GI275 Bluetooth problem

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TBalch

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TBalch
On the last two cross countries in my airplane, my GI275 has unexpectedly disconnected from both of the iPads that were connected to it. In the “Wireless” menu, my iPad was identified as “Status Offline”. This happened on the outbound leg, about 15 minutes in. After starting up to return home, both iPads in the airplane connected as expected, but about 20 minutes into the flight, the same thing happened.

Any thoughts on what’s going on?
 
I have had the same BlueTooth dropout on our R182 at least a dozen times. So far Garmin is insisting that they have never had any customer issues with GI-275 Bluetooth connectivity. On our airplane the failure has occured after less than ten minutes in flight once, most failures are after an hour or so. The one consistent feature is that the connectevity issue does not clear until after landing and engine shutdown. We have had the plane back to the installing dealer four times so far with zero change in the hardware failure performance. I have taken to keeping a BadElf GPS receiver in my flight bag to give me own-ship location on ipads. Not a happy Garmin customer.
 
Two thoughts.
1. Do you have anything else you've ever paired to the 275? Like a phone or something you might have in the plane. Garmin BT is not very good with multiple devices.
2. Try deleting ALL BT connections from the 275 and re-pairing.
 
Ditto...do you have a GTX345 or Flightstream? In the config only one BT connection is allowed. The others have to be disabled. I have a pair of 275's, a GTX345 and a FS510 and the FS510 had to be the only one enabled according to the install instructions.
 
jelecroy said:
I have had the same BlueTooth dropout on our R182 at least a dozen times. So far Garmin is insisting that they have never had any customer issues with GI-275 Bluetooth connectivity. On our airplane the failure has occured after less than ten minutes in flight once, most failures are after an hour or so. The one consistent feature is that the connectevity issue does not clear until after landing and engine shutdown. We have had the plane back to the installing dealer four times so far with zero change in the hardware failure performance. I have taken to keeping a BadElf GPS receiver in my flight bag to give me own-ship location on ipads. Not a happy Garmin customer.
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Merry Christmas: Following up to see if you’ve had any luck resolving this issue. I’m thinking about asking the shop to go back to the GTX 375 for the BT connection, although that’s not what the factory specifies.
 
I had the same issue, with no resolution until completely shut-down. Had some subsequent issues with getting any connection, which required some fooling around with ensuring absolutely everything else had no Bluetooth turned on and having both the GI-275 and my iPad "forget" each other, followed by a complete shut-down and reboot of both the avionics and the iPad. Re-paired everything and thus far, has been okay (fingers crossed). Garmin is definitely wrong on this one, as there are definitely a fair number of folks out there who have had pairing issues. Since I use GP to update my databases, it's an important item!
 
I got so frustrated I bring the files on a thumb drive, on the USB-A Dongle. It works and I'm sticking to it.
 
The owner at our new avionics shop (the previous shop filed for bankruptcy in October) suggested that we completely remove all Bluetooth pairings, as recommended by AvNavCom above. I forgot to do it after my flight back from the shop, but I am going to make that change today.
 
jelecroy said:
The owner at our new avionics shop (the previous shop filed for bankruptcy in October) suggested that we completely remove all Bluetooth pairings, as recommended by AvNavCom above. I forgot to do it after my flight back from the shop, but I am going to make that change today.
Click to expand...
Make sure to remove them from both ends - Garmin and all phones/iPads etc.
 
bbchien said:
I got so frustrated I bring the files on a thumb drive, on the USB-A Dongle. It works and I'm sticking to it.
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That's not bluetooth - That's WiFi (which is only used for the data updates, everything else is Bluetooth). And it can be VERY frustrating getting it to work.

For me, it worked well upon install, then got worse with software updates, and now has gotten better. The other oddity is that it seems to require a GPS signal to get the job done, so you can't do it in the hangar, you have to do it outside. If you're not putting approach plates on the navigator it's fast enough to just let it update at the beginning of a flight. Ironically, the entire reason Database Concierge exists is that Garmin decided they were spending too much on tech support calls from people who were trying to update their databases. :rofl:

As far as the bluetooth goes, one good troubleshooting step is to go into More->Devices (I believe this is the same in FF and GP) and see whether it says it's connected to anything there. Check in your Bluetooth settings for a device connection as well. And yes, doing a "forget" on both sides and re-pairing solves many ills with Bluetooth devices.
 
....and I get none of that with just plugging in my USB-A into the dongle. It just eats up the update....the data rate is MUCH faster.
 
This sounds so...Garmin.

I had a pair of early G5s that had a mysterious backup battery drain issue. The backup batteries would lose about 3-4% charge per day, even when the units were powered off. If left for a month without recharging, the backup batteries would become unrecoverably discharged. When Garmin was notified of the issue (I was not the only one) their answer was basically, "nope." Lo and behold, 2 years later there is an SB that affected hundreds of early units to correct a...backup battery discharge issue. My units got replaced under that SB free of charge.

Sometimes it IS operator error, but sometimes it's a hardware fault.
 
I have an iPhone that occasionally can't connect to 2 Bluetooth (BT) devices- a car and headphones. Most times, I get it to work by turning BT off and back on in the phone. It's a little easier than clearing all pairings and repairing them. I'd try that before clearing the pairings since you are in the settings screen anyway.
 
bbchien said:
....and I get none of that with just plugging in my USB-A into the dongle. It just eats up the update....the data rate is MUCH faster.
Click to expand...
Sure, but all you've done is time-shift the annoying bit. You're faffing about downloading an update on your laptop and transferring it to a USB drive while I'm effortlessly automatically downloading the same update in Garmin Pilot. Then in the airplane, you're effortlessly loading it with your fancy dongle while I'm faffing about with the GI-275's WiFi.

More seriously, when everything is working, it's very slick. GP downloads all of the appropriate updates automatically and notifies me that they are available. The next time I get into my plane, a couple of button presses on the GI-275 pulls everything from GP, and then transfers the updates as appropriate to my other avionics. Connext is absolutely brilliant regarding getting ADSB showing up on my tablet (in addition to the avionics) as well as comprehensive engine data. Really the only fly in the ointment is that the GNC-215 can only be updated via a sim card, which seems to miss the point of the exercise.
 
EDIT: Disregard , just noted the original post date. I thought this just occurred.


Do you know what version of IOS you are on? I’m trying to run down my own Garmin/bluetooth issue and am starting to think it might be related to IOS 18.1.1.

I’ve done all of the power cycling and ‘forgetting’ and re-pairing to no avail.
 
AvNavCom said:
Really the only fly in the ointment is that the GNC-215 can only be updated via a sim card
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If it's on the Ethernet bus, then I suspect that it might be too new and that a future firmware update could enable DB Concierge on the GNC215.
 
asicer said:
If it's on the Ethernet bus, then I suspect that it might be too new and that a future firmware update could enable DB Concierge on the GNC215.
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Let's hope! I was surprised by that update limitation. It really only uses the Nav database to display the airport names for frequencies, based on the GPS location it's getting from the GNX-375. Annoyingly, it doesn't display "Potomac Approach" for the SFRA gate frequencies, which confused the daylights out of me when I first started flying here.

Perusing the Garmin website, it seems that the newest GI-275 software breaks the Sync ability to update the GNX-375 (which should be fixed in the next update to the GNX-375, they claim). Garmin's software update process leaves a great deal to be desired, but with a bit of luck everything will be talking nicely in the future!
 
Again, I'd just bypass all that S---. USB on the dongle.
 
Last edited:
bbchien said:
Again, I'd just bypass all that S---. USB on the dongle.
Click to expand...
Still not foolproof, unfortunately.

www.pilotsofamerica.com

Garmin database updates - user frustrations

I currently have a G500, GNS 750 and GNS 650 in my panel along with some other Garmin products. I recently tried to download the current database to SD cards and navigated through the options all the way to the final step (which shows the expired databases on those three devices) but couldn't...
www.pilotsofamerica.com www.pilotsofamerica.com
 
AvNavCom said:
Perusing the Garmin website, it seems that the newest GI-275 software breaks the Sync ability to update the GNX-375 (which should be fixed in the next update to the GNX-375, they claim). Garmin's software update process leaves a great deal to be desired, but with a bit of luck everything will be talking nicely in the future!
Click to expand...
Probably around the time that the GNX-475, GI-375 and GNC-265 are all available. ;)
 
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