I have friend who got one recently, and is rather mystified by some of the tech – she is VERY low tech. Her owner’s manual says there is a “Aux” jack and a USB port in the glove compartment for the audio system. I know what the Aux in does.
My question is about the USB port… Is there any progamming built into the car to manage/play mp3 files? For instance, can you just pop in a flash drive loaded with your favorite mp3 tracks into the USB port and play them? Or is the port just a digital equivalent to a “line in”, and all the file management and actual playing have to be done by plugging in an external player?
I know nothing about SMART cars specifically, but some of those USB ports are actually just charging ports. Also, there’s no USB standard for a port acting as a generic digital line-in with playback controls; specific devices may support this (iOS, maybe?), but it’s not universal.
Well… I looked up the owner’s manual online, and the only concrete thing it says is that there is a USB port for the basic audio system, and nothing at all about how it would be used, or by what. It sounded strange to me – surely something onboard has to read whatever incoming signal there is.
My wife’s car will read the mp3s stored in folders of the flash drive plugged into the USB port. My wife does not have a SMART car so this is more of an anecdotal answer. But it would not surprise me if the SMART car could read mp3s on a usb flash drive.
No, of it works the same, no player needed? Does the radio have some kind of display and controls that allows her to choose artists, tracks, or playlists? Or does it just shuffle among all the files on the flash drive?
You can scroll through the folders and sub folders. I organize each album into one folder which is a sub folder for the artist then artist folders are organized into folders like A-E, F-M etc to allow for easy skipping around. It does not seem to have the ability to do anything but move around the folders.
You’re doing all this organizing on your home computer, and then loading the organized folders and files onto a flash drive, right?
What exactly “does not seem to have the ability to do anything but move around the folders.”? Do you mean the car radio – that it can play songs out of the folders, but has no function of adding/deleting/changing anything on the flash drive?
If you “Shuffle”, does the function jump among folders to select tracks, or dies it shuffle tracks within a selected folder?
It does not let you choose artists album etc. It lets you choose a folder and then play the music in that folder in alphabetical order by the file name. It probably allows you to shuffle but I don’t cat about that. It does not seem to have any ability to alter the contents of the flash drive. Which given the interface afforded by a couple of buttons and a knob that is probably for the best.
I don’t care to shuffle. I am a child of the album era I listen to the music in the order they are released on the CD. So I really don’t know how shuffle works for this car.
Are we sure it’s alphabetical order and not the order in which they sit in the directory? (Which would be the same if the files are copied onto the media in alphabetical order.)
I’ve got one and seen other cheap mp3 players that just play in folder/directory order. To get the songs to play in a given order you need to reorder the files using a program like ReOrganize!. (Old, but it works for me.)