I have the Spotify app installed on my mobile (LG G3). I have managed to get the music to play through the Columbus via Bluetooth, it also allows me to change tracks using the steering wheel / touch screen etc. It does not however show track names / album art, or give any means of selecting a different album. Conversely my old phone (a generic android) would display the tracks and album art but would not allow you to select tracks. Have any of you guys managed to get Spotify to work correctly through the Columbus / Amundsen / Bolero? Are there any magic settings that need to be enabled on the phone or sound system? Another thing to note is that the normal MP3 music stored on the phone does display track names etc.

Maybe its the version of Spotify your G3 is running. Older versions may have provided that info, this one doesn't. Next update, possibly party time again as its all back on again! 

Got Galaxy S4 here.

 

I have discovered you could get the song names from the Spotify if you start up music app with some kind of mp3. You will get the artist and song name. By the way for some reason I can scroll time on the LCD any more (I think it happened after my first year maintenance - they probably updated some software or happened after some phone update). So now, if you boot up Spotify app and start playing songs you will get the artist with song names. Scrolling is not possible in Spotify (even in older versions of app / phone / car software).

 

The only thing botheres me now is when I sit in the car, wait for the BT to hook up, press the media button and it does not start playing Spotify songs (before some updates it did, but never displayed song titles this way...). It always plays mp3's first on the Music app (talking about default app which comes with S4). I have to boot up Spotify app. Yes sometimes when I shutdown the car, go pick something up, come back, fire up the car and as soon as BT engages it continues Spotify.

As I understand it the Spotify app doesn't "talk" to the Columbus unit. The Columbus is just picking up whatever info it's being handed through the Bluetooth protocol. I'd say it's possibly a Bluetooth/Spotify issue on your G3, if so it's definitely something that might be fixed in an OS or app update. I've used Spotify through various android phones with my Columbus and have always had access to track/artist/album info, play, pause, skip forward and back. Album art is random, I've seen it a couple of times, but very uncommon.

Sadly, I'm fairly certain you will never be able to search Spotify for different albums (or even manually select tracks from a single album) on the Columbus. That would need the unit to have "Spotify connect" functionality (or Android Auto...), which I don't think is software patch-able (even if skoda wanted to do that).

Got Galaxy S4 here.

 

The only thing botheres me now is when I sit in the car, wait for the BT to hook up, press the media button and it does not start playing Spotify songs (before some updates it did, but never displayed song titles this way...). It always plays mp3's first on the Music app (talking about default app which comes with S4). I have to boot up Spotify app. Yes sometimes when I shutdown the car, go pick something up, come back, fire up the car and as soon as BT engages it continues Spotify.

 

Very annoying, for sure. It's (mostly) a phone thing. When the phone connects to the car stereo it recognises it as a music device. Upon getting the connection from the stereo device some phones then decide (on your behalf...) to autoplay music from the phones default music app. On the S4 it'll be Samsung's own player. On a nexus device it'll be Google Play Music. The default music app won't ever be spotify as it can't play local files (MP3s). It's possible there's a setting in the Columbus to turn the autoplay off (auto play on connection or something? I'll have a nosey). The reason it connects directly to Spotify sometimes is to do with the app still being active on the phone. If it's still active, when your phone gets the Bluetooth connection from the Columbus it knows to start playing music from your last used music app (e.g. Spotify). Generally your phone will kill spotify if it's sitting in the background unused for a while - saves RAM and battery - hence this only working sometimes.

Edited 18 December, 201411 yr by kitset

My iPhone allows track change, but the album artwork/track names display is a bit hit and miss on initial connection. But it is because the default Music app gets precedence (same as the S4 as with conn's experience it seems) and only when Spotify goes to it's 2nd track does it get full control it seems. So as of track 2 I do get correct artwork and current track name info.

 

Realise you are running android, but it does at least show it is possible via the Bluetooth protocol with Columbus, so must be something about your phone/Spotify installation that isn't singing in tune.

 

You will never be able to select different albums via A2DP Bluetooth, the protocol does not support anything but skip forward/back track.

Could it be possible to do that via MMI cable though?

Edited 18 December, 201411 yr by kallekilponen

No, the cable will only interface with the native music app.

It may be possible with the latest iOS for car and android mirror link equivalent if Spotify update their app to work with it, and your car supports it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Very annoying, for sure. It's (mostly) a phone thing. When the phone connects to the car stereo it recognises it as a music device. Upon getting the connection from the stereo device some phones then decide (on your behalf...) to autoplay music from the phones default music app. On the S4 it'll be Samsung's own player. On a nexus device it'll be Google Play Music. The default music app won't ever be spotify as it can't play local files (MP3s). It's possible there's a setting in the Columbus to turn the autoplay off (auto play on connection or something? I'll have a nosey). The reason it connects directly to Spotify sometimes is to do with the app still being active on the phone. If it's still active, when your phone gets the Bluetooth connection from the Columbus it knows to start playing music from your last used music app (e.g. Spotify). Generally your phone will kill spotify if it's sitting in the background unused for a while - saves RAM and battery - hence this only working sometimes.

 

 

As I understand it the Spotify app doesn't "talk" to the Columbus unit. The Columbus is just picking up whatever info it's being handed through the Bluetooth protocol. I'd say it's possibly a Bluetooth/Spotify issue on your G3, if so it's definitely something that might be fixed in an OS or app update. I've used Spotify through various android phones with my Columbus and have always had access to track/artist/album info, play, pause, skip forward and back. Album art is random, I've seen it a couple of times, but very uncommon.

Sadly, I'm fairly certain you will never be able to search Spotify for different albums (or even manually select tracks from a single album) on the Columbus. That would need the unit to have "Spotify connect" functionality (or Android Auto...), which I don't think is software patch-able (even if skoda wanted to do that).

Have you tried the 'Tasker' app from the store yet? It can be a bit daunting to start with but in theory you can set it to auto-run an app (spotify in this case) when it connects to a specific bluetooth address - Might be worth a try

The Spotify-app doesn't transmitt this info to the car. There are various ways around this, but the easiest fix is to download 'Fixify' from google's appstore. I have a Bolero unit.

Have you tried the 'Tasker' app from the store yet? It can be a bit daunting to start with but in theory you can set it to auto-run an app (spotify in this case) when it connects to a specific bluetooth address - Might be worth a try

I use Tasker for a bunch of stuff and hadn't thought about it for this, thanks for the idea. Thankfully my (Oneplus One) phone doesn't auto launch the default music player on connection so it's not really an issue for me. I'm 50/50 Spotify/podcast too, so any auto launch would probably annoy me.

Excellent idea though, I can certainly see it being useful for some!

Update to the Spotify app out today. Change log indicates improvements to Bluetooth, so maybe your problem has been solved?

Great thanks will have a look at that!

Update to the Spotify app out today. Change log indicates improvements to Bluetooth, so maybe your problem has been solved?

 

And... as of today, for the first time ever, Spotify on my Nexus 5 displays album/track name on my Bolero. On one track is also displayed elapsed time, but not remaining time.

 

This is a step in the right direction.

Hmm still doesn't on mine, may have to dig a bit deeper.

Hmmmm. Too much too soon. On my way home from work yesterday and ever since, it doesn't display anything any more.

As I said if you start playing mp3 first and then fire up Spotify' then Spotify tracknames will be shown - try this way.

It's all a bit random. I don't have any MP3s on my phone. Today after playing Spotify radio for an hour, it stated displaying track info again. However, sometimes it gets stuck and the info doesn't update from one track to another. Still, it shows Spotify can provide the data, just they've not got it quite right yet...

It's all a bit random. I don't have any MP3s on my phone. Today after playing Spotify radio for an hour, it stated displaying track info again. However, sometimes it gets stuck and the info doesn't update from one track to another. Still, it shows Spotify can provide the data, just they've not got it quite right yet...

I've not had any issues, so maybe it's an issue with Bluetooth on your phone? You need a second phone and a second skoda so you can work through the permutations to see where the problem is!

It's started working now with album art and track name showing. Not sure what's changed exactly, but there was a software update on the phone recently.

Edited 10 January, 201511 yr by Leonblue

Problems:

No track names

Can't skip tracks

 

Corrective action:

Change BT AVRCP version accordingly

1. On Android 10/11 try this
2. Activate developer options
   1. Settings
   2. About Phone
   3. click 7 times on build-number, confirm
   4. go back to settings
   5. ... system
   6. ... advanced
   7. ... developer options
3. Find [Bluetooth AVRCP-Version]

On my former Passat B7 track names where not shown after a while (Android 11) and on the newer Octavia III I couldn't skip tracks in addition (buttons grayed out)

Turned out that AVRCP got raised to v1.5

After switching back to v1.4 track names where immediately shown and skip buttons visible

 

AVRCP has several versions with significantly increasing functionality:

• 1.0 — Basic remote control commands (play/pause/stop, etc.)^[5]
• 1.3 — all of 1.0 plus metadata and media-player state support^[6]
  • The status of the music source (playing, stopped, etc.)
  • Metadata information on the track itself (artist, track name, etc.).
• 1.4 — all of 1.3 plus media browsing capabilities for multiple media players^[7]
  • Browsing and manipulation of multiple players
  • Browsing of media metadata per media player, including a "Now Playing" list
  • Basic search capabilities
  • Support for Absolute volume
• 1.5 — all of 1.4 plus specification corrections and clarifications to absolute volume control, browsing and other features^[8]
• 1.6 — all of 1.5 plus browsing data and track information^[9][10]
  • Number of items that are in a folder without downloading the list
  • Support for transmitting cover arts through the BIP over OBEX protocol.