Anyone else with I509 Alpine Restyle issues

[DraxStorm]

I've had the Alpine I509-JK restyle in my jeep for over a year now and in general I do like it. But I use it mainly with the Android Auto Bluetooth connection and it has some true annoyances in the software for that.
My issue is that I stream Spotify and use Waze at the same time and it seems like there are 2 queues that it uses to retrieve/send data from Android Auto. The "Instant Queue" for things like driving directions, and a second queue for things like "Music" or commands to affect the music. The Alpine does have a nice feature where it buffers that second queue so if you hit a dead zone it can keep playing the music. The problem is that any Music commands that you send get put in that delayed queue. So after about an hour of driving if I press "Pause" it will take as much as 5 minutes for the music to actually pause. If I'm listening to directions, the "Turn right ahead" will happen when it should, but about 5 minutes later I will hear the music soften for the time it would have taken to say "Turn Right Ahead".
Even the graphics for album covers and progress through songs is from the instant queue, so I'll see a song nearly finishing on the screen, but the music will still be the song just starting.
It sounds minor, like a teeny bother but I have kids and I'll admit some of the songs on my playlist I don't want them hearing, so when they come on I click "next song", but then I have to turn the volume down for the rest of the song since it won't actually skip to the next song till it catches up in the queue.
Was wondering if anyone else had seen this issue at all?

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[Vahdettin]

I have the i509-JL and although it generally works , the main reason I bought it, which was to play locally stored music, was broken after a firmware update. I've had no luck getting Alpine to even acknowledge that a problem exists so good luck.

But I think that your issue is probably with the way the apps work on the phone. CarPlay and Android Auto just basically turn the Alpine into a 2nd monitor for the phone. It's the phone that decides prioritization of processing.

And I'm not sure about Android but with CarPlay, only the initial sync-up is done via Bluetooth. After that, data is exchanged via WiFi. I would think that Android work work the same as Bluetooth does not have the bandwidth for all of the data going back and forth. Does the i509-JK allow you to plug the phone in via USB? Although wireless worked for me, I found the 2 second delay when controlling music to be too frustrating so I always do wired now.

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Vahdettin

 

[DraxStorm]

My radio does let me plug in via USB, but I don't use that since most of my drives are short so it's just not worth taking the time to plug it in every time I get in the car.

I've been dealing with it for... 2 years now and the issue is more than just this - sometimes a new song will start in Andriod Auto and no music will come out. According to Android Auto the song is playing just fine, but the Head Unit does not play any music until I swap to some other function (like the radio) then back, then the music resumes... But the music resumes from the beginning of the song it had stopped at, while the Display/Progress Bar are all displaying where it should have been. Like the above issue, the mutes/changes/etc.. all are based on the Android Auto's position, so a "Pause" won't happen till the head unit catches up to where Android Auto is.

I admit it does sound like it could be an Andoid Auto issue and not an Alpine one, but I've used this exact phone with 3 other headunits for days on end (A Pioneer aftermarket head unit, a new Honda Pilot's default stereo, and a Renaults default stereo) and have had no issues at all. So if it's an "Android Auto" issue as Alpine claims, then why do the other manufacturers not run into it?

It will be everything from the occasional tiny skip, to it just not playing when the next song come up and I have to switch to radio and black to Android Auto on the head unit to get it to work.

It's really too bad, it's a pretty unit, and being partially water resistant is huge in a Jeep, but after this I would never buy Alpine again.

Chad

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