FM receiver equipped phone to prevent radio lag?

[stubbornyeti]

Relatively niche topic — but we like to do drive-in movie theaters and last time we went there was full second lag with the sound. I was curious about buying a FM receiver equipped phone and using the Bluetooth to connect to the Rivian audio, to potential eliminate said sound delay. Has anyone by chance tried this already? Was it worth it or was there still a large lag regardless?

If it matters at all. I have a '24 Gen 1 R1S. I have both an iPhone 16 and Pixel 10 pro. Neither have FM transmitters, was planning to pick up a used Nokia or another smartphone with an enabled FM receiver. Then simultaneously use our FM radio or another car (listening to a random station) and compare/listen for a delay.

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[josh0]

Possibly dating myself here, but can you not just buy a cheap radio at the drug store?

 

[stubbornyeti]

Possibly dating myself here, but can you not just buy a cheap radio at the drug store?

Already have a radio, just was hoping to use the Rivian's sound system instead

 

[josh0]

Already have a radio, just was hoping to use the Rivian's sound system instead

Oh yeah. That makes sense. We’ve got a drive-in by us that I’ve been wanting to try out.

How do you deal with the lights? The one by us says you have to be able to turn everything off before you enter the lot.

 

[stubbornyeti]

Oh yeah. That makes sense. We’ve got a drive-in by us that I’ve been wanting to try out.

How do you deal with the lights? The one by us says you have to be able to turn everything off before you enter the lot.

I don't remember exactly, but I think I put it in camping mode, then I had to go and turn off the rear hatch lights and maybe something else? I took me a sec, had the car for a week before we went haha.

I'm not sure about how you can turn off the lights prior to entering the lot though, I did it all once we parked.

 

[josh0]

Oh, didn’t think about camping mode! I’ll have to play with it, then I guess talk to them and see how strict they are about that part.

 

[Nexus]

There might be lag induced by the Bluetooth connection between the phone and vehicle. I remember trying to use a bluetooth headset and dangle with an electric piano and there was just too much delay to use properly.

 

[blturner]

Camp courtesy mode will take care of the lights. As for the delay, my iPhone has lots of FM apps in the store but they were just streaming the feed over the internet so would be delayed and not have the drive-in signal anyway. I don't think any iPhones have the built in FM chip enabled. Most don't have it at all. Read carefully in the app store before you buy something that will not pickup the drive in. My Drive-in said they were installing streaming but they closed before that happened.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Receiver? The phone is not broadcasting FM. Why would it be suspected of causing interference? A receiver only receives, then convert that signal into audible frequencies to the human ear.

 

[stubbornyeti]

There might be lag induced by the Bluetooth connection between the phone and vehicle. I remember trying to use a bluetooth headset and dangle with an electric piano and there was just too much delay to use properly.

I have a feeling that will be the case. I'm picking up a FM enabled phone to test it later today regardless lol

Camp courtesy mode will take care of the lights. As for the delay, my iPhone has lots of FM apps in the store but they were just streaming the feed over the internet so would be delayed and not have the drive-in signal anyway. I don't think any iPhones have the built in FM chip enabled. Most don't have it at all. Read carefully in the app store before you buy something that will not pickup the drive in. My Drive-in said they were installing streaming but they closed before that happened.

Yah, none of my phones have an FM receiver. Well, one that actually does (Huawei), will not broadcast to Bluetooth while receiving FM. Picking up a Galaxy A10e that should do both.

Receiver? The phone is not broadcasting FM. Why would it be suspected of causing interference? A receiver only receives, then convert that signal into audible frequencies to the human ear.

Uh, sorry, I may have missed something. Just trying to use a phones FM receiver instead of Rivian's due to the vehicles inherent FM delay that is noticable at drive in movie theaters.

 

[elatrickWheels]

Not what you asked, but I perhaps this would be a use case for the camp speaker. Cheapo radio receiver connected by wire to camp speaker which is quite decent. (Not the full car speaker experience, but not bad…)

 

[Dasoss]

Relatively niche topic — but we like to do drive-in movie theaters and last time we went there was full second lag with the sound. I was curious about buying a FM receiver equipped phone and using the Bluetooth to connect to the Rivian audio, to potential eliminate said sound delay. Has anyone by chance tried this already? Was it worth it or was there still a large lag regardless?

If it matters at all. I have a '24 Gen 1 R1S. I have both an iPhone 16 and Pixel 10 pro. Neither have FM transmitters, was planning to pick up a used Nokia or another smartphone with an enabled FM receiver. Then simultaneously use our FM radio or another car (listening to a random station) and compare/listen for a delay.

The lag is probably due to all the audio processing that the sound system does. All of those speakers, etc. Any source playig through the system will still have the delay. Using a Bluetooth connected phone could be worse. Bluetooth has a delay that would add to that of the audio system. There is a version of Bluetooth that has lower delay, but both devices must be compatible with the standard. Besides, there is no wayto get rid of the latency of the car's audio system. You could try turning off all enhancement modes.

 

[Zoidz]

The lag is probably due to all the audio processing that the sound system does. All of those speakers, etc. Any source playig through the system will still have the delay. Using a Bluetooth connected phone could be worse. Bluetooth has a delay that would add to that of the audio system. There is a version of Bluetooth that has lower delay, but both devices must be compatible with the standard. Besides, there is no wayto get rid of the latency of the car's audio system. You could try turning off all enhancement modes.

I suspect the delay issue is the radio receiver latency and the audio processing latency. The Rivian FM receiver is an SDR (Software Defined Radio). They can have latency of 80 to 150 milliseconds, perhaps more if poorly implemented. Add the digital audio processing and it's reasonable to expect 250 to 500 milliseconds ( 1/4 to 1/2 second). 1 second is more than I would expect.

 

[stubbornyeti]

Update here, realized that I could just order an MP3 player with a fm tuner... after buying a phone that has a fm receiver but no native radio app. Anyways, delay time seems to be about a second as well - attached a video for your listening pleasure. Mp3 player uses bluetooth 5.0 and I believe the gen 1 Rivian uses the same. So pretty sure this is as good as it gets with the bluetooth connection.

The lag is probably due to all the audio processing that the sound system does. All of those speakers, etc. Any source playig through the system will still have the delay. Using a Bluetooth connected phone could be worse. Bluetooth has a delay that would add to that of the audio system. There is a version of Bluetooth that has lower delay, but both devices must be compatible with the standard. Besides, there is no wayto get rid of the latency of the car's audio system. You could try turning off all enhancement modes.

By enhancements do you mean the 3d sound? I turned that off, still felt the same.

 

[redantpile]

Update here, realized that I could just order an MP3 player with a fm tuner...

Which mp3 player were you able to connect via BT successfully?

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