New owner questions

[RobN-RG]

Hi All,

Just picked up my 21 plate Yaris today and have a few questions:

• The MyT app does not have my multimedia system listed for registration.  It only has the "go" variants which I aren't available of many new Toyotas.  
• How do connected services work?  The instructions on the Toyota UK site are best described as poor:
  Step 4 – Click on “Activate connected services”.
  Step 5 – Click on “Terms of use & Privacy Notice” & approve.
  Step 6 – Get into your car, switch the ignition ON and read your car mileage .
  Step 7 – Enter the car mileage in the app.
  Steps 6 and 7 don't do anything in mine....
• How do you get firmware updates for the system and Gracenote databases.  I can't find anything on the Toyota site, other than a link on the US site which is 2+ years old anyway.  Mine is an 86140-K0270 / 17TDT1EU-CA31 with version 1257.  Gracenote is 02058.
• If you set Gracenote priority off, and have album art on, it doesn't seem to get embedded album art from the MP3 tag.  I fought with others to force Ford to change Sync3 to make that work properly.  Do I need to do the same with Toyota - or does it rely on a file with art in the folder directory with a specific name?
• The multimedia system seems to have USB1 and USB2 listed if you want to re-arrange.  Where is USB2?
• If it only has one (I can't find another), can you use a hub?  My Ford Focus for example has two USBs so I can use one for Android Auto and the second for a USB stick and select either for music
• Does the USB socket provide high amps?  ie, if I am using my smartphone, will it provide enough to charge it while it is being used for Waze/Music?  (I guess I'll find out tomorrow)

Thanks for any help in advance

[CPN]

3 hours ago, RobN-RG said:

Hi All,

Just picked up my 21 plate Yaris today and have a few questions:

The MyT app does not have my multimedia system listed for registration.  It only has the "go" variants which I aren't available of many new Toyotas.

Multimedia system registration is for older systems and does not apply to your Gen4 Yaris.

Quote

How do connected services work?  The instructions on the Toyota UK site are best described as poor:
Step 4 – Click on “Activate connected services”.
Step 5 – Click on “Terms of use & Privacy Notice” & approve.
Step 6 – Get into your car, switch the ignition ON and read your car mileage .
Step 7 – Enter the car mileage in the app.
Steps 6 and 7 don't do anything in mine....

All of that worked on mine? You did have the car fully switched on and "Ready" right? (not the accessory position) I believe that this system works via the eCall unit above the interior mirror (which is constantly connected via mobile cell when the car is on)

Quote

How do you get firmware updates for the system and Gracenote databases.  I can't find anything on the Toyota site, other than a link on the US site which is 2+ years old anyway.  Mine is an 86140-K0270 / 17TDT1EU-CA31 with version 1257.  Gracenote is 02058.

No idea...

Quote

If you set Gracenote priority off, and have album art on, it doesn't seem to get embedded album art from the MP3 tag.  I fought with others to force Ford to change Sync3 to make that work properly.  Do I need to do the same with Toyota - or does it rely on a file with art in the folder directory with a specific name?

I'm guessing that you are using an Apple iPhone, right?

Quote

The multimedia system seems to have USB1 and USB2 listed if you want to re-arrange.  Where is USB2?

AFAIK, USB2 is on the harness at the rear of the head unit but is not connected.

Quote

If it only has one (I can't find another), can you use a hub?  My Ford Focus for example has two USBs so I can use one for Android Auto and the second for a USB stick and select either for music

In a word, no unfortunately. It's a bit weird the way that the USB port works. Yes, you can plug a hub in and one device into that hub and it will work but it flat out refuses to recognise a second device plugged in on one of the other hub ports! (like a USB stick with music on) AA and AC only work via cable and if your phone is plugged in in that way, it overrides any other input attempt; including access to your phone's media player via bluetooth!!

It seems that the software in the head unit is a bit dumb and badly written! It ought to be able to handle Android Auto coming in from the phone via cable and access the phone's media player via Bluetooth at the same time!! (but it seems that it can't!) Which is weird because even though the phone is plugged in via cable (for AA use) it's seems to be fine with connecting to the phone's bluetooth for phone use!

Also, when you have the source menu on the screen (6 soft buttons), it also gets a bit weird there too! With a USB cable connected for AA or AC, the bluetooth source "button" gets greyed out; meaning you can't access it! Unplug the USB cable and AA/AC goes grey and the Bluetooth goes "blue"(!) and media player on the phone immediately reconnects!

