Today, I was parked, just enjoying some sun in my Prius, and I heard a sound like a siren, and a tinny voice that said, "Battery too low, turning off accessory" or something like that. It didn't come from the stereo system. It sounded like it came from a small speaker somewhere. I love that about my Prius Prime, always something new.
I think it probably would have played through the audio system, were it turned on. But it was not, therefore it came through some sort of alternate sound source that sounded like a very small speaker.
I had it in acc, the stereo off, but the navigation was on. I'm sure the rapid drain was from the 12V cooler in the back, which draws 2.7 amps. Anyhoo, the solution was simple; I put it in READY mode.
This is reminding me to ask if anyone knows what the tiny square speaker looking thing is that is located on headliner above driver seat. Probably above passenger seat too.
The sound came from the passenger dash speaker. That speaker functions as a replacement of the old* dedicated system speaker that would be built into the gauge cluster somewhere. The wiring to that speaker goes from the JBL amp, through the telematics transceiver, and finally to the speaker itself. The telematics transceiver is connected to the body ECU through the canbus network. So the ECU saw the battery was getting low and sent a command to the telematics transceiver. The TT was able to send the audio notice directly to the speaker without involving the head unit or amp at all. The reason it didn't sound normal was because it was only coming from the one speaker(you're used to hearing audio from all speakers at the same time) and because it didn't have the full power of the amp behind it. *By old, I mean 10+ years ago. I don't know when they switched from a dedicated speaker to just using one of the audio speakers, but I'm sure it's been awhile.
