No RDS? and a few infotainment questions

[jjrosaria]

Hi there,

Been reading here for a while but finally bit the bullet and bought a Mk4 Honda Jazz Hybrid. It's my wife's daily driver but we have been both enjoying it.

Anyway, few questions though. We live in New Zealand and so the full spec of ours is an 'E:luxe' EHEV Jazz. Here, it is basically the top of the line spec as it's the only way to get the hybrid!

Although the car has been great and the fuel economy had been amazing (3.9L/100km with my wife's heavy foot haha). I do find a few things 'weird' about the infotainment. I understand that the system would have a few things different from region to region but here are some thing I have noticed.

RDS - For what ever reason, when listening to FM. Our car does not have RDS and does not show the name of the radio station. I find this a bit strange for a 2022 car, especially considering it's all pretty much the same 9 inch system used in different regions! Do they actually make a different unit for our cars here and omit RDS for whatever reason, or am I just missing an option to enable it? (I have tried looking through the radio settings and the user manual to no avail!)

If so, is there any deeper level settings to change and activate RDS?

No Navigation - We also noticed that there is no built in Navigation on ours. Just a compass. Not a big problem as we generally use carplay but did not really realise this until after we've bought the car.

App Installation - What apps can we actually install on our infotainment? and if so how do we install it? I understand that the unit is Android based, but can we just install any normal APK for it?


Anyway thanks in advance. If anyone is from NZ here that can help me clarify about the RDS situation that would be great. Although relatively minor things. I just find it really surprising to have this feature missing on a relatively expensive (compared to other small hatchbacks), full featured car.


Cheers.

[Lord Voltermore]

Its probably more a difference in software than actually different equipment.   I believe NZ cars possibly share features for cars made for  the asian market, where maybe  RDS  signals differ in some way.

Does DAB radio work where you are ?  I believe NZ may only have DAB radio in a couple of major cities.

Sounds like Honda have not paid Garmin to have NZ maps  . Its possible the sytem is lying dormant in the software  and if you pay Garmin for the rights to download NZ maps onto the car it might enable the system.  But thats something you would need to check with Honda and Garmin.  You shouldnt have to of course 
But many users in the UK  dont use the garmin  satnav and prefer the likes of google and Waze  via their phones, displayed  on the car screen.   In the UK the in built Garmin system doesnt have traffic alerts, whereas if you drive into Germany you do get some.  One of the disadvantages of lliving in an isolated off shore Island  (the uk  ) 

[Guinness 2]

My 2016 HR-V had traffic warnings on the Garmin Sat Nav. Are you saying the Jazz doesn't?

[Kremmen]

Correct, the built in Garmin has no traffic

[Guinness 2]

that's a big disappointment - is that Honda trying to save money or Garmin changing their specs?

[nowster]

The European models with the touch screen definitely have RDS and DAB+ as standard.

[R2D3]

I'm no expert (on anything!) but I understand that not all radio stations that have RDS on DAB offer it on FM.

[jjrosaria]

Its probably more a difference in software than actually different equipment.   I believe NZ cars possibly share features for cars made for  the asian market, where maybe  RDS  signals differ in some way.

Does DAB radio work where you are ?  I believe NZ may only have DAB radio in a couple of major cities.

Sounds like Honda have not paid Garmin to have NZ maps  . Its possible the sytem is lying dormant in the software  and if you pay Garmin for the rights to download NZ maps onto the car it might enable the system.  But thats something you would need to check with Honda and Garmin.  You shouldnt have to of course 
But many users in the UK  dont use the garmin  satnav and prefer the likes of google and Waze  via their phones, displayed  on the car screen.   In the UK the in built Garmin system doesnt have traffic alerts, whereas if you drive into Germany you do get some.  One of the disadvantages of lliving in an isolated off shore Island  (the uk  )

Thanks for the response!

We do not get any DAB radio here in NZ. A bit unfortunate that if that was the case, Honda had a slight oversight on making sure RDS works for us!

At the end of the day, it is a pretty minor issue and sure a lot of times we just hook up to our phone. The only reason I would like RDS and FM is we typically do inter-region roadies. In which a lot of times we occasionally lose data reception and cannot stream music. When this happens, we revert back to FM. With this, because when moving through regions the frequency changes and it becomes hard to follow again which station you were listening to.

On my car, (2017 Mazda MX-5) I have no problem receiving RDS and the car even follows the correct station when it changes frequency through different regions! So yeah. I was just mildly surprise that our new car did not have this feature.

Navigation wise, yeah we often just use maps. I have just been following the forums quite a bit and watching so much videos about the Jazz that I was surprised when our one did not have it.

[jjrosaria]

My 2016 HR-V had traffic warnings on the Garmin Sat Nav. Are you saying the Jazz doesn't?

We do not even get the Garmin Sat nav on our infotainment unfortunately. Just maps through carplay. So yeah. No traffic. NZ also does not get traffic data through RDS, only through GPS subscription.

[Kremmen]

The 'no traffic' is a UK change as the old Trafficmaster TMC RDS was unfit for purpose in this day and age. It was very slow so what it reported was often wrong. As a result Honda refused to pay for it.

AFAIK the later HRV and Civic have a different setup using Here mapping and have 'Internet Traffic' via a smartphone connection.

Unfortunately Honda never retrofit so it's unlikely our Jazz will get this.

[FMIB]

The Honda E does not get live traffic information either. Same reason as for the Jazz. Pretty disgraceful if you ask me on cars that cost so much. Pushes you to have to use a smartphone to access Apple or Google maps via CarPlay or Android Auto

[ColinB]

I'm no expert (on anything!) but I understand that not all radio stations that have RDS on DAB offer it on FM.

RDS is only a FM system, there’s no such thing as “RDS on DAB”. You don’t actually need RDS for station following if you’re listening to DAB. By definition, it’s a means of sending small amounts of data over FM, such as station idents and traffic reports. See this for details:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System

If you’re listening to DAB and you get (say) a traffic report (TA function enabled) breaking in, I think the radio’s taking that interrupt from an FM broadcast. Personally, I stopped using it because commercial stations were sneakily using it to broadcast ads to people who were listening to BBC ... you’d get the traffic report then they’d leave it broadcasting the ads that followed. It was more infuriating than helpful.

[Neil Ives]

... you’d get the traffic report then they’d leave it broadcasting the ads that followed. It was more infuriating than helpful.

Yes, I agree. it's horrible

[Guinness 2]

If the Jazz Sat Nav doesn't have Traffic Info how do you guys become aware of jams - radio, google maps, waze?

[Kremmen]

Wireless Android Auto/Google Maps for me.