Zumo XT2 and Cardo Spirit - bad combination

[gwilki]

I'm back after a long winter, asking again for the collective wisdom of the group.

I made mistake of buying a Cardo Spirit so that I could hear turn by turn instructions from my basecamp routes playing through an XT2. The "mistake" was in believing the information in the Spirit manual, which I actually read online before buying the spirit. Specifically, the manual says that pressing the up volume or down volume buttons will produce an increasing or decreasing beep tone until max loud or max soft is reached. This does not happen. The beep never changes volume. I have confirmed with Cardo two things: the unit is operating as designed, and the manual is wrong. (no apology offered.) The only way the volume of input from the XT2 can be altered is to be pressing the buttons on the Spirit as the XT2 is actually talking. This is possible, but not very practical while riding.

I am finally getting to my Zumo-related question. Is there a way to control the volume via the touch screen on the Zumo? I can't seem to find it, but I would like to believe that it's possible.

Thank you
Grant

[jfheath]

I am finally getting to my Zumo-related question. Is there a way to control the volume via the touch screen on the Zumo? I can't seem to find it, but I would like to believe that it's possible.

On the main screen, tap volume - middle icon (speaker), right hand side. That gives access to a slider control for the combined output from the XT2.

Click 'Mixer' and you get a number of sliders (3 ?) which control the volume for different features -Navigation, Media, Proximity alerts. I think I have seen another as well, depending on what devices are linked - so check the up and down arrows on the left of the screen to check whether or not there is another slider. Turn them all up to 100% and work from there.


The XT2 can take full control of your headset so best results are obtained if you pair the headset to the XT2 and pair your phone to the XT2.

If playing music, using the XT2 mp3 player tends to be more reliable. Put music in an MP3 folder on an SD card inserted into the Sd slot on the XT2. You can use Internal storage MP3 folder instead if you wish. If you use both, the music player will find both.


Music files can be organised into folders and subfolders - eg I put mine into Artist/Album folders and put the all of the tracks for one album into each. The XT2 finds any mp3 files no matter how they are organised and uses the tags contained within the mp3 file for the info on the XT2 screen. It takes no notice of your folder/subfolders that you have used. That just help you o find your mp3 files !


Try adjusting the volume of the Sprit when you have a track playing from the mp3 folder so that you know what the volume button presses on the Cardo actually do.

[gwilki]

Tks much JF. I should have seen that without having to ask. I saw "mixer" and didn't go further. I'll start playing.

The buttons on the spirit work OK for music since there is a continous sound coming through the speakers. They just don't work a damn with turn by turn directions. Playing music through the spirit using a phone, for example, works but only for the music level. It does not affect the GPS levels.

Your solution is the way to go.

Thanks again.

g

[jfheath]

If you are getting music from the phone through your headset, you have the headset paired to the phone.

The headset 'must' be paired to the Zumo.

The Zumo 'must' be paired to the phone.

Other people have it paired with the headset as the hub. That method gives eg voice control - hey google - but it sacrifices some other functionality. I have tried this method, but I cannot get everything that I want - mainly phone calls from home 'Hey John, where are you?', and navigation.

Music ,if I want it, comes from the Zumo. I can make it come from Spotify, but I find that it gets fragmented doing it like that.

[gwilki]

Tks again, JF.

[gwilki]

It works a treat changing the volume using the Zumo. The only thing is that it resets the volumes to max each time I shut it down. It's not a big deal. I simply need to remember to reduce it before I start a ride.

A question: Is there a way to get into the volume control screen without stopping the navigation? Today, when I started the ride, I lowered the volume too much. I stopped mid-ride to increase it. However, to get to the volume screen, I seem to have stopped the nav. So, I had to select the route again and choose a start point. I was hoping that I messed up and that there is a way to change the volume without halting the nav.

Thanks again.

[gwilki]

I wanted to add to this old thread, as I found a weird aspect of the Zumo that others may benefit from.

Shortly after you guys helped me to control the volume coming from Cardo speakers, for no reason that I could think of, I could not get the Zumo's turn by turn directions loud enough. I had turned up the Zumo volume controls to highest. I had done the same with the Cardo. Nothing helped. I could barely hear the instructions.

After my ride today, I was determined to figure out what had changed from having the intructions too loud to having them too quiet.
Today, I figured it out. I now know the "what" and I fixed it. I have no idea of the "why".

The what: Several weeks ago, I wanted to see if I could use a set of ear buds that we had so that the Zumo could talk directly to them, eliminating the Cardo. I paired the ear buds with the Zumo with no problem. I quickly found out that I could not get my helmet on with the ear buds in place. I went back to Cardo + speakers. Until today, I did not relate that experiment to the volume issue. Today, I was going through all the menus in the Zumo and saw that the ear buds were listed - NOT PAIRED - just listed. The "not paired" is crucial to this. I removed them from the list and presto, the volume from the speakers is deafening again.

The why: I have no idea why removing the ear buds from the list changed the volume level of the speakers. To repeat one last time, the ear buds have not been paired to the Zumo since the experiment several weeks ago. Clearly, though, merely having them in the available list set some internal volume control in the Zumo.

I did some reading and found that other units, like tablets have a built in safety feature to prevent blasting ear drums when using ear buds. So, if the unit is paired with blue tooth speakers, it sets the volume range to one appropriate to speakers. If it is paired to ear buds, it reduces the max volume available to prevent hearing attacks. However, those that I found only applied this function to speakers/ear buds that were actively paired to the tablet. Garmin seems to have taken this to a weird extreme. This safety feature seems to be built into the Zumo, but it is applied even if the ear buds are not actively paired to the Zumo.
I would put this to Garmin support for confirmation but ...... Why bother.

Anyway, maybe this information will be of use to someone some day with a similar issue.

[Peobody]

This is interesting. My Cardo Packtalk is listed in the XT under Bluetooth as a headset which I think should be handled the same as earbuds in regards to volume control/hearing protection. Apparently not. @gwilki, is the Cardo Spirit also listed as a headset? What is the relevance of "Cardo + speakers" in your last post?

[gwilki]

This is interesting. My Cardo Packtalk is listed in the XT under Bluetooth as a headset which I think should be handled the same as earbuds in regards to volume control/hearing protection. Apparently not. @gwilki, is the Cardo Spirit also listed as a headset? What is the relevance of "Cardo + speakers" in your last post?

I should have been more precise with my terminology. The Zumo saw both the Cardo and the ear buds as a "wireless headset". My reference to the "cardo speakers" was misleading. The Zumo did not see the speakers. It saw/sees the Cardo as a wireless headset connecting through blue tooth. (The speakers are actually wired speakers that plug into the mounting bracket of the Cardo unit itself.)
The ear buds were bluetooth ear buds, and the Cardo was not connected at that point at all. The Zumo connected directly to them.
As an aside, when I power on the Cardo, the announcement says "connecting to gps".
So, all that said, I still have no idea why removing the ear buds from the list of attached headsets should change the volume attributes of the Zumo when it is connected to the Cardo. (The ear buds were not paired to the Zumo and have not been since the experiment of several weeks ago.) I only know that it did. I am sure of this since that is the only change that I made yesterday when I was trying to solve this. I also know that a Samsung Galaxy tablet seems to have similar logic in it.

[jfheath]

The last exchange brought this topic back to my attention.

I re read it and then went and got the Spirit manual.

A few points.

The volume settings on the XT2 should not alter after the XT2 is turned off. That behaviour must be related to the Spirit ?

You have a phone app for the Spirit which allows you to update software. For that to happen, the phone needs to be paired to the Spirit.

That may be the cause if the problem. For that reason, I have my Cardo Edge paired to the XT2 as the second phone - not as a GPS, not as a satnav.

1. 2nd phone because that leaves the first phone available for pairing to the Cardo. That means that I can connect to the app and then destroy the connection to the phone without affecting the Zumo connection. The spirit doesn't mention channels, but I think it is still important to unpair the Spirit from the Phone after you have finished with the App. Bresk the bt coonection and unpair and forget the Spirit in the BT connections on the phone.

2. XT2 set as a phone - because logically that is what it is. You have paired the XT2 to the phone so the XT2 handles all of the phone functions. Address Book, messages, speech out, sound in, call log, etc etc. It is probably more to do with priority than it is to do with connections - but that's what I have always done and it works well.

3. There are a three interesting options for the Spirit. These are shown in the top of the table on Page 16.
One is related to increasing volume as the external noise (wind) increases. This means that sitting at your desk the headset will not be at full volume. It will increase only when it gets other noises. Like if you scratch the mic with your finger.

I'd play around with those settings (disable them) and see how the headset behaves then. Then start introducing features one at a time. Don't forget that if using the app, you will have to forget/ unpair it each time to avoid the phone to headset connection from interfering with what is happening at the headset.