The final idiocy is when you unplug everything else from the USB socket and plug in a USB stick full of music mp3 files (more in a mo...)! Guess which "button" gets greyed out and replaced by the USB symbol for the stick? Would you believe the soft button that accesses either AA or AC!!! Totally potty and brain dead!! So if you want to listen to all your cool tunes off of a USB stick, you cannot access the navigation on your phone at the same time! Great! NOT!! (please excuse my long rant but Toyota do so many other fine things with their Hybrids but getting someone to write some sensible software for their head units seems to be completely beyond them!!)

You mentioned embedded album art using the mp3 tag info? That's how all of the album art on my USB stick is done (no folder images) and it works just fine on my head unit?

Quote

Does the USB socket provide high amps?  ie, if I am using my smartphone, will it provide enough to charge it while it is being used for Waze/Music?  (I guess I'll find out tomorrow)

I just tested the charge rate using my inline multimeter to my Pixel 3XL phone and the port is capable of sourcing up to 1.5 amps that my phone demanded at the time but it was well over 85% charged already so it could be that the phone wasn't asking for max current at the time. My guess is that it will source 2amps peak so the answer to your question is yes it will provide "high amps". (As opposed to the standard 500millamps of a bog-standard USB port)

Hope all this helps.

[RobN-RG]

1 hour ago, CPN said:

All of that worked on mine? You did have the car fully switched on and "Ready" right? (not the accessory position) I believe that this system works via the eCall unit above the interior mirror (which is constantly connected via mobile cell when the car is on)

The app thinks it's connected, but at no time in the process was I asked to enter my mileage.   In the 'services' section of the App (Android btw) I have:

• "Service and Maintenance" (not much in there since it's only done 6 miles)
• "Send to car" (completely pointless - why is it even there) 
• "Find My Car" which just says 'There has been a connection issue.  Please drag the screen down to refresh' (clearly that option is wrong on Android - but pressing the refresh button next to the text doesn't fix it.
• "Hybrid Coaching" which is completely empty and doesn't have even trip back from dealership in there
• "Warning Lights"
• "Car Calendar"

I'm going for a long drive tomorrow so maybe something will kick into life.

Quote

It seems that the software in the head unit is a bit dumb and badly written! It ought to be able to handle Android Auto coming in from the phone via cable and access the phone's media player via Bluetooth at the same time!! (but it seems that it can't!) Which is weird because even though the phone is plugged in via cable (for AA use) it's seems to be fine with connecting to the phone's Bluetooth for phone use!

I think that's just the way it works.  I can only compare with my Focus.  You can't play bluetooth from your phone (or another phone) when you are connected via AA.  Can't see why you would need to though.  You can play everything through AA anyway using a variety of apps - Cloudplayer, MD Player, Poweramp (my favourite), Media Monkey - even Emby.  One 'odd' thing I noticed is that if you start something playing in AA, when you jump back to Toyota in the AA menu and go into media, it shows what is playing there too.

Quote

You mentioned embedded album art using the mp3 tag info? That's how all of the album art on my USB stick is done (no folder images) and it works just fine on my head unit?

Gracenote has a lot of stuff, but I have pretty diverse range of stuff and some (eg Hans Zimmer / Rain Man) just display either a "Soundtrack" stock image, or the Artist image (in the case of Rain Man, a picture of Hans Zimmer).  I've check the mp3s and the tracks definitely have embedded art.  Ford had to add an extra menu item to use the embedded artwork.  The current option for Gracenote is likely to pull other data from that database, eg, in my Focus, when Gracenote was on, anything by Kitaro was displayed as 喜多郎.  I imagine the Toyota option is likely to do the same thing.  Another thing I will test tomorrow.

 

Thanks for you help so far...

[flash22]

The manual is a UK/EU one, some functions are not applicable as we do not get the GO nav option

The touch systems are a bit hit and miss regarding album artwork, a few members have discussed this issue in a previous thread

iirc Gracenote is only track and album info, it only has voice recognition on the HIGH touch model (not an option on the yaris) again it may not be applicable due to the lack of Nav, everything is App based and run off your phone

[RobN-RG]

I've send my dealer a message as it's clear that something isn't right.  Possibly they haven't registered something right (or at all).  I'm assuming that I should be able to "find my car" and see analytics (at least via a web browser) but can't see anything.  The instructions on the Toyota site talk about tethering the multimedia system to the phone, but mine doesn't have any of the same options as the videos here - https://www.toyota.co.uk/owners/servicing-and-aftercare/my-toyota/myt-and-connected-services

Certainly the GR Yaris has connected functions but others on the gr site have had similar issues 

The album art issue is bizarre.  Here are the tags (in MP3Tag)

When I play album 2 with Gracenote off, I get this:

 so it's clearly picking up the embedded art.  

If I turn Gracenote off, I get this:

 so it must be picking up this artwork from the inbuilt Gracenote database.

... but when I play the other album, I get this:

 and it doesn't matter if I have Gracenote enabled or not.  I don't get any artwork at all.

 

[flash22]

It depends on the album some have images per track others can have multiple images per album

this is a very powerful tool for mp3's with a lot of options

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

A quick google shows (pic of your screen) 1. Is the original artwork from 1979 2. Same album but the 1985 re-release artwork 3 and 4 it looks like an image taken from a video not an actual album

[RobN-RG]

12 hours ago, flash22 said:

A quick google shows (pic of your screen) 1. Is the original artwork from 1979 2. Same album but the 1985 re-release artwork 3 and 4 it looks like an image taken from a video not an actual album

3 & 4 (and 2) are from the inbuilt database. If it can't find the album by artist/title, it displays the stock artist image. If it finds neither, it displays a stock genre image (assuming you have a genre set). 

I already use mp3tag 🙂

It's clearly not a size limitation, nor the version, as both are ID3v2.3.  Maybe it's because it isn't square. I'll try and report back. 

[RobN-RG]

2 hours ago, RobN-RG said:

It's clearly not a size limitation, nor the version, as both are ID3v2.3.  Maybe it's because it isn't square. I'll try and report back. 

Hmm, maybe it is 'k' size... here are more findings...

Resizing the 306k SRII image now shows:

 Mp3tag now shows this as 84k and 575x575

So I played around a bit with another album

 This is the embedded image.  900x900 136k

 Again the embedded image.  600x580 77k

 Again the embedded image.  580x600 76k

 The 'stock' artist image.  Embedded is  900x900 831k

I'm therefore putting money on there being a cut off in the size (k) of the embedded image being the issue.

The resolution is awful.  Where did Toyota find screens that were so poor?

... and whoever decided that the album art should be about 1" square with so much dead space around - on an 8" screen...  I remember testing in an Auris in 2017 and that had a huge album art area by comparison.

[CPN]

7 minutes ago, RobN-RG said:

I'm therefore putting money on there being a cut off in the size (k) of the embedded image being the issue.

The resolution is awful.  Where did Toyota find screens that were so poor?

Hmm.... I wonder if Harman ever view these forums? 😉😁

(Harman International Industries, Incorporated, commonly known as Harman (stylized as HARMAN), is an American audio electronics company. Since 2017, the company has been an independent subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.)

[flash22]

The Mk4 radios are Denso Ten (previously Fujitsu Ten) or Panasonic (aka Matsu****a), Harman makes the satnav modules still based on the Blackberry QNX RTOS

the screen is a standard resolution, it's the way the MM17 displays the artwork what is the issue

 

The forum doesn't like that word (Matsus-hita)

[RobN-RG]

Still can't get the Connected Services working.  The MyT app now has my car registration in it, but find my car is still complaining about a connection issue, Hybrid Coaching (in the app), and Driving Analytics (via website) are both empty.

CPN, do you see anything in yours?

[flash22]

There are no connected services, it's all done via the phone app, MY T

[RobN-RG]

54 minutes ago, flash22 said:

There are no connected services, it's all done via the phone app, MY T

According to the UK website there are. The phone app doesn't have the info either. 

https://www.toyota.co.uk/owners/servicing-and-aftercare/my-toyota/myt-and-connected-services

All New Yaris Hybrid

Highlights
Warning Lights
Service and Maintenance -View Vehicle History, Set Reminders and Book Services
Find My Car
Battery Guard
Accident Assistant

[flash22]

It's done via the app on your phone, not on the head unit, You only get connected services (AKA connected car functionality) on the head unit if you have sat nav what's not an option on the UK spec yaris

As above the Manual is a generic one for all EU markets

A snip from Toyota's own video

 

 

[MikeSh]

7 hours ago, RobN-RG said:

Find My Car

There's a clue. That's a function with not much use on the head unit in the car 🙂

[RobN-RG]

5 hours ago, flash22 said:

It's done via the app on your phone, not on the head unit, You only get connected services (AKA connected car functionality) on the head unit if you have sat nav what's not an option on the UK spec yaris

As above the Manual is a generic one for all EU markets

A snip from Toyota's own video

 

 

The car does have connected services and I don't have the ability to add a vehicle.  The video states that if your car does not have connected services you can manually add your car location.  I don't get that option.

 This is the screen I get. I'm not in Scotland.  I just disabled location services on my phone to hide my exact location.  The dealer told me that if you are involved in an accident, Toyota can detect this and will call you via the car SIM.  If they do not get a response, they send emergency services.  Clearly the car must have GPS functions to do this - even if you don't have a Sat Nav. I can't believe they use cell tower triangulation for this.

Also, I am not looking on the Toyota-Europe site, I am looking on the Toyota UK site and it should have an accurate picture of what functions the UK supplied car has.  I will contact Toyota via their site feedback and ask the question as to why their site would say the UK car has something it doesn't - if it doesn't.

The web version also has this... again, it says "Connected" at the top

[CPN]

On 6/5/2021 at 2:04 PM, RobN-RG said:

Still can't get the Connected Services working.  The MyT app now has my car registration in it, but find my car is still complaining about a connection issue, Hybrid Coaching (in the app), and Driving Analytics (via website) are both empty.

CPN, do you see anything in yours?

Indeed I can and I'd like to see someone explain how it is keeping track (accurately) of my mileage and fuel in the tank without having some kind of access directly to the car? (not just phone generated!) Oh, and by the way, there is a gps installation in the Launch Edition that is used by the eCall system oh and did I mention that when I forgot to take my phone one day, it still showed the full info (as below) for the journey that I did and how much mileage I had covered etc...

Obviously, I have rubbed out some of the personal info... Well?

[RobN-RG]

Thanks Colin.   So there's clearly something wrong with my one then.  If your Launch Edition has it, my one should too.  It's either dealer/Toyota configuration, or something is broken.

[flash22]

If that's the case, the dealer hasn't activated the e-call iirc that is on Vodafone GSM

[Devon Aygo]

1 hour ago, flash22 said:

If that's the case, the dealer hasn't activated the e-call iirc that is on Vodafone GSM

e-call is activated by Toyota prior to dealer delivery, the dealer just has to confirm its working,

RobN-RG can you tell us the LED sequence on the SOS button when the ignition is switched on 

[CPN]

2 hours ago, flash22 said:

If that's the case, the dealer hasn't activated the e-call iirc that is on Vodafone GSM

@RobN-RG That just triggered another thought. You don't happen to be in a mobile blind or weak spot at home do you? The reason I ask is that because of local topology (a dirty great slag heap in between our house and the nearest cell tower!) our signal from any provider (they all use the same tower) is very weak and sometimes MyT gets the car's location a bit wrong (one road over) when it is parked in our driveway. It is such a problem indoors that our phones are both setup for WiFi calling to overcome the weak signal. Just a thought...

[flash22]

I will have to have a deeper look in to how this setup works, if its GSM it must have its own IMEI for network ID - if its being used for data the cost must be in the sales price as i can't see a renewal cost

if its on canbus or linked to the radio then canbus, the whole car's telemetry can be accessed even down to your seat belt

[flash22]

Well i have looked up the module........... Manufactured by Continental in the Czech Republic

3 Aerial sockets on it are marked on the outer case as W G B, a wild stab in the dark - Wireless, GSM and bluetooth it has a GPS socket on it, what looks to be a USB socket and a multi-way connector

It also has a sizable Battery pack as well

so potentially it has other functions turned off but should be installed

According to the EMEI it uses a standard Mini SIM the device is a Continental BL28EU-002

[CPN]

8 minutes ago, flash22 said:

Well i have looked up the module........... Manufactured by Continental in the Czech Republic

3 Aerial sockets on it are marked on the outer case as W G B, a wild stab in the dark - Wireless, GSM and Bluetooth it has a GPS socket on it, what looks to be a USB socket and a multi-way connector

It also has a sizable battery pack as well

so potentially it has other functions turned off but should be installed

According to the EMEI it uses a standard Mini SIM the device is a Continental BL28EU-002

Very interesting!

[RobN-RG]

1 hour ago, Devon Aygo said:

e-call is activated by Toyota prior to dealer delivery, the dealer just has to confirm its working,

RobN-RG can you tell us the LED sequence on the SOS button when the ignition is switched on 

When I first switch on, the red light is on.  Then after 8 seconds the green light comes on, followed by the green & red for short amount (< 1 second) of time.   Then green stays on.  This is from the manual:

When the power switch is turned to ON, the red indicator light will illuminate for 10 seconds and then the green indicator light will illuminate, indicating that the system is enabled. The indicator lights indicate the following:

• If the green indicator light illuminates and stays on, the system is enabled.
• If the green indicator light flashes twice per second, an automatic or manual Emergency Call is being made.
• If the red indicator light illuminates at any time other than immediately after the power switch is turned to ON, the system may be malfunctioning or the backup Battery may be depleted*.
• If the red indicator light blinks for approximately 30 seconds during an Emergency Call, the call has been disconnected or the cellular network signal is weak.

*The service life of the backup Battery does not exceed 3 years.

Based on those options, the fact the red light illuminates even briefly, then the "system may be malfunctioning or the backup Battery may be depleted"

1 hour ago, CPN said:

@RobN-RG That just triggered another thought. You don't happen to be in a mobile blind or weak spot at home do you? 

No, I'm in a good signal area.  4G+ on all networks.