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Music breaks up during activity

lustyd
over 4 years ago

Hi all, does anyone know if a specific update has affected music playback? Using a F5+ and Spotify app and it all worked flawlessly a year ago with great playback. Now, I still get great playback in Spotify but as soon as I start an activity it starts to break up as if the bluetooth radio is being used for something else (I have no BLE sensors) or the processor is now too busy to play the music. I have several pairs of earbuds all of which worked fine before and all of which show this issue so I'm certain it's a watch issue and pretty certain it's an update that did it.

Any ideas? I'd happily run the older firmware if anyone knows when it last worked! I can't be arsed calling Garmin support and getting a pointless refurb swap out - their lack of interest in fixing bugs depresses me :D

Thanks all!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to BrianHarg

    Well - I just had a flawless 4 mile run with music!!!  Still my old watch - the replacement should show up any day.  I did 2 things:

    1) noticed there is a Spotify update (came out 1/15/21).  I removed all my old music from the watch - installed the update and re-loaded my music

    2) I was wondering if there was anything to the comments about having to run w/ the watch on your right arm.  I use airpod pros (which allow you to connect either ear individually) so I left the right one in the case while I connected my watch to the left one.  I selected the activity (did not start it), put in the right airpod and it connected right up.  Then I started my run.

    No idea if it was both - or just dumb luck that it seemed to work today.  Will try it again soon and see what happens. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to BrianHarg

    Seems you're right, I can use a single ear bud and it all works fine. I've also done some more extensive testing and it seems that it's a Bluetooth issue around simultaneous connections to each bud. Older models which retransmit from one side to the other don't seem to be affected. In my case anything Bluetooth 5 or above is affected and anything older seems fine. This could very well be a limitation of the Bluetooth chip in the Fenix 5 plus (or, just as likely a bug in software) where maintaining more than one connection is not possible. Unfortunately I can't see a way to turn off this feature in the headphones or the watch.
    Adding the second bud later did not work for me.

    Since there are similar threads in the Fenix 6 forum I can only assume the Bluetooth hardware was not updated for that model. Let's hope the new Fenix seen on FCC will include an update for this and add support for BT5.

    It would be nice if we could get through to a Garmin techie to confirm whether this is hardware or software. It certainly affects a lot of people on a lot of devices!

    In the mean time, buy some older earbuds for use running. The Sony WF-SP700N seem to work just fine, their only real downfall is the Micro-USB socket on the charging case.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to lustyd

    Got a little shorter run in - did the same as before.  This time not flawless - there was some "skipping/crackling" - but never fully disconnected.

    - did the replacement watch you got do the exact same as your original? 

    I am thing about contacting support to just send back the replacement they sent me - but also (hopefully) give them the info we found so they can see if they have a recurring theme they can investigate.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to BrianHarg

    Yes it was identical so I’m sure it’s either a hardware limitation or a software bug. Now I’ve found that Bluetooth 4 headphones work I’m going to just hope they sort it for the Fenix 7 and deal with older headphones for now. If you get somewhere with support I’m happy to get involved