Samsung Galaxy S4 not Connecting to Car Audio Fix

Few months back suddenly my Toyota refused to connect to my Samsung Galaxy S4 without any reason. Earlier I could listen to music, dial calls and answer calls without issues.

But suddenly the connection between the car and the phone broke and the worst thing is I lost entire Bluetooth screen from the car audio system (Normally I have FM1, FM2, Bluetooth and AM). I thought my audio system is malfunctioning so I went to Toyota, but they said it is a known error and Galaxy S4 is having new Bluetooth version and it is not compatible with most of the car audio systems and I will not be able to use the phone with the car. This was very disappointing to me so I asked for them for the audio system update but they said no updates are available.

Then I thought to try out few things and get it fixed by myself, good news for anyone having the same issue is I solved the issue. But it is not always reliable but 95% of times it will work.

To get your S4 (or any other new device) connected into your car audio follow the steps below, they might help you.

1. First we need to get the missing Bluetooth mode (screen) back in the car audio, for this I removed all the registered devices I had in the car audio.
2. Then I registered my old Windows Mobile phone to the audio system using the settings screen (since the Bluetooth mode is not available). Any old phone like an iPhone 4G or below, Samsung Galaxy S2, Windows Mobile phones will be ok. If you get the device properly registered you will get the Bluetooth screen back when you restart the car audio system.
3. Then register your Galaxy S4 with the car audio system, and change the connection behaviour immediately. Normally the car audio will try to connect to the phone, but since the phone is having new version of Bluetooth car audio will not recognise the commands transmitted by the phone. So the system will think there is no device.

To over come the issue you need to configure the phone to make the connection. In my Toyota this is done by selecting the connection settings after the Bluetooth connection is made using the Bluetooth mode (screen). Because latest phones are intelligent they will detect that the car audio is having older version of Bluetooth and it will change the instruction set accordingly and start communicating with an instruction set which is recognised by the car audio, making everything back to normal again.

After making my phone to connect to the car, I could play my music, answer calls and dial calls without any issues.

Hope this will help you to get your car audio connected to your latest phone.

Mount Lofty Lookout

A place you would visit to enjoy great scenery while you are in Adelaide South Australia is the Mt. Lofty Summit Lookout. You will be able to see most of the Adelaide while being there. At 720 meters above sea level and 17 kilometers from the city is a good place to enjoy an evening.

To assist visitors there is an information centre to gather more information about the area and a restaurant (http://www.mtloftysummit.com) to enjoy a cup of tea. If you got some more time to spare you could also visit Cleland wild life park which is nearby.

Drive with care since the roads in the area are having bends, also be on alert since there are many cyclists active in the area. There s a big car park so you will find a space to park your car but it will cost (was $3 on May 2013) you since at all times parking fees do apply.

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Kogan Smart TV Dongle Restarting

If you also bought Kogan Smart TV dongle and it keeps on restarting whenever you try to turn it on you might be able to fix it by reading on.

Mine always restarted, at a time when the Android robot man is in view or when Android word is shown.

I did two main things to get it to work normally.

A) Changed the power source – I found the Red LED light in the dongle was not having the brightness it used to have. After doing some testing I found the power adapter which came with the dongle was faulty, so I used another similar power adapter and immediately the restarting of the dongle became less.

Also sometimes this power limitation is caused by the connector slack between the power adapter and the cable. Try changing the cable or adjusting the orientation of the adapter. For example if the adapter is lying flat try to turn it to a side or try to put some kind of an object underneath to reduce the slack between the cable and power adapter.

B) Update the firmware in the dongle – In my dongle updating the firmware made the restarting issue almost vanish. So if you like to make the fix complete try updating the dongle by following the steps below.

Before starting the process make sure that you will not have any power outages until you complete your firmware update (for about 30 mins). If power is interrupted while the update is happening most likely you will have problems using your dongle again, it might even be bricked so be careful.

1. Download the new version of firmware  from the following link.
2. Find an empty USB flash drive or a Micro SD card of capacity 512MB or more.
3. Unzip the downloaded zip file into the USB flash or the SD card. Make sure only the contents of the zip file is present on SD card or flash drive.
4. Plug the SD card or the USB flash into the HDMI dongle.
5. Go to Settings, find System Update then select Local Device and select either USB flash drive or the SD card.
6. This will start the firmware update process and when completed dongle will be restarted.
7. Then you need to do the initial configuration again for things like screen size, WiFi, accounts etc.

Hope this helps you, if you have any questions let me know I might be able to help. Some of the information about updating the firmware is thanks to a reply made by Ozzie Tigar in forums.whirlpool.net.au.