VroomVroom

Hi Folks,

Two days after I got my '06 A4 Avant I got my new phone - a Cingular 8525. Sweet phone, but it's driving me nuts since it doesn't play nicely with the car's bluetooth system. It connects and works great, and then for no apparent reason disconnects. This cycle repeats every few minutes.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this, either with the same phone, or with a phone that is running the Windows Mobile 5 OS and/or Bluetooth v2.0. Hermes has no definitive release date for a firmware update, and no promise that it will address the problem. I like the car a lot more than I do the phone, so I'm happy to dump the latter...I just want to make sure I don't find myself in the same spot.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Tenacious auDi

I don't have Bluetooth in the car, yet, but I have had no conflict with several headsets and a desktop Bluetooth speaker.

I had an 8125 and so far the 8525 has all of the features I had before and more, plus the high speed data is sick.

Is the Bluetooth set to discoverable on yours? It may be that the system only sees the phone when in a call and when the call ends it times out unless another call is activated.

Good luck

VroomVroom

I hope you have better luck than me. FYI, the Hermes, Cingular, and howardforum sites have threads describing the same problem. Owners of '04-'06 Audis and 8525 phones seem to be as frustrated as I am. The concensus seems to be that it's Microsoft's bluetooth v2 stack at the root of the problem.

For adventurous folks, there does seem to be a fix. Here's the thread I've been following the closest, in case anyone is interested:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1047882

DirkM

the newest Cingular ROM fixed that somehow but installing the JETware Hands-free Extension from <a href="http://jetwaremobile.com/">jetwaremobile.com</a> also helped to get rid of some BT issues. I got the 8525 yesterday and it paired fine but I haven't been long enough in the car to say whether or not it disconnects randomly like you say. For what it matters, I'm having the "G" phone interface in my car. The index letter may have an impact as well as Audi is constantly fine tuning the firmware to support newer phones.

VroomVroom

For anyone interested...

This does appear to be directly related to the M$ v2.0 bluetooth stack. This morning I upgraded my phone to HTC's v1.35 ROM. I won't be able to test it until tonight, but initial feedback indicates that fixes for many car systems are included in this release.

Great reading here:
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=HTC_Hermes

Be careful...and patient...if you do this. The site has all the caveats, but it's like any other firmware upgrade. Depending on the bootloader that shipped with your phone, you may need to spend ~ $40 to downgrade it to a version that also unlocks the CID.

RAD2

Cingular 8125 is listed as compatible, you can get a free trial. See link and go to support to see compatible phones and handsfree devices (including audi)<ul><li><a href="http://www.jetwaremobile.com">http://www.jetwaremobile.com</a</li></ul>

16v

I reported it internally to cingular when I noticed it on our A4. No indication if it will be corrected by HTC for their cingular ROM build

VroomVroom

Well, I can't speak to it being an M$ problem, but....

1. I upgraded my f/w with what I understand will be Cingular's next release. No good.

2. I traded the phone for a Samsung BlackJack...which uses the same M$ v2 bluetooth stack. No problems whatsoever.

I'm inclined to believe it's a hardware issue. I didn't try another 8525 so it could've been isolated to my phone, but from what I've read elsewhere that doesn't seem to be likely. In any case, since the BlackJack was a better phone for my needs it was an easy decision to throw in the towel. Best of luck to any fellow 8525 users out there. The howardforums.com and xda-developers.com sites are outstanding resources for the latest patches and other upgrades.

16v

Cingular's next release? Interesting... nothing has been approved yet for the 8525

VroomVroom

Nope - and probably won't be until at least February. Which is another reason I conceded and went with a different phone. From what I've gathered on the specific forums, Cingular offers updates for HTC devices much later than other carriers. The fixes in the 11/14 release from South Africa are reported to be the latest and greatest, and will be included in the Cingular release.

Unfortunately they had no effect for me. While it was kind of cool to have an unlocked &amp; superCIDed phone, and I learned a lot from the process of upgrading it, all I really wanted was for it to work in my car.

Again, it could've been just an issue with my phone. I doubt it since other 8525 users/Audi owners reported identical problems, but who knows? While it could be a Microsoft issue, The Blackjack has the same OS and bluetooth stack as the 8525. However, the 8125 has a v1.2 bluetooth stack and it works fine. Mystery unsolved, but solution found, so I'm happy.