So I have a Droid X on the way (first smart phone I have had) and am wondering about connecting it to the car stereo. I have a line-in for the stereo that I have used with an ipod before. With the ipod it was far superior to use the data connection and an adapter that converts it to a line-out to put into the stereo than just connecting from the headphone jack of the ipod. Is it the same with the Driod? If so, I have not seen any way of getting an audio out from a cable running into the droid data connection.
I have a Droid X. I’ve used the headphone jack output connected to the AUX input of various cars and it sounds great.
I have no idea if there’d be any way to get any kind of digital or data audio output to then convert to analog.
I do have the optional HDMI cable to connect to my TV, and when I play videos the sound comes out of the TV speaker (via the HDMI cable). I don’t know if there’s any sort of device you could use like this in a car, though.
There are USB sound cards made to be used with a computer. I wonder what would happen if you somehow could connect/adapt that to the Micro USB jack on the Droid X.
Probably your best option, if it’s in your budget, is to have/buy a car with factory Bluetooth, add an aftermarket Bluetooth kit, or an aftermarket radio equipped with Bluetooth.
In my car I have the Parrot MKi9200 and I’m very happy with it.
if your car’s audio system has a USB port which can connect to Mass Storage devices (for example, Ford’s SYNC system can, and Sony aftermarket radios can) then you can use that. But only for music stored on the phone; I don’t think stuff like Pandora will work over that.
Otherwise you’re stuck with line-level audio or Bluetooth.
superior how?
This makes me think you have a crappy patch cable. The ipod connector probably had a good patch cable. Patch cables carry analog data so don’t’ fail all at once, but instead degrade.
Try using a shorter patch cable.
Doesn’t that mean the car mounts the sdcard and makes it unmounted/unusable on the phone? It might not be a problem if the person doesn’t mind letting those apps be temporarily out of commission.
I just got this vastly cheap device for sending audio from my phone (also a Droid X, but that’s irrelevant) to my car stereo via FM transmission.
It took me while to find a good frequency, but it works pretty well. I mostly listen to podcasts, so sound quality isn’t a priority, but it was only 5 bucks. Something to try if you have 5 bucks to risk.
Thank you everyone for the excellent information.
Hmm, so this might be the way to go then.
Any idea how bluetooth compares to aux input for sound quality?
I have a 2003 Ford Focus SVT with premium sound package. The downside is that it has no USB port or even an aux jack. It has a 6 CD dash changer, so most advanced adapters (which tend to plug into the port for external CD changers) are not an option. I am currently looking at potential ways to add Bluetooth or an AUX line in. I may have to use an in-line FM modulator (not the wireless kind). I would prefer not to change out the head unit as apparently it is extremely difficult to make use of the subwoofer I currently have (that information is from the SVT websites).
Apparently it is a well known issue that the signal coming from the headphone jack on ipods is pretty much crap, at least from my surfing of the forums that talk about integrating them with other systems. I think it comes from the amp for volume control. The sounds quality is fine if you are going to be using earbuds, which aren’t great sound quality to begin with, but they suggest the data connection for anything else. The current responses are encouraging to me in that it may not be an issue with the Droid X.
I am now going to try and find a good way to add bluetooth or an aux line in. I will be trying these guys, does anyone know of another good place to look?
Thank you. I have used wireless FM modulators before and they have tended to produce pretty terrible sound quality with the added problem of regularly losing the signal while traveling and encountering different stations. It looks like your product might avoid the last problem with the remote to change station at least. I recommend that you might want to use an in-line version. Basically you insert the device in between the antenna and the stereo and have an aux line that comes out wherever you want it. When you plug into it and turn it on it blocks the signal coming into the radio on the frequency you use and replaces it with the aux signal. It is not as good as a regular aux input, but is unbelievable better than a wireless modulator. It only runs like $25-$35 (I think) and is a pretty easy install.
I’m not sure about the Driod X and your car, but I can’t get the Android and Honda Insight to transmit music over Bluetooth (phone calls work fine though). I’ve attempted to use the USB connection, but I’ve had problems with that as well. It seems it will only stream what’s on the card (so you can really only use it like an MP3 player). Also, whenever I plug it in, it seems to delete everything my podcaster downloaded, which is really strange.
Ultimately, if I want to play something from my phone over my car’s audio, I just use the headphone jack plugged into the aux input.
ETA, I take some of that back, it sort of works with the podcaster, it’ll transmit some of the podcasts, but not others and the forward and backward arrows seems to skip around randomly. It wasn’t really worth the trouble. The nice thing was, that since it was plugged into a USB cable, it stayed fully charged which was good for long drives. I still use the podcaster for long drives via the headphone jack, but I’ll plug in the USB cable as well so I don’t kill the battery.
Sounds interesting, I’ll check that out. Thanks!