012. Tesla has made numerous updates to available low-res in-car streaming, and also to high-quality-available local USB playback in the 9 years since. They've made no indications in all that time of ever planning to offer from-your-phone wired playback though.
Most people still either own their music, or aren't as concerned about quality as you, or both.
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Then why bother with the sound system at all? It's a fantastic well designed sound system it just seems odd to limit it and no it isn't the minority otherwise there wouldn't have been a thriving home and car stereo business for decades.
And for sound to go to full HD is such a tiny increase in bandwidth it's just ridiculous to not support it.