gromaudio

Here we have fixes for startup issues:
http://gromaudio.com/downloads/firmw...vl1_lex4_9.hex
http://gromaudio.com/downloads/firmw...l1_lex5_26.hex
Please use that for now. We will have official release in few days.

Bxbombero

Thanks Grom Technical Support. Keep them coming.

mstrsltr

JBL announced their Carplay headunit, the Legend CP100 almost a full year ago. Original release date was July 2016... when that came and went, it just kept getting pushed. All the while they've been taking pre-orders for it. They've been struggling quite a bit to meet Apple's certifications for Carplay. It's still not available. And no one knows when it will be. And this is JBL... a massive corporation with immense resources. If they cannot pull off Carplay certification by itself, how can Grom be expected to pull it off in addition to all the other functions they've promised?

This is not a knock on Grom. I applaud their vision and their guts. For them to even get the slightest piece of the pie from companies like Alpine, or JBL, or Pioneer, they kind of have to do things like this.

But this is the state of bleeding edge tech. Companies unveil something... sell us all on features that doesn't yet exist, happily take pre-orders and full payment, and then they worry about the coding later. Because WE allow them to do it.

Gmail was in "beta" for 5 years... how many of you were relying on it every single day during that time?

Red Digital Cinema's Cameras are in a perpetual state of "Why the f*** is my $30,000.00 camera not booting with the studio execs standing there watching me try to figure this out?!?!" after almost 10 years of being a movie making powerhouse.

The list goes on and on and on...

Despite us having collectively entered an age where a comparatively large portion of consumer tech products are either kickstarter/vaporware/beta, an innate belief persists on the part of most consumers of "Hey, I gave them money, this HAS to work". It's an interesting time for sure...

I personally won't be purchasing anything from anyone until rock solid integration, functionality, and reliability have been fully demonstrated. For those of you who are more adventurous than me: thanks for funding/testing/enduring these products for the rest of us!

gromaudio

We made VLine Spotify Plugin walk through video. Please check this out and share your feedback:

In addition we compiled the most frequently asked questions (FAQ) about VLine, please check it out here:
http://gromaudio.com/support/vl1-faq.html

Let us know if we are missing anything in FAQ.

wildta

I expect beta products to be free in order to iron out most bugs. This thing is buggy as hell and it should really have a certain level of functionality without bugs even at pre-sale price of $300 ($500 is highway robbery), even if it's version 1.0. I still hope that everyone reading this DOES NOT buy this product until Grom has ironed out most bugs. They clearly put this product out before doing a true beta. I wouldn't even recommend this product to my worst enemy.

I've posted my issues on other forums to let as many potential purchasers know about my thoughts on the vline before they consider their purchase. That's the great thing about these forums, someone like me is always willing to be a Guinea pig and post their real user experience so others can be more informed.

regeenoble

Going through your post history, it seems like you have had an exceptionally bad experience with the VLINE. My experience has been almost the complete opposite of what you have gone through. Aside from a few hiccups in the first week, my VLINE has been stable and running without issue. I cannot even remember the last time it restarted while I was driving.

Every app I use works. CarPlay works well (except for the echo on calls, which is not a big deal to me, definitely not a deal breaker). All in all, the seamless integration of the VLINE and the upgrade over the useless factory infotainment system is well worth the $300 I paid and IMO now I feel I can almost endorse it for retail price.

It too bad you have had so many issues, are you sure it's not a faulty unit?

wildta

I think it's faulty too but I asked Grom to send me a replacement unit and instead they sent me a newer firmware (v26) so the battle with the product and their support team continues. BTW, the pausing on ignition for a few seconds helps with the boot up but it's still not a guarantee (about 50/50 but small sample size since I've only done it for a few days). Even then, my bluetooth will connect and it will show connected on both the head end unit and phone yet no sound gets streamed (even the song data gets onto the screen but no sound). I run through everything like making sure volume is up, BT streaming settings, disconnecting and turning BT off and reconnecting, even still it does not fix it. It's so finicky and hit or miss on whether or not I get basic BT streaming audio. I'm still running full default factory settings besides my phone being connected by BT--so no GApps and not even a single vline plugin except for BT streaming plugin.

I wish they would just give me the Android Auto beta because the vline GUI is not working.

gromaudio

So what exactly is not working in GUI ? Did you try getting audio from any other plugin ? Attach USB stick with some tracks on it and click on Local to have it indexed. Then try playing it. Do you hear audio feedback when you click on icons in GUI ? Make sure you are in MP3 changer mode.
AA is already available from Play Store.

gromaudio

Apologize for the problems that you experience, and thank you for sharing your opinion on this forum. We at GROM Audio stand behind our products, and what is more - we use them every day in our personal cars and in our test cars. Please pm me your name and email that you used to contact our tech support team, and we will take a look what we can do to solve the issue that you experience.

Bxbombero

Hey Grom,
How long has Android Auto been compatible with the VLINE unit?

wildta

So let me and others understand this:
If we download/install Android Auto from the Play Store onto the vline and connect our phone using the USB port of the vline, will our phones then "project" and use the phone's hardware to do most of the work (CPU, ram, apps, etc) onto the factory navigation screen via vline? Because that is how Android Auto is intended to work and that is how it is baked into these newer cars (and head end units) that have this feature (that's how iOS Carplay works as well). If this is true (also the only reason why I bought the vline in the first place as it was an advertised feature), then it would be great because then I don't have to deal with any of the inherent issues with the vline operating system (besides vline ensuring that Android Auto works correctly and that the vline system is still able to boot up; on a related note, I've read several user posts about iOS Carplay not functioning quite so well with a fair amount of bugs still being ironed out--so iphone users out there, be wary of what you're buying into).

I've been using a 2017 Chevy Malibu rental car with Android Auto/iOS Carplay for the past two weeks and it's been great! Exactly what I've been hoping for with the vline system but unfortunately this feature seems to not be available yet. My colleague uses iPhone and her phone hooks up just fine with the rental car as well; we can swap our phones back and forth and just hit the "project" button on the navi to access our phones hardware, apps, etc. via the navi.

http://gromaudio.com/vline/beta/index.html

• Provides Android based VLINE OS, Android Auto and Car Play (Android Auto and Car Play are in the development mode. Certification is pending, and not guaranteed)

Cpartipilo

Althought I agree that the unit is buggy sometimes, and still needs work done, we need to understand that this is a hack of the EOM system and should take it as such. My lexus does not easily allows me to replace the head unit as I have done in my non navigation Toyota and VW cars, and I have been evaluating a replacement that would allow me the use of A2DP audio so that I can stream from my phone, and the price of all the addons I had to get were north of $500 and it was still a hack. I'm happy i got into the presale for the VLINE as i was able to solve my problem easily for $300 and got more functionality than I was looking for.

It is definitely not perfect and I do feel like a beta tester at times, but being in the tech industry I do understand how complex it is to release a product that is 100 % compatible with different systems.

Hopefully GROM will continue to listen to our input, and use it to improve the unit so it is more stable

Cpartipilo

BTW, GROM just released these 2 videos showing the VLINE in GM and Nissan cars which tells me they are really putting a lot of their resources in this product. Expanding the user base will definitely bring more feedback and troubleshooting into play.

specONE

iTrader: (3)

You might want to try out installing Headunit Reloaded app on the Vline

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...b.xxy.hr&hl=en

hypervish

It'd be nice if they could get the GROM VLINE working on our cars first before releasing another unfinished product.