Bluetooth and 4G LTE - What's the deal?

Bluetooth and 4G LTE - What’s the deal?

Continuing from previous technical articles on Connectivity in an intelligent scooter and Building a data pipeline inside and outside a vehicle, here’s the next article on Bluetooth and 4G LTE, and what they enable for the Ather 450 Plus and the Ather 450X.

The Ather 450X has all the smart features that the Ather 450 has and more. With the addition of Bluetooth and the connectivity upgrade to 4G LTE, there are a ton of possibilities to make the Ather 450 Plus and Ather 450X more intelligent.

What does Bluetooth enable?

The Ather 450X dashboard has integrated Bluetooth for enabling smart features. With Bluetooth, your Ather 450X dashboard can connect to your smartphone and the Ather App, to enable music and call controls, and support for smart accessories such as a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) and Smart Helmet.

Music and call controls

Installing the Ather app, and connecting your phone to the Ather 450X dashboard will allow you to control call and music functions on the phone through the dashboard.

If you’re getting a call, you can see who’s calling, and accept/reject the call with the toggle switches. You can also see music playing on your phone, and control playback on the dashboard. As always, we recommend riding safely and remaining alert at all times.

Support for smart accessories

With the addition of Bluetooth, there’s support for smart accessories which can work with the 450X. To start off, we’ll be offering a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) and a Smart helmet as optional accessories.

One feedback that came from some of the early users of the Ather 450 was that they tend to forget to check their tyre pressure regularly. With no visits to fuel up, it’s difficult to remember to check your tyre pressure regularly. We’ll offer a TPMS kit as an optional accessory, which will integrate sensors on the tyres. The sensors will relay information to the Ather 450X dashboard, and provide real-time information about the air pressure in your tyres.

A smart helmet can also be used, which will enhance your riding experience. The smart helmet will have the capability to connect to your smartphone and enable you to take calls and listen to music handsfree. No more messing around with wires and your phone while riding.

What about LTE?

We had talked about why we chose to use 3G for the Ather 450 here. With 3G networks on the verge of being phased out in a few years, and with the Ather 450X going pan-India, it became important to upgrade to 4G LTE for connectivity on the Ather 450 Plus and Ather 450X.

Theft and Tow detection

An intelligent scooter also needs to be alert about privy eyes and miscreants trying to mess with it. With a ton of sensors onboard, it’s easy to figure out when the scooter is being moved after you parked it. If someone tries to move or tow your scooter, the connectivity and GPS are turned on, with instant alerts on your phone.

With onboard GPS and 4G LTE, you can always view the location of your scooter and track the location if it’s being moved.

More seamless onboard navigation

4G LTE offers much faster data transfer speeds, and it allows a much better experience of navigating through the city. 4G LTE has been deployed nearly everywhere, so you shouldn’t have to worry about network connectivity, in most urban areas.

Quicker data sync between the scooter and the app

With faster data transfer speeds, the data sync between the scooter and your app will be quicker and much smoother. You can instantly find out the location of your Ather 450 Plus or Ather 450X and monitor the charge state in real-time.

Faster OTA updates

With 4G LTE, OTA updates are quicker, more seamless, and your scooter will gain new features and improvements throughout your ownership.

Got any questions on the smart features in the Ather 450 Plus and the Ather 450X? Drop them below and we’ll answer them.

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Not sure about the other things you have asked, but regarding connecting to multiple devices, I see on Ather’s website that they are deploying the Bluetooth 4.2 version and it does not have multi-device streaming feature (which only came in from Bluetooth 5.0 if I am not mistaken?).

So I doubt if both riders can stream simultaneously :pensive:

EDIT: To get a better sense of the differences, you can check this out. And while writing this, it also dawned on me that since it is using 4.2 and not the 5.0 that launched in 2018, we are talking of a less secure protocol (so higher hacking risks?) and also, very limited support for IoT devices for future innovations :sob:

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Chiming in here as an an auto & tech enthusiast, but if you look at the current crop of vehicles coming into the market in the last few months, they’re all loaded with smart features. Smart features and connectivity on automobiles are going through the “cassette and stereo” moment from a decade ago :stuck_out_tongue:

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I remember 5.0BLE mentioned somewhere. Can’t recall where exactly.

Yeah right. I would take that with a pinch… correction… a truckload of salt. We all heard how they were focused on expanding the 450 until the X came out of nowhere!

I am secretly rooting for a bike next :slight_smile:

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Just putting it out there, but coincidentally, Verge Motorcycles just today came out with their October 2020 update and it looks like they are actually moving in the other direction: They have now redesigned their (upcoming) bike to not have its driver connection system via cellphone connection as originally planned but through a dedicated internal network connection instead. Probably there is a solid rationale because of which all EV companies are not opting for mobile hotspot / Wi-Fi connectivity? https://vimeo.com/473817875

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Upto how many devices does 450X BLE device lets us to connect?

Two separate versions of Bluetooth, so the TPMS for instance would connect via BLE, and your phone/helmet would connect via Bluetooth 4.2. You will be able to switch between multiple devices that you’ve paired earlier, similar to your phone. The max number of devices at one point of time is something we’ll share a bit later when the testing is completed.

Will it allow us to connect third-party devices? like wireless headset/earphones?

Yes, you can connect third-party devices such as wireless earphones.

If both driver and co-driver both have smartphone with ather app installed, will both be able to connect to 450X BLE?

This depends on if your phone can playback to multiple devices at the same time. The dashboard will act as controller for the music playback.

I’ll be able to share more details to answer your other questions closer to the OTA roll out date for Bluetooth.

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It would have been nice if Ather did not advertise Bluetooth extensively. Even on Ads like paper, media, internet… Bluetooth with calls and music being advertised as prominent.

At least a disclaimer stating, “Through future software update” would be ethical and be transparent

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Screenshot_20210329-141411

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Hey does it have a feature where you can send a preset message to someone who has called you? Like. You cut an incoming call and say ‘I’m driving, I’ll call you back later’ or something like that. I think that would be a great feature. @abhishek.balaji @Bluetooth-Beta-Group

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The Bluetooth update in my opinion is completely useless. It doesn’t work at all. After paring and connecting, the song that’s playing doesn’t show up. When it rarely does, it doesn’t change to next song. Pause, play, previous, next controls don’t work.

Call controls don’t work. (start and right left indicator). Caller info isn’t displayed. My 5k smartwatch does better than this.

And bear in mind I use Spotify premium. I did a soft reboot as well. Still didn’t solve the issue.

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Some instructions that’ll help everyone here:

Instructions for using Bluetooth features:

Bluetooth can be in a few states

  1. On - Bluetooth is on but dashboard is not discoverable to other Bluetooth devices nearby.
  2. Broadcasting - Bluetooth is on, and is discoverable to other Bluetooth devices nearby.
  3. Connected - When there is an active device connected to the dashboard over Bluetooth.

Turning Bluetooth On/Off

  1. Once the update is installed, Bluetooth will be on by default If the owner is trying to pair immediately after an update, verify that Bluetooth is turned on by going to the Settings > Bluetooth
  2. Turning the Key on will start Bluetooth in Broadcasting mode, and will remain visible to nearby Bluetooth devices for 3 minutes or till a device connects to it successfully.
  3. When a device is connected to the dashboard, and the owner turns off the key, Bluetooth connection will still hold for 7 minutes after the key is off. This time is set so that in case of a Traffic Signal or a quick stop, when the owner turns off the key, we can avoid reconnecting to the phone.
  4. Bluetooth can be turned off by going to the Settings on the Dashboard, and turning the toggle off in the Bluetooth menu.

Connecting to an Android/iOS device

  1. Vehicle Bluetooth will appear as “< First Name >'s 450X”
  2. On iOS: Go to Settings > Bluetooth, and pair with your vehicle
  3. On Android: go to Ather App > Profile > Bluetooth. Click on “Pair with your scooter”. Select your vehicle when it appears.
  4. If multiple users are paired, it will try to first connect to the first phone in range. To connect to the second device, switch off bluetooth on the first device.

Music controls

Shows Album art (only on Android, iOS is not possible), song name and artist.

  1. You can touch the buttons on the pop up to the previous/next track, play/pause when the vehicle is stationary.
  2. While riding, the touchscreen is disabled, hence you’ll have to use a combination of switches to use these functions. Hold the start switch to bring the popup. Continue holding the start switch and press the left/mid/right indicator to take actions. This mapping would be shown on the screen.

Call controls

  1. Calls: Shows caller name (if saved in contacts) or phone number.
  2. Only shows for incoming calls, not for outgoing calls yet. Whatsapp or other App based calling won’t work, only Google Duo works on Android.
  3. When a call alert shows, you can tap on accept/reject on the screen, if the vehicle is stationary. While riding, the touch screen is disabled, hence you’ll have to use a combination of switches to use these functions. Hold the start switch to bring up the call alert pop up.
  4. Continue holding and use the left/mid/right indicator to take action based on what’s shown in the screen
  5. Permissions needs to be granted to show caller name if stored in the contacts

Ensure for Android, the following permissions are granted in your app settings:

  • Location background access - needed to do a Bluetooth scan.
  • Calls, call logs, contacts - to show call features on the dashboard.
  • Notification permission - ensures the connection is seamless

For IOS once paired, in settings > Bluetooth > 450X ensure that permissions are granted here, and Do not Disturb while driving is turned off.

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Hello Abhishek. Need to shift the music pop up location else where as it’s overlapping the current ride. @abhishek.balaji!

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I couldnt wait for the Ather bluetooth helmet launch. I went for this instead. Found it useful

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