I've got a brand new Kia. The FM radio comes on so fast, it's surprising. Every car I've ever had always has had some sort of warm up time or a splash screen on the infotainment system while it's booting up. This Kia has none of that. Audio is immediately present and tuning to other stations is immediate as well. It's almost a little unnerving how quickly audio comes out since we've always been used to slower FM radios, CD players, satellite radio, and music streaming apps that just take short moment to go to the next station or song.
Also, one thing to remember is that FM radios have been "digital" for quite some time. I'm not talking about HD radio or DAB receivers. FM demodulation chips have existed for a long time (TDA7000 came out in 1983). They handle tuning, demodulation, and amplification all-in-one. The only slow part would be whatever microcontroller has to manage the interface in the receiver. You can even get FM transceiver chips dirt cheap like the one that is in the infamous Baofeng ham radio. It's got one chip doing all of the radio work.
My Toyota does the worst of both worlds -- the audio portion comes up immediately, with whatever volume setting it had when it was shut off.
The volume knob doesn't respond until about 8 seconds later.
I'm sure you can imagine situations (like in a driveway such as mine, where the neighbor's bedroom window directly overlooks it) where what was appropriate at 3pm when I got home, is not appropriate at 3am next time I start the car...
This is even worse on my Dodge. Like yours, the audio comes in immediately, and the volume knob may or may not work for a time. The bluetooth takes absolutely forever to connect so it defaults to another input, typically FM radio. The bluetooth input also has no volume boost setting so I have the volume turned up quite a bit, thus the radio is loud as hell.
All in all, this means that I regret it if I forget to turn the volume down when I get out of the car.
Sounds like the same system as in my Subaru. I don't even know how you can design a system to emit audio and and not be volume controllable for like millions of CPU cycles. And you'd think with like about two dozen buttons on the steering wheel, one of them would allow you to mute control the phone mic when your are on a conference call.
> I've got a brand new Kia. The FM radio comes on so fast, it's surprising. Every car I've ever had always has had some sort of warm up time or a splash screen on the infotainment system while it's booting up
They simply never power of the Head Units, even if they go dark. And I am not talking of the constant power feature head units head since forever but the CPU actually doing stuff. Most of the time the satellite data is held fresh to give you an immediate position fix if requested.
If you completely detach it from power you would notice that there is a startup time.
It does. I have a Subaru with a head unit that stays powered on, and it has ran itself down more frequently than any other car I've had. The explanation I got from the dealer was that the residual drain on the battery is much higher, so there's less capacity to start the car. I keep a lithium ion jump starter charged and in the car, and I've had to use it a few times. If you can keep each and every OTHER draw on the battery down, it's fine.
The biggest thing that helped was realizing that the battery dies when the key fob was hung up with our other keys. Coincidentally, this was exactly the right distance for the car to constantly wake and sleep itself as it thought the key fob was entering and leaving its vicinity. Between adequate key fob faraday cages, making sure the interior lights are in the automatic or off position, and making sure all the doors are closed we haven't had a dead battery in a while.
You’re totally correct. I just wanted to clarify the various ways that radio can decode FM digitally. Please correct me if I’m mistaken. I’m still real new to this world.
Does your by any chance have remote onlocking or nearby unlocking features (or are the radio modules installed by default)? Some cars start the boot sequence well before you enter the key/car for the infotainment systems.
Maybe you're thinking of a different chip for digital FM? The TDA7000 chip is completely analog, with R-C filters, oscillators, mixers, a variable capacitor and varactor diodes for tuning, and so forth.
Also, one thing to remember is that FM radios have been "digital" for quite some time. I'm not talking about HD radio or DAB receivers. FM demodulation chips have existed for a long time (TDA7000 came out in 1983). They handle tuning, demodulation, and amplification all-in-one. The only slow part would be whatever microcontroller has to manage the interface in the receiver. You can even get FM transceiver chips dirt cheap like the one that is in the infamous Baofeng ham radio. It's got one chip doing all of the radio work.