[jehrler]

My wife got her new 2017 this weekend and finally got a chance to play around a bit tonight.

What has me confused, believe it or not, is the radio.

I programmed some stations and then wanted to turn the radio off.

If I hold in the power button the whole central screen and system turns off. Not what I wanted. She and I want to have the system on so we can jump to the energy displays, Radio or CarPlay as we would like.

If I just touch the power button it mutes the radio but the radio stays on (it would seem) as there is a mute icon on the big screen and on the sound page of the speedometer area. I can just turn the volume down all the way and the mute icon seemed to go away but is that really the way to do it?

My wife generally listens to Apple Music but she does like NPR/MPR on occasion. So most of the time she will be using CarPlay but when she does want to switch back and forth (or just drive in silence) I need to have an answer for how to do it.

Please help...

 

[llninja]

If you setup Bluetooth audio from the phone or plug in an audio cable (with no device on the other end) you can keep the radio on just change your source to Bluetooth or aux (at least on g1, I'm not sure about gen2) and enjoy silence without no screen. Bluetooth will play, but hitting pause is easy. But with Bluetooth audio pause, I have seen on a gen1 where I am paused, get a phone call, and when I hang up the phone, the car starts playing the last podcast or music app I was playing before hitting pause. I don't know if it's the phone or the car that is at fault, but again, hitting the pause button brings back the silence.

 

[voganni]

Just checked my gen 1. Everything is available with the radio off. (except nav, 'cuz its part of the radio) Turn off radio, Volt logo appears. Hit the leaf button, get energy. Hit climate, get climate. I can also turn the display off in config, but soon as I hit a button it will come back on.

 

[jehrler]

Thanks. That's what we were used to in the Gen 1 Volt. The Gen 2 works differently and hence my confusion.

 

[llninja]

Thanks. That's what we were used to in the Gen 1 Volt. The Gen 2 works differently and hence my confusion.

Yes, the slew of buttons in the gen1 are gone and they are closer to the minimalist buttons apple provides, but not quite.

 

[quirkySquirt]

Coming from an ICE with a radio that manually turns off (that is, no more speaker "hiss" as when you turn the volume all the way to zero), I too was confused on how to turn off the radio in my Volt.

I deduced that since no audio was being played when mute, not much energy was being used. Heck, modern digital radio tuners (not digital radio) can be VERY quick to tune so that "mute" icon when operating in only radio mode could technically be turning off the radio chip to reduce power. It would be minuscule since the same radio chips in your phone draw milliwatts of power, hardly anything to worry about. If the speakers' diaphragms aren't moving to produce sound, then they don't draw power either. For all intents and purposes, I'd call this "off" for a modern radio.

 

[hellsop]

Coming from an ICE with a radio that manually turns off (that is, no more speaker "hiss" as when you turn the volume all the way to zero), I too was confused on how to turn off the radio in my Volt.

I deduced that since no audio was being played when mute, not much energy was being used. Heck, modern digital radio tuners (not digital radio) can be VERY quick to tune so that "mute" icon when operating in only radio mode could technically be turning off the radio chip to reduce power. It would be minuscule since the same radio chips in your phone draw milliwatts of power, hardly anything to worry about. If the speakers' diaphragms aren't moving to produce sound, then they don't draw power either. For all intents and purposes, I'd call this "off" for a modern radio.

Most of the chimes and turn-signal clicks all come through the audio system anyway, so when it's "off", it's still not off anyway. So mute vs turning the knob left until you can't here it anymore or "off" are probably all using exactly the same amount (trivial) of power.