Bluetooth Woes

So I know a lot of people were probably waiting for the ever-delayed bluetooth module ...

I'm the (sort of) proud new owner of a Rocket TFC, which has (albeit I had to pay for, despite being a £25k bike!) the bluetooth module.

Unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that unless I'm doing something wrong, it's basically not fit for purpose. Has anyone else got one and had any issues?

I've tried it with 2 phones (my iPhone 11 Pro, and the wife's iPhone 8), and 3 intercoms (FM5C, F3MC, and AGV Ark). With any and all combinations, I experience difficulties and Occam's Razor would tell us therefore that the most likely culprit, is indeed the bike.

Here are some of the issues I've had so far:

• Sometimes (rarely) phone or intercom won't connect when the bike is turned on
• Almost always, when activating siri through the headset, the phone is listening with it's internal mic, not the headset mic
• Navigation (when it works) is incredibly quiet with no way of boosting volume
• Navigation (when it works) gives instructions far too late - often I'll be at the next roundabout when it gives me directions from the previous one*
• Most of the time, callers can't hear me speak, but I can hear them
• Sometimes, callers can hear me, but I can't hear them
• If you can connect a call correctly, and both can hear each other, the call has background noise/clicking/weird sounds
• Refuses to connect AT ALL to the F3MC headset

* note: in case you're not aware, the navigation is done through the maps app inside the My Triumph app, NOT via your preferred navigation app

The only light at the end of the tunnel, is that hopefully it's all just software issues, and might theoretically be corrected in a future update, which, if even possible, would require taking it back to the dealership to have done.

So all in all, the bluetooth module, for me at least, has been a nightmare. I certainly wouldn't pay £400 for it, and I may not even have bought the bike if I'd known it was this bad, as it was a significant feature I was looking forward to.

Really keen to know if anyone else has had issues, and even better, if anyone's found a way to resolve them,

Dave

 

Yeah, I hear that, I probably shouldn't listen to music, nor take calls. But I do, and it's a huge convenience. Especially when I think "Ooooh, I'll see if [mate] is in and stop by", typically I'll pull to the side of the road to do such things, but at least I don't have to get my phone out of my pocket and take my helmet off to do so.

Funnily enough, the Nav is what I really use the most, and was looking forward to. But the volume is terrible, the lateness of the instructions makes for more mistakes than help, and the display (which is text only) is nothing like as good as actually seeing the map on the phone on the handlebars.

 

I got the grips and a tracker fitted but I'm pretty sure with fitting it was £300+

I got to be honest, after they told me 100% that the TFC defo came with bluetooth, that free fitting of it would have been warranted. I try not to be a tricky customer though, despite always feeling like one

 

Yes, thanks for that. I wasn't actually given any bluetooth manual with the bike, and having asked, was sent it digitally afterwards.

I've paired, unpaired, and re-paired the phone to the bike in as many permutations as I believe the maths allows for - including by chance, the correct procedure. I have gotten it MOSTLY working, but the issue still is predominantly to do with clarity, and reliability.

I've stopped using it for now, as it's better to have it not working at all, than to get frustrated using something that isn't working while I'm riding. I've mentioned it to my dealer, and at the 600 mile service, I will be after a refund on the unit and the fitting. If they choose to remove it, fine, if they choose to leave it fitted, I just won't use it.

 

I've just looked to see if that's possible, but there's no configuration like that inside the MyTriumph app (where the nav needs to be done from).

 

I do appreciate that some of my issue may be Apple's fault. But even when I occasionally did manage to get it working 'perfectly' calls and various functions would still have a weird background noise in them, which was never present with a bluetooth-to-intercom 'direct' connection with the same phone and intercom. I can only imagine that can be due to some form of interference from the bike's bluetooth module.

But regarding the app being the thing to update, note that only the sat nav is done directly through the app. You can connect the phone to the bike, and the bike to the intercom, and (supposedly) use music and phone features, without even having the app installed. Still, some of the issues I experience would be present though ... at least, I assume they would, perhaps tonight, I'll try uninstalling the app and seeing how it works.

 

Thanks for the info. I've tried my iphone 11 pro, and the wife's iphone 8, so I guess both should have the required gubbins to work well.

I never really ride (maybe once a year) with someone else with an intercom, so how well that works doesn't fuss me to be hoenst. I just like to be reachable by the Mrs if I'm out and about ... and listen to some muzak.

I'll try later the idea of not using the triumph app at all, and therefore just connecting the phone once to the bike. For what it's worth, I don't hold out much hope, as I'm sure I had already experienced many issues before even connecting the app to try the nav. I think this, because I'm pretty sure I was already upset about the general issues I was having, but figured "Oh, but the sat nav will be awesome right? maybe I can forgive some of the other shit". Alas, no.

 

For anyone interested, I finally did something I should probably have done a while ago, and call Triumph head office directly and ask to speak to someone about some technical issues with the bluetooth. I got through to a Peter, to whom I described the main problems I'm having.

He said, "Oh, you've emailed us about this before, right? This sounds familiar". Well, I've not emailed them, so it seems I'm not the only one having these issues. Not sure if that's good or bad to be honest!

I would imagine therefore that either these problems are fairly generic and software based, or they've got a number of faulty units out there (including mine). He said they're going to look into it, and let me know. So we shall see.

 

So I've tried again to get this thing working, and it just won't. After following all instructions in the manual to the letter, I still get the most common issue of the microphone of my headset not going through to the phone. Siri can't hear me, and people that I call (either directly on the phone, or via the controls on the bike) cannot hear me.

I will go back to triumph HQ again tomorrow to see if they have any update for me, and failing that, I'll speak to my dealer to ask for a refund.

To give an idea of how thoroughly I read the manual to ensure I was doing everything correctly, I even read all the stuff that no one usually reads, and spotted this in the 'limited warranty' section:

TRIUMPH MOTORCYCLES LIMITED
MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR
WARRANTIES THAT THIS PRODUCT WILL
OPERATE AND WORK PROPERLY IN
CONNECTION WITH OR WITH EVERY AND
ALL TYPE OF CUSTOMER'S DEVICE,
EQUIPMENT, SMARTPHONE, AND ANY
APPLICATION, AND SOFTWARE IN THE
PRODUCT, AND ONLY THE CUSTOMER
WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR
PERFORMANCE, FUNCTIONALITY,
CONNECTIVITY WITH THE CUSTOMER'S
DEVICE, EQUIPMENT AND SMARTPHONE​

Marvellous, so it's not guaranteed to 'work' ... let's hope they don't pull that out when I ask for a refund.

On a slightly more positive note, I tried a crummy old android phone (cost about £60, 18 months ago), and tried hooking that up. My sim card wouldn't work in it so I couldn't try placing a call, but I can say that the Google Assistant at least heard my voice through the headset. So there's a good chance that the bluetooth module will actually work with android phones.

 

Yeah thanks for that. That does suck indeed. I'll be pretty miffed it it's not possible to use due to shonky apple implementations. I guess Triumph could add wifi connectivity, but that would obviously require a version2 of the hardware.

At some point, I'll try deleting all the pairings again, and ONLY pairing for the music (not the data for the sat nav). But to be honest, whilst that's not a complete loss, the ONLY improved functionality that would bring to my life, is controlling my phone (calls and music) on the handlebar instead of moving my hand up to the intercom on the side of my head ... which let's face it, isn't the end of the world to have to do.

One of the main things was not having to have the phone mounted on the handlebars in order to use satnav. But since the map isn't visible on the bike anyway the usefulness of the satnav integration is very limited anyway.