Forum Discussion
Phone call sounds garbled and robotic
Every so often, maybe about once or twice a week, I will encounter this problem where I will make or receive a phone call and the call will sound garbled in general, but voices will sound robotic...
I haven't encountered it for a about a week; it had been a few days since it last happened when I posted the original question. As for the questions posted above, I haven't been able to figure out a pattern. The few times it had happened I was driving and my phone was connected to my car via bluetooth. I was in different locations, only separated by a few miles, and with high coverage. In two instances it occurred while connecting to a mobile phone not on the T-mobile network and another time it occurred while connecting to a land-line.
I've been unable to reproduce the problem consistently, and since it has only happened while in my car, I usually just stop trying to make the call until I can restart the phone. I can try airplane mode next time it occurs. Come to think of it, may it be possible that something in my car is messing with my signal? I've noticed the GPS has issues finding my location and updating while doing direction, but I just figured it was the device itself.
Hey all,
In case anyone needs help figuring this out, I’m writing this to share a bit of research I recently found that may explain why this is experienced during phone calls:
Bluetooth.
Whenever we enable Bluetooth on our cell phones, we allow its frequencies to be transmitted and other frequencies to be received which will inevitably encounter a normal amount of interference. However, the you may experience a greater magnitude of interference depending on your cell phone's proximity to other Bluetooth devices. These include Bluetooth connection to your vehicle (ie. CarPlay), wireless headphones (ie. AirPods), wireless speakers, wireless television, and essentially any device that you are able to access remotely from your cell phone. Additionally, if others around you are using Bluetooth connection to their own devices as well, then that too will increase interference.
Although this is not a definite solution to the robot-static-distorted audio sound, this is a solution that has worked so far for me in preventing it during phone calls: Deactivate Bluetooth (temporarily) during important phone calls and when you are in public places to maximize quality of usage. Of course, re-enable it when desired.
I currently use the iPhone 13 Pro Max, one of Apple's most recent iPhone releases, and I have also been a longtime customer of T-Mobile. Therefore, I hold a lot of trust for these two big companies as I have never encountered this issue until recently. Since the modern era is seeing an increase in usage of wireless Bluetooth connection, and drastic changes in technology in general, it makes sense for this issue to increase in prevalence as well.
Hopefully this helps. Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, since I am just a high school student. But just like most adults (and my parents), I think the younger generation has a very good aptitude for dealing with technology, sometimes to a fault (haha… pain).
Best wishes!
