Bluetooth audio album artwork with iPhone?
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Super Member
Joined: Sep 2005
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From: Little Falls, NJ
2020 GLC300 4MATIC
Bluetooth audio album artwork with iPhone?
Sorry if this has been posted before but I searched for “Bluetooth” and “artwork” and similar terms and didn’t find much. So, I have the MBUX fup2 and noticed that when playing music via Bluetooth from my iPhone X (latest iOS) I don’t see any album covers appearing on either the center console display or instrument cluster area. Just a silver Burmester logo where the album art should be. Did I not pair the phone correctly to the system or is this just the way it is? If I connect the phone with a USB cable or via CarPlay I get the album art. I want to say I’ve seen album artwork on slightly older COMAND systems that I’ve had in loaners when connecting my phone via Bluetooth (I think), but this is my first experience with MBUX on this new car. Thanks in advance for your help!
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From: Winter Park, Florida
2020 GLC 300 4Matic
As far as I know the bluetooth profiles that the phone and vehicle support don't allow for album artwork transfer. Connecting via the cable is the only way to display the artwork.
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From: San Francisco Bay Area
2019 C63CS
EDIT: However, my understanding is that the album art doesn't actually come from the phone itself. It's the car's Infotainment system that uses the artist and song information to fetch the album art from an online database such as Gracenote, although specification wise it's supported since AVRCP 1.6. To be honest, not entirely sure how MB implemented it. I just know back from my Audi days, Audi uses Gracenote so one gets album art even when listening to FM radio. I don't remember actually if there is album art in COMAND when listening to FM radio. I know there is with HD Radio, but that's part of HD Radio.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 31, 2020 at 06:22 PM.
Out Of Control!!
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From: San Francisco Bay Area
2019 C63CS
Did a bit more digging. NTG 5.5 appears to be the first version that supports AVRCP 1.6, so the album art may indeed be displayed from what's sent over Bluetooth. So MBUX should also support AVRCP 1.6 being even newer than NTG 5.5. The latest iOS also supports 1.6, so from a version standpoint it should all be in place. If album art doesn't show in MBUX, then it's most likely a bug.
Bluetooth profiles supported by iOS: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204387
Bluetooth profiles supported by iOS: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204387
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 31, 2020 at 06:42 PM.
Thread Starter
Super Member
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 669
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From: Little Falls, NJ
2020 GLC300 4MATIC
I spent some time searching videos online of MBUX systems and Bluetooth audio and found a few that also had the generic Burmester sound logo instead of album art, so for now this appears to be how this feature is meant to be. Hoping that a future update may add some album artwork since I prefer to use the MBUX interface vs CarPlay... at least until CarPlay is full screen. A guy can dream.
Out Of Control!!
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From: San Francisco Bay Area
2019 C63CS
So, I just made an interesting coincidental discovery today. However, now that I'm thinking about it I probably saw this before and that's where my earlier understanding came from. I went for a quick wash at my local touchless car wash and as I was waiting in line, I felt like listening to Pandora. I was listening to SiriusXM at the time. So, I switched over to Media and as it was initializing it showed a different logo where the album art is displayed with the words "Powered by Gracenote". I was gonna take a picture, but by the time I was ready it had switched to showing the Burmester logo and then eventually the album art for the song that was playing. I was also trying to see if there was a pattern to when I was getting album art and when I was getting the Burmester logo and it seems that I'm getting the Burmester logo when Pandora plays a non-mainstream remix of a song which probably doesn't have a corresponding album cover. So it appears that at least for NTG 5.5 the album cover art isn't actually coming from the phone, and instead COMAND fetches it from Gracenote based on the track information as I originally commented. So I was wondering what music you are listening to and if the tracks you are listening to have proper artist and track information as it seems the album art is not displayed if there isn't a match in the Gracenote database. Now maybe with MBUX they added support for album art over AVRCP 1.6 and something isn't quite working right yet or for some reason Gracenote does not have matching album art for your tracks.
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A
Someone posted on the GLE forum before that MBUX uses a 3rd party service to download Album Art - probably Gracenote. It is definitely not transmitted via Bluetooth.
I stream from Spotify on my iPhone via Bluetooth and album art is there for about 75% of the songs (nothing for foreign music usually).
What I also noticed is that sometimes the Album Art on MBUX would be different vs what the Spotify app is displaying.
I stream from Spotify on my iPhone via Bluetooth and album art is there for about 75% of the songs (nothing for foreign music usually).
What I also noticed is that sometimes the Album Art on MBUX would be different vs what the Spotify app is displaying.
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19 GLC300 4M (lunar blue/black/black ash aluminum),17 GLE350 4M (selenite grey/ espresso/eucalyptus)
Someone posted on the GLE forum before that MBUX uses a 3rd party service to download Album Art - probably Gracenote. It is definitely not transmitted via Bluetooth.
I stream from Spotify on my iPhone via Bluetooth and album art is there for about 75% of the songs (nothing for foreign music usually).
What I also noticed is that sometimes the Album Art on MBUX would be different vs what the Spotify app is displaying.
I stream from Spotify on my iPhone via Bluetooth and album art is there for about 75% of the songs (nothing for foreign music usually).
What I also noticed is that sometimes the Album Art on MBUX would be different vs what the Spotify app is displaying.
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Joined: Jul 2020
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From: HTX
M271 W205
There is an adapter that i'm searching for again now and found this thread first. It's USB to Bluetooth and it uses the USB port where it does work. It's like a wireless carplay module.
Something like that - looking for cheaper now
edit:
https://mbworld.org/forums/c450-c43-...ay-dongle.html
even if you're not using for carplay but you like the album art i think this should do it
Something like that - looking for cheaper now
edit:
https://mbworld.org/forums/c450-c43-...ay-dongle.html
even if you're not using for carplay but you like the album art i think this should do it
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e200
Issue is songs from 2013 onwards
I noticed that if I played any song from Apple Music that is Pre-2014 it displays the album art consistently.
As long as the song is 2014 onwards it doesn’t. Try it simply by searching for the year in Apple Music.
No issue on Apple CarPlay (connected via USB). This is only on Bluetooth.
I have Command and w213. Latest version of iOS and Apple Music subscription.
As long as the song is 2014 onwards it doesn’t. Try it simply by searching for the year in Apple Music.
No issue on Apple CarPlay (connected via USB). This is only on Bluetooth.
I have Command and w213. Latest version of iOS and Apple Music subscription.
