I doubt that is the case other implementations of AAOS have more comprehensive GUIs and features, so there must be quite some freedom allowed, still I'm pretty happy with Volvos implementation.

Responses from B&W and Volvo
 

I thought some might be interested in responses I have received from B&W and Volvo regarding the elimination of an L/R balance control in the Sound Settings of my XC90. Not good news, sadly.

B&W were initially curt and unhelpful. Reading between the lines, I inferred that they're happy to sell the equipment to Volvo but have no say in how well (or badly) Volvo deploy it. They asked me to fill in the usual 'how did we do' post-help questionnaire and I was blunt. Unusally, they then responded more fully as follows:

Dear Matthew, (not my name!?!?)

Thank you for completing and returning your survey regarding your recent contact with the Bowers & Wilkins customer care team.

Although Bowers & Wilkins assisted with the design and placement of the drivers, we have had little to no input on the menu set up from the in car electronics, this would have been managed by Volvo and Harman. All support for the Volvo incar entertainment is handled by Volvo themselves and in some cases Volvo may ask Harman to assist. I will pass on your comments to the Bowers & Wilkins Automotive team for future discussion with Volvo and Harman.

Below are the links to contact Volvo and Harman.
Contact us | Volvo Support UK (volvocars.com)
Harman Kardon Automotive Volvo

Kind regards,
Ken


Volvo were very helpful at first, their customer support chap saying he would raise it with their technical team. I suggested they should a feedback process, whereby car owners could report bugs in the software and suggest improvements. Today I received a direct reply from their technical who don't seem to brook no input from users:

"We are not aware of any changes coming in any upcoming software update for this nor has there been a large demand for this feature to be added. This being included in a software update would require a high amount of requests coming in when it comes to functional changes to be made or for functional changes to be developed.

Essentially, when it comes to the amount of software related changes and developments that are being worked on, this would not be very high on the priority list - hence why it would require a lot of requests for the priority to be heightened."


The squeaky wheel gets oiled I guess, and they don't hear enough squeaking.
I was thinking of doing a short YouTube video, showing what I've settled on in terms of Sound Settings to make the best of a bad job. It might help people researching for a new car purchase who like a decent sound system, and who knows, it might help the wheel squeak on the issue!

I must say I am totally confused by the reply from B&W. What have Harmon got to do with it. Harmon Kardon are an independent operating company but fully owned however by Samsung. B&W are also an independent operating company owned by a third party since 2020
and I have seen it suggested that the intermediate parent is also a Samsung subsidiary although I have been unable to find evidence to confirm this.
This at least confirms my contention that this problem is aa Volvo issue not a AAOS constraint.

Some very good investigating there, which helps us towards trying to decipher this murky picture.

Looking again at the Android AAOS documentation, from what I can see, there is a lot of API and coding related information to Audio Control, Fade & Balance as well as others. (we need an Android coder to help out here) https://source.android.com/docs/auto...io-control-hal

If as I feel may be the case, H&K, B&W and Volvo are all dependant and restricted by the underlying Android AAOS O/S which they all run on to control their hardware systems and apps. Volvo can customise the GUI look and button placements, but overall, I think Android has the final say in how far Volvo and others can really go.

So where is the bottleneck to getting the things, we think should be there, provided to us? Whose door do we really need to bang on - Android or Volvo?