My Pandora suddenly has commercials. Car is just over a year, was the no commercial version a one year trial? Anyone experience this?

 

At least on my 2013 RDX it is listed Pandora "compatible" meaning that the Pandora comes from your iPhone when connected to the entertainment system. If you didn't have a Pandora account before getting your RDX, you probably created a new account and perhaps got several months of no-ad music.

 

I did not have Pandora prior to the new car and I did create a new account when we bought the car. The funny thing is at home on my treadmill I got commercials from day one, but when in the RDX and connected to Pandora, never got a single commercial, until the other day. Strange.

 

Pandora (non-subscription) is more 'pesky' about commercials now.

I have a subscription and my wife doesn't and the difference has been more and more apparent in the past 6 months or so. They used to be few and far between for her.

 

I've always had commercials at home, like I said, from day one. However, I never had a single commercial in the car. I wonder if it is a deal with Acura that you get a year of "premium", or at least no commercials, for a year when in the car.

 

I could be wrong, but I really really doubt any car has that sort of bias into its bluetooth setup.

Most likely it's a difference in how Pandora Mobile vs. home system/computer operates.

 

^this, though I think it has more to do with the end interface you're using. For instance, if I listen on my phone I get tons of commercials. Using bluetooth through the car it's the same since Pandora doesn't know it's going through bluetooth, but using the USB connection where it has it's own interface it wasn't so bad until a few months ago after a software update. I also have a 3 or 4 year old blu-ray player with a real primitive Pandora interface that hasn't been updated since I bought it and I might get one or two of the same commercials repeated a few times in a month, then not a single commercial for months after that.

From what I've seen, Pandora has different "levels" of commercials and they have different advertisers to pick from for each. Phones can handle anything so they have the biggest pool to pick from. But there's no point sending ads to the car interfaces if it's a "click the banner to find out more" type, no point sending anything with video to your phone while the screen's off, etc., so that starts to thin the ad herd. Every once in a while you might get hosed with a "bug fix" update that actually just adds more ad capability like what probably happened to the RDX. Could have been my HFL software update or an app update, I can't really remember the timing.
If you luck out and have an old, non-updatable system like my blu-ray player that can't really handle any interaction whatsoever or have its screen highjacked by a giant banner, nobody bothers making commercials to bother you. Unless it's one of those Old Navy screaming kid commercials that leave me scrambling for the mute, but it seems like those have run their course...

 

^ that seems to make sense as most of the time I was listening with the USB connection. Like I said, never had a single commercial for almost a year of listening in the car, then all of a sudden I got one. I bet it was a Pandora update that got me!

 

If You're Not Paying for It; You're the Product.

Pandora needs to make money too and is going to sell advertisements to media companies that want to target you. It doesn't necessarily matter if the commercials are interactive, they will still make an impression on you and that is what Pandora is selling.

If you don't want the ads, then pay the $3/month for Pandora One.

 

I understand business and how it works, but thanks for the explanation. My only comment was that I NEVER had ads while in my RDX, for a year, then the simply started appearing. I was just wondering if anyone else had this same experience. I think we have beat this one enough!

 

Can someone confirm that there's no Pandora interface built into the RDX OEM system, right? We're talking about streaming from the phone via bluetooth, right?

 

No, it is built in. You can use it streaming (Bluetooth) or using USB cord. However, you do need to install an app on your phone.

 

that means its not built in.
you stream it from your phone and not the car itself.

 

Not really, because on you have control accessibility on the nav screen. If it was not "built in" you would not be able to see cover art or have the ability to skip songs, like or dislike music, etc. using the RDX controls. So in some sense it is built-in. I have an accord that it is not built in, and I have none of those controls. Also, a Pandora logo is imprinted on the stereo implying it is built in.

 

sorry, carry on

 

Do I need the Pandora app or something else?

 

Yes, you need to download the Pandora app to your phone, set up a user account, and you will be good to go. Be careful though, I have unlimited data on my phone, if you do not have an unlimited plan you may want to keep an eye on your data usage.

 

Streaming Pandora via bluetooth is not the same as connecting an iphone via usb.

When using the iPhone via USB, the Pandora app on the phone launches into accessory mode. The iphone controls for pandora are all locked out. To control Pandora, you need to be switched to USB audio play on the controls, then you can select which stations you want to listen to. The iphone data plan is being used and audio is being transmitted via the dock connector.

When streaming pandora via bluetooth, its just an audio stream from the iphone.

Similar experience with an ipad via USB. I have no idea how the android app works with USB in the RDX.

 

I just received the latest Pandora update on my iPhone 4 on 4/14/14 and now I am having problems with it playing consistently with the RDX iPod/Pandora interface. It won't start playing through the RDX until I have opened and closed the app several times. I guess it is probably an issue with the latest update to the app. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this issue.