Lossless not available on BMW Spotify app

[djeza]

hello. I have a premium subscription and I am able to listen to Lossless quality on my headphones and my Bose home smart speaker. 

however, I am not able to enable lossless quality in my BMW’s native Spotify app. When I try to change the quality, it resets to normal. How to solve this?

 

[Joan]

Hi there @djeza,

Thanks for reaching out. We'll be glad to help you use the lossless quality to its fullest.

The long awaited feature is indeed rolling out and now you're free to enjoy it, however while it will work within the mobile and desktop apps, be advised that not all third party devices will support it. If the setting doesn't appear or if the app automatically switches to the regular settings, then it would seem the BMW infotainment system doesn't support lossless for the moment. 

As an alternative, you can try connecting your phone and playing from there instead, as it definitely should support lossless. Make sure to connect via cable and not Bluetooth and the built-in compression from a Bluetooth connection will prevent you from taking full advantage of the lossless quality.

Hope this clears things up.

[wollabilla]

I understand that lossless is not available in the BMW app at the moment. However, I have selected "very high" quality, but under "file quality" it is still listed as "normal" quality. What am I missing here?

[wollabilla]

Any input on this would be much appreciated!

[Eni]

Hey there @wollabilla, 

Thanks for getting in touch about this and welcome to the Community. 

Just to confirm, is this only happening when you're listening to your content from your car infotainment system or if you connect your phone by cable as well? It'd be helpful, if you could check. 

Note that the audio quality might be affected by the mobile connection, and on occasions the car's software prioritizes bandwidth over quality. 

Keep us posted. 

[JL95]

I’m a BMW owner too, and I’m really disappointed with Spotify. After the upgrade, the car still can’t deliver lossless audio. Those who say connecting the phone directly to the car, do you even realize the sound gets compressed ?

[k1ng87]

Hey Eni! thanks for the tip on the cable. When you say use a cable as well, does that mean use a cable with airplay?

[Joan]

Hi there @k1ng87, @JL95,

Thanks for the replies.

By this we meant to connect your phones to the car audio systems and play from the phone itself, simply using the car as an output device. This way, if have your phone set to lossless, that's what it will output. If you use a wired connection, there shouldn't be any compression involved. Just be aware of the high data usage. 

Hope this clears things up.

[BJG20]

Works fine via wireless Android Auto on G20

[wollabilla]

The screenshots are from my phone when using the Spotify app in the BMW (iDrive 8.5). I have not yet tried connecting via cable, but in that case it will be the phone/IOS app and the BMW app playing?

[k1ng87]

The phone app will play but not the Spotify native app. When you turn off CarPlay (in the mobile settings in idrive) and plug the phone in (make sure it’s an actual data cable and not just a power cable), the phone will come up as an option in the media menu(where you have AM, FM, Spotify, etc…) in idrive. 

[ferencpal]

This happens to me as well. I'd like to use car infotainment system and not Apple Carplay.

Whatever I choose as quality in the iPhone Spotify app for BMW, the playback will be "Normal 96kbps" in BMW Spotify app.

I see you are offering to use cable to connect to phone, but I'd like to use the car built in Spotify app, which is much better then Carplay, and I don't want to use my phone at all for streaming if the car has built in app.