We have a new 2024 Equinox. When playing the USB in Infotainment Center, manual browsing is not permitted when the vehicle is moving (in you are alone). You can only use the speak function to change things....this is a mess since it never gets your speech correct and after a few times of speaking things and it get it'* wrong, or you say something like play BJ Thomas, it will say, "Ok, calling BJ" (who is one of my contacts) and if you have a half dozen albums in your USB you cannot play a certain album, you can only speak an Artist....... This makes no sense since you can change the AM/FM, Sirius Satellite, and Smartphone things manually if you are alone. IS there a way to override the system and make the vehicle think someone else is in the car when you are alone? I have pulled the fuse for the "occupancy" and it did not work............

You could try buckling the passenger seatbelt.

Not sure if this car is like countless older GM cars I used to rent often, such as 2010-2020 Impalas and Traverses and the like, but on those I could put a couple of cell phones on the front passenger seat and it thought there was a passenger and dinged the seatbelt warning. If you can get yours to do that then you might be on track to make it think someone is there.

Tried that and did not work.... I even put 100 pounds a weight in the seat and it did not work.

I looked around and read about the Equinox infotainment system having an option to disable lockouts. This option will ask if the system detects a passenger in the front passenger seat. I also read that the option is always available behind the bell icon. I think they meant that it is available behind the bell icon if the system detects an adult-sized passenger in the front passenger seat.

From all of the references that describe how to work with the occupant sensing system, I gather that it may have a secondary sensor in the seatback or somesuch to detect an adult-sized passenger. If this is the case, you'd probably want to try again with the 100-pound weight, and add a piece of metal etc. to disrupt the field from behind the seat. Maybe that would work?

I'll try that