I've recently bought these items for the car:
Suction Mount
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231075692419
Car Charger
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221275878538
USB 3.0 Cable
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271214509031
Bluetooth Music Receiver
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231013811746
I used them during my working day and was very pleased, the charger charged at about 4-5% per hour on sat nav using google maps and bluetooth streaming using deezer.
The cable is good quality and the bluetooth receiver sound quality is spot on, no breaks or anything.
All in all excellent results from £20 worth of kit
Related
Hi
I have just bought an excellent cradle from a seller on eBay called vita.system. The cradle was £35.99 including postage and has a powered speaker which plugs in to the sound out on the phone for GPS instructions. It also has a ps2 style connection for plugging in a GPS receiver.
The phone charges fine and I have been using the navigator whilst answering and making calls using my Bluetooth headset.
I don’t think you can use the speaker for phone calls but I did not really want it for that as I am happy with my bt headset.
The phone just slots into the cradle and you push the sides of the cradle in to hold it securely.
Hope this helps any of you looking for a cradle.
Installation
Well, installed it on Saturday - a professional looking, wires-hidden install took less than an hour - quite impressed as i'm not a 'Pro'
The kit comes with everything needed to install it, so as long as you know which wire is which in your car audio harness, you should be ok.
I purchased a spare ISO harness (£10) and chopped into that sitting inside, rather than cramped into my car. It also means if i change cars it's easy to move the car kit without taking wires from the car. The instructions aren't really much cop... But there is a chart detailing which wire on the wiring loom should be connected to which on your car audio leads.
It uses your ignition switched ACC circuit to turn on and off the power to your device, so you won't discharge your car battery if you leave your XDA in the charger. If you don't have an ignition controlled ACC circuit or you don't want it controlled like that, just connect both the 12v and ignition sense leads to your BATT lead on your car audio (put a switch in the ignition sense lead on the car kit if you want to control it yourself.
The kit uses your drivers side car speaker (or which ever one you want). You simply split the pair of cables between your head unit and speakers and the control box sits 'between' them. An external speaker is available but not included (despite what expansys' site said for ages) They can sell you the speaker but they don't stock it.
The microphone has a fairly stiff wire so it's easy to pass it through the headlining in your car to hide it. It's not as 'discrete' a microphone as the "bump" ones that come with Nokia car kits - think Tie-Clip mic and you're on the right track. It more than makes up for it's looks in pick up and echo reduction though.
I hide the fairly chunky control box behind the glovebox in my VX Vectra. It's about 2 foot from there to the back of the head unit and there is cable on the loom to spare. There's about a yard of cable from box to cradle as well. Watch out - the box gets quite warm when powered up, so be careful where you place it.
The cradle itself comes with backing plate connected to the cradle by a ball and socket connector that doesn't budge when tightened. however the backing plate can only move through fairly small angles, so for certain cars you'll need right angle brackets or custom made mounting points to put it on.
Sound Quality
The Sound quality on this is excellent. . There's no echo, no hiss, and the tones are natural unlike the usual tinny or dead car kit speakers. There is a car kit speaker for it seperately if you don't want to use your existing car speakers.
The kit doesn't have any problems powering my aftermarket 70W front speakers either - full volume is TOO loud (no distortion though).
The microphone is excellent. there's no need for the usual 'shouting' down the mic so the caller can hear you. On the motorway at '70' mph (!) i can talk softly and the caller hears me perfectly.
No echo or feedback and there wasn't any Dut-Dutde-Dut-Dutde-Dut pickup either (you know what I mean - the interference the phone signal makes)
GPS
The system provides a female PS2 port for GPS connection & external powering. Be warned! The PS2 port is the 'wrong way round' for Rikaline, Holux, Fortuna etc PS2 GPS mice. Expansys list the adaptor cable (female to female PS2 lead) as one of the accessories for the device, but don't regularly stock it.
I bought a Fortuna U2 PS2 GPS mouse - cheapest one they stock - and it's excellent. TomTom 5 accepts it as a TomTom branded wired GPS and cold start to readings on 7 Satellites was about 35 seconds. Perhaps it comes preloaded with some Epheremis data? I dunno. If i drive from home to work (50 miles) with everything switched off and then plug it in, tom tom takes maybe 5 seconds to notice the change. So far it seems spot on. MPH is out by 2 MPH compared to my speedo, but think that's my speedo
Audio Out & Telemute
The car kit has a telemute cord that you attach to the telemute wire on your head unit or car loom. In my case the head unit mutes the sound to the speakers completely and the car kit 'takes over' the front speaker.
As far as I can see the car kit notices the sound coming out of the XDA and mutes the radio then - theres no telemute signal coming from the XDA. The mute lasts for about 10 seconds AFTER the sound has finished. So when you first press TALK on the phone, the car kit mutes, but if the call hasn't connected and given you a ringing tone 10 seconds later, the kit 'demutes' the stereo. As soon as the car kit starts playing the ringing tone the stereo mutes again. A bit annoying when connection takes a while. The ten second pause in my stereo just because i've recieved a text message gets irritating, but not too much.
The downside for me is that the device plays everything the XDA2s outputs. TomTom, phone, WMA, notifications, the lot, and therefore mutes the stereo while this is going on, so i can't use the headphone socket to play MP3 into the Aux In on my stereo. I'm sure, however that i can figure out some way to 'switch' the wires into a WMA mode where telemute and speaker leads are disconnected. I'd have to switch it back for calls though...
Summary
Excellent car kit , let down slightly by the telemute and audio out function, but fantastic sound quality and nice connections. 8/10. Considering the opposition, there's no contest.
Fortuna U2 GPS seems an excellent receiver, made all the better by the £50 price tag...
Pics later in the week
Links (on Expansys)
Car Kit: http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=122685
Extra Speaker: http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=124130
Fortuna U2 GPS: http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=108897
PS2 Adapter cable: http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=122674
Hi,
Is there anything like a converter or something that I can connect my headphones to my phone ? I'm not talking about bluetooth, I mean a cable connection to a typical headphone or to a regular speaker
Thanks
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=280439
Got mine from eBay, works fine for a few bucks plus time to ship. Radioshack may have an adapter as well.
thