So. We have a car that allows the cell phones to connect via Bluetooth, but ONLY for cell calls.
Cannot wirelessly send music or the sound of a Zoom meeting into the car’s audio system.
Google is, as is more and more the case, failing me here.
Does such an adaptor exist that I can plug into my cell phone that will let full connectivity occur??
Must guess it will be so much cheaper than buying a new car.
Many thanks in advance,
Cartooniverse.
What kind of car (make/model/year) and what kind of phone? If the car is less than 10 or so years old, it probably works with Android Auto and/or Apple CarPlay.
Ahh my bad. Details count.
2010 Prius,
2024-era Android Samsung Galaxy S24-Ultra.
Now, our Prius DOES have a physical “AUX” jack and matching button choice on the dash/radio panel. We can play music into that port that lives under the shared armrest.
I’m posting this search because that mini headphone jack has gone off and any dongle someone might suggest will be MUCH cheaper and much easier to use than the cost of having someone rip that armrest console out to replace that panel-mount headphone jack.
It doesn’t look like the 2010 Prius has Android Auto, at least that’s what I’m assuming based on the ‘I installed a head unit with Android Auto’ threads that popped up. I wonder what happens if you use a USB to 3.5mm (Aux) jack cable?
If it was me, for $7, I’d try it without even doing more research.
Cheapest likely to work well is a replacement head unit. Google aftermarket radio head unit for 2010 Prius.
Examples will now do the latest Bluetooth, Carplay, Android Auto, better sound, maps, etc…
Plenty of Youtubes if you decide to do it yourself.
Something like this will allow you to use your cars fm radio to accept almost any kind of input, and is much easier than ripping out the existing head unit. It’s less elegant, but a lot cheaper and easier.
Full disclosure; I have not used one of these before.
Better link to same product: Wal*Mart - Monster 18W Bluetooth FM Transmitter. No endorsement expressed or implied.
I’ll second the replacement/upgraded head unit. A few years ago, I got a Sony unit for my 2007 RAV4 and it does everything (and more) that you have described. It wasn’t cheap…but about 6 months ago my buddy put a new unit in his 2009 Toyota and it does much more than my unit while being 1/3 the price. It’s some no-name brand from Amazon. Installed in less than 20 minutes. Has Android and Apple features, as well as the aux port, external mic, USB, etc.
My mom had a similar vintage Prius C, and I was told that that the radio could only use bluetooth for calls, but somehow I played music from my phone over bluetooth to the radio. I just selected bluetooth on the radio, and then it worked. Very well could have been a year newer than your car and had the feature. Only point is I was told it didn’t, but it really did…
Am I interpreting this correctly? You used to use a USB-C to headphone adapter on your phone, and connected that to the AUX jack in the center console, but now that has stopped working.
Are you sure the problem is the AUX jack? Do you have some headphones you can connect to the USB-C adapter on the phone to make sure that is working? Alternatively, do you have some other known-working audio source and cable you can connect to the car?
I got a bluetooth to FM adapter when I drove my 2000 Suburban home 1000 miles. It worked great in rural areas, but in any city it was overwhelmed by conventional radio broadcasts. Sometimes I could search the whole dial for a free area, but back home near Denver, there was not a single place that could be used. Based on my experience, I do not recommend this solution.
This may be the best answer. Go put your car into Crutchfield and look at the different head units available that fit. You don’t have to buy one there, but it should give you a good idea of cost and installation difficulty.
You have a 15 yo car, that was speced out a year or two before that. The early days of Bluetooth & a couple of lifetimes ago in the world of electronic cycles.
I also bought a 2010 Japanese car, though not a Toy Odor & had a similar issue. Voice plays over the primary BT channel but music & some other things (Google Maps voice speaking directions to you*) play over the secondary, A2DP channel. You’re car’s radio doesn’t have A2DP.
You have three options, as mentioned above to resolve this.
Option 1 is very expensive & like going after a fly with a sledgehammer.
Option 3 has a whole bunch of potential problems since you’ll be controlling the music from your phone
Therefore, the best option is to replace your radio with something more modern; I’d suggest looking at Crutchfield; as an added bonus, they have specific, detailed install instrux for just about every common year, make & model out there.
Thanks for this post !
There is no “Bluetooth” selection on the radio side. It’s always on, waiting for me to pair it with one of our cell phones. When the phone pairs, the phone reads, “ For phone call audio. “ Or similar words, indicating that the car cannot see/hear Bluetooth audio.
Yes, we facc’d out the phone to USB to Mini jack stuff. Good audio there. The mini to mini that plugs into the center console? Carries audio just fine. It does appear it’s the panel-mounted jack in the center console.
I must be missing something here. The All-Encompassing Bluetooth thingy that plugs into a cigarette lighter port? Great, if you want to dial in FM radio. But does it pair to the full Bluetooth signaling on my cell phone ( Like-MUSIC) and somehow then Xmit that audio over an FM channel so the car can find that chanel?
Will explore the Crutchfield solution.
Yes, that it is how it works. You pair your phone to it just like any other Bluetooth device (portable speaker, earbuds, etc.). Then you set it to transmit the audio signal over an FM channel, 93.7, for example. Then tune your radio to 93.7, and you’ll hear whatever audio your phone is transmitting as if it’s an FM station.
The one I have even has a convenient USB port to keep your phone charged.
Like I said though, the really big problem was that the one I used was not a good solution in a metro area. You need to be on an FM channel that has nothing on it. Even the empty spaces between stations are often filled with distant stations, or bleed from stations on nearby channels. Many FM radios will silence these bad signals, but when tuned to the Bluetooth device you’ll start hearing all of those distant stations as interference.
You might be lucky, and live in a place with a clear spot on the FM dial, or buy a device better than the one I have. It certainly is simple to setup, and was great in desolate West Texas, but completely worthless near civilization.
Oooooh. Now, I grok. Thank you for that post.
VERY tempting. I live in New York City. Yes, far from the quietude of West Texas. And yet I can easily find out what FM signals will mess with me.
Gonna poke at these, buy one. Simplest solution by FAR. As for charging, I’ve got power lines threading under the lining and rubber gaskets to meet up with mounts. No need to get one of these that has a power-out port. NICE idea, however……..
Welcome to the train wreck that is Bluetooth.
There isn’t a single thing that is Bluetooth connectivity. There is a raft of “profiles” that use the basic wireless Bluetooth protocol to transmit data. You might have a Bluetooth keyboard or mouse. They use a different profile. Cell phone connectivity uses another profile. It supports bi-directional audio and also basic handset commands, so you can initiate and accept and reject calls over the link. It doesn’t do stereo audio or music.
So now you want to send stereo audio over a Bluetooth link. That requires yet another supported profile. Sadly, as the OP has discovered, older car systems don’t provide any such profile. And to make matters worse, there is more than one profile, with different bandwidths and quality, and differing support. (This is essentially what Bluetooth headphones are using.) Eventually you get to Carplay and Android Auto, and things become significantly more complex. They may well connect of WiFi, and not Bluetooth.
I had exactly this problem with my old Lexus, which was a 2005 model. Being Toyota, probably much the same setup (if not identical) as the OP is facing. It did have an AUX in socket in the centre console storage, and also had a power outlet close by. So I purchased an audio Bluetooth receiver which connected to both. It worded well. What made it less than useful was that driving by myself I had to deliberately set the playback going on my phone before driving. And selecting different tracks meant messing with my phone. So it actually ended up not being used much except for long trips.
I bought a TUNAI Firefly Bluetooth Receiver. It was a really nice product. Not cheap. It needs a USB power source, I bought a lighter socket to USB adaptor. This was a bit of a pain because of the clearances inside the console box, I needed a very low profile adaptor and also needed a USB extension lead to make the tight curve. But once installed, it worked fine.
Plenty of choices - devices that are like a set of bluetooth headphones, ut plug into the AUX port.
The disadvantage of this one is it needs a USB plug-inn for power.
This one you charge, caims to be good for 12 hours.
This one claims to be good for 8 hours.
Devices like this exist (selected at random, don’t take the link as an endorsement of this product). It is a bluetooth media remote that lets you play, pause, skip tracks and such. Yet one more device to pair and keep charged, but they do solve a problem for times when interacting with the phone directly is impossible (or a $75 ticket).
Avoiding having to mess with all of that is why I replaced the head unit in both my current old car, and my previous old car.
Nowadays a smart watch would probably work as well. But anything that requires messing about with a fiddly UI whilst driving is not good. Siri/Alexa probably make this better. But I hate voice controlled anything. YMMV.
My new car, like most has Apple Carplay, and the big touchscreen makes things better. But the UI is still dreadful. Apple have regressed their UI design ethos. They seems to actively prevent any form of useful customisation, and essentially dictate that the use case they like is the one you must use. The one addition that would make it better for me is only available in iOS 26, and my phone is one model too old to upgrade. I’m not spending near 1k$ on a that.
Mumble/grumble…
Apple has always been what the UI folks call “opinionated”. You must adapt to it or die.
So it’s the Borg?
Pretty much. But now with more Evil.