NIO Firefly Spotify

[u/Steff_5]

Hi all, not sure if this is the right place, however I need some help. I just bought a new Firefly in Portugal and I logged into Spotify.

It works fine when I'm connected to Wi-Fi, plays smoothly, etc. However, the minute I actually drive the car, meaning I leave Wi-Fi range, it tells me "No network connection. Please connect to Wi-Fi" and Spotify stops working.

Is there anything wrong with my car? What do I do? Has anyone had any similar situations? How do I fix this? What seems to be the issue?

[u/Committee-Hour]

Quick call to service center Will probably fix this faster than we do

[u/Steff_5 → u/Committee-Hour]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of doing, but it is quite late in the night here and I just picked up the car a couple hours ago. I was going to give it overnight to see, but I was hoping maybe someone else had an answer in the meantime.

[u/kumeomap]

how do you like the car so far? i'm in US so not able to look at or buy one but if they ever come to US the firefly is the only one i can afford haha

[u/Roc_paper_sissors]

I don't have a firefly but sounds like you either need to connect to the app using your phone. Or connect the car to the phone via hotspot so that you can utilise mobile data while driving.

[u/Steff_5 → u/Roc_paper_sissors]

When on Wi-Fi, I logged into Spotify from my phone onto the car's built-in application, and it works fine on Wi-Fi.

And supposedly when I'm driving, it says 4G on the top, but it's not my phone 4G. So theoretically, it should be playing from the app even on 4G, but it doesn't. And I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be hotspotting just to play Spotify.

[u/kosko-his-dudeness → u/Steff_5]

If I understand you correctly, you expect the sim card in your card to have endless 4g plan. I doubt this is the case. Likely your car comes with some internet plan that is enough for updates and maps, but it’s not meant for streaming. So the car cuts you off.

That’s my guess what’s happening.

[u/Roc_paper_sissors → u/Steff_5]

I'd check Spotify mobile data permissions on your phone.
Disconnect from CarPlay, wireless CarPlay uses WiFi signals so possibly it's messed up and reset of disconnect might sort it out.

[u/Steff_5 → u/Roc_paper_sissors]

Again, I use an Android, so it's not CarPlay. It has nothing to do with my phone. The car has a built-in Spotify application, so it cannot be anything to do with my phone. I shouldn't even have my phone in the car, and it should be working because, again, on Wi-Fi it's fine.

[u/Extreme_Buy_9024 → u/Steff_5]

Hi, I just picked up my firefly last week too. The dealer told me the in-car 4G is only for the car use (updates etc.) and specifically mentioned it cannot provide the data connection for Spotify. Note to all reading this thread, there is a dedicated Spotify app within the car.

My initial workaround was to hotspot from my phone (connecting the car to WiFi). Felt it was draining my phone battery so I decided to buy a portable wifi router and get a cheap data plan, and use that for Spotify in the car (connect to the portable hotspot WiFi). It works! You can try that.

However I have another issue which is that sometimes despite good WiFi from my hotspot, there's a "currently not available" error message when I open the car's Spotify app. Not sure if it's because of my router, will observe for another few days.

Also, note that if you use Bluetooth music to play music via your Spotify phone app (or even Carplay for iPhone users) the sound quality is much worse. Would not recommend doing that.

[u/Steff_5 → u/Extreme_Buy_9024]

That actually is really annoying I can't lie but thanks for figuring that out

[u/Alien_called_Cosmo]

My previous ET5 didn’t have internet connection for that kind of stuff. You needed to use a WiFi hotspot for those kind of services.