Who has some technical knowledge of Bluetooth?
 

So there's something going on, that's affecting my connection to my Bluetooth speaker in my golf car.

Driving (& at my home) around Stillwater, between Odell & Morse, my Bluetooth connection is picking up heavy "noise". My speaker becomes almost intermittent and drops out for seconds or picks up static. It's been going for a week or so.

I thought maybe my speaker had gotten old or caught some water, so I replaced it today. Same problem. Once I'm past Morse, seems ok again. Once I'm past O'Dell, seems ok.

Also, my Echo Dot at home, is telling me I have a "noisy connection".

Edit: Same problem on Morse Blvd and San Marino. Played golf at TDS and on my way there and on my way back, had Bluetooth "noise".

Any thoughts?

The area might be congested with overlapping wifi signals, which are in the same general range as bluetooth signals.

Another possibility - if you are hearing things from your cell phone through your speaker, you might need to update your bluetooth driver on your cell phone. I'd try that first, if you haven't done it already.

A third possibility - you have a legacy cell phone with old bluetooth technology that has been replaced and can't "update". The solution for that would be to get a newer cell phone with current bluetooth technology. That'd be the most expensive option and a last resort.

OK, I am assuming you are using a phone for the Bluetooth signal, so I would have the phone checked out if possible. Try this, turn off your speaker, put the phone speaker on and drive the SAME route and see if you get any of the same problems. If you do this would indicate a problem with the phone or signal interference with the 4G/5G signal. Since this is in a specific area, maybe one of the electrical engineers in the area has a spectrum analyzer that could see if there are other interfering signals. my equipment only goes to 100Mhz so it will not help.

Stillwater from Morse to O'Dell is about 1.5 miles. Does the problem exist the entire way or only a smaller section of Stillwater?

Since Stillwater ends at O'Dell, what do you mean when you refer to being past O'Dell?

Just trying to narrow it down so I can take a drive and see if I experience the same issue.

What phone do you have? Someone said the other day they had not updated their phone in 2 years (so that is an assumption on this issue)? If an iPhone search the Apple site for “noise in Bluetooth”, etc as I just got a bunch of “try this” possible solutions.

You stated your Echo dot noisy connection. I am guessing you have your iPhone connected for music to Alexa. Since it’s in your cart and on Alexa it’s your phone. Reboot, check for updates. Since your phone is connected to your WIFI at home it’s not a Bluetooth signal issue.

If you have a phone case take it off. You are an avid golfer, because I keep my phone in my pocket apparently sand invaded inside my phone case probably from putting tees in same pocket. Had no idea until my son removed the case, and sand was embedded inside the case and the phone. Once it was cleaned all my phone issues stopped

I'm not sure if the "Noisy Connection" Echo referred to, was the Wifi or the Bluetooth. It does use Bluetooth to make initial connections.

I am starting to believe you're right, it's in the phone. I used a different phone in my cart today and didn't get any "noise" in my Blue Tooth connection to the speaker ...there's a clue! (Of course, I already replaced the speaker, thinking that's what it was).

Thanks

Check the specifications for the bluetooth and your speaker. At a minimum, you should have Bluetooth 5.0 on each device. Older bluetooth is much more susceptible to interference. Bluetooth 5.2 is slightly better in handling interference than 5.0

If the interference is always happening at the same location, it could be powerline interference. Every year I attend a festival that is wired up for the festival. During the festival, my bluetooth headphones crap out with interference (even during my early morning walk when there are no others around). After the festival they remove all the temporary wiring and my headphones work fine.

So yeah - like I said. It might just need updated drivers. Or an old phone with old bluetooth tech needs to be replaced with a newer phone with updated bluetooth tech.

So apparently this is a known problem with iPhone 13's and the only solution that seems to work, is to disable "Location Services". I have no clue what the connection is between Bluetooth & Location Services.

Thanks for the input.

When you access the bluetooth setting on your phone, it will seek out all the bluetooth devices in your area. It can't do that if you have location services turned off. Turning location services off prevents your phone from seeking nearby wifis or bluetooth, mapping/gps services, etc. It is -very literally- a "location service."

So it looks like what was happening was the first thing in my first response to you: for whatever reason (in your case, the fact that you're using an iPhone 13 that has code bugs), there were too many overlapping signals.

Blue Tooth Tech
 

Too bad Hedy Lamar has passed. She invented the basis for BT tech.