Most of the people enjoy listening to music while they are driving, but there are also times when the radio does not play the right music and tunes. There was a time when playing a CD was the obvious choice but they used to get scratched very easily.
Fortunately, with the advent of technology, mobile phones having the MP3 storage have become a good alternative now. While in transit, your Android phone can be used as your very own audio entertainment system as long as there is a safe place for placing or mounting the phone along with the necessary cable or range for sending signals to in-car system of audio.
With the help of the following options, you can playback the music streamed or stored on via Android phone to car audio system:
Analogue Cable
The most common option is to use the analogue cable connecting your headphone jack on the phone to line-in option in the car’s audio system. It can be done in various ways. For example, you may have a line-in the standard connector placed on the car audio system for providing easy access. You may alternatively need to work this connection around from the back of car’s dashboard for hooking up the phone and enjoy all the tunes stored on it.
The old models of audio systems with cassette tape player would let you use the cassette adapter, which is a low-cost small device that connects to the headphone jack on the phone or MP3 player allowing you to enjoy and play the music through it. Note that while using this analogue option, you would have 2 volume control options; one option would be on the Android phone and the other would be of an audio system.
Bluetooth
Modern day audio system in cars have Bluetooth for playing the music across short-range of wireless network as an option. Start by activating the Bluetooth on car audio system and make sure that you make it ‘discoverable’. Then open your Android phone and follow the following steps:
- Open Settings
- Open Connections
- Open Bluetooth Settings
- Activate Bluetooth option
- Wait for your screen to get updated and it will display car audio system
- Select it to ‘pair’
The best thing about a Bluetooth is that all the settings are remembered and it would pair automatically in the future. On the other hand, it affects the life of your phone battery. So you need to charge your phone while using it.
USB
Just like Bluetooth, there are some modern day cars that have USB cables in their stereo systems. They can be used for connecting the external storage devices. It enables you to browse the tunes library through the audio system of your car. Hooking up your Android phone is pretty simple. If the USB cable is provided along with the car’s audio system then just connect your Android phone with its suitable adapter. Otherwise you need to identify the port of USB on device and then connect the Android handset.
Once it gets connected, the Android phone would need to switch to the storage mode. Drag down the bar of notification and select the ‘USB Mass Storage/USB Connection Mode’. You can then navigate the library of your Android phone on car audio system. Remember that this is only for playing back the MP3s that are stored in your device.
FM Transmitter
Android phones often come with the FM transmitter functionality through which lets you use this built-in transmitter with any free app or natively and then broadcast several audio files and MP3s on the phone to the car radio.
However, if this is not an option then you need to make one low-cost purchase of an FM broadcast device. It can be connected to your phone via headphone jack. It would work just like an analogue cable, although FM transmitter might require an exclusive access to in-car charger.
Despite the various alternatives for playing the music in the car from your Android phone, the fact is that most of the people tend to choose the cassette adapter or FM transmitter options. This is because they are unaware of the new and simple Bluetooth option or maybe they are driving the old model cars that come with the cassette players.
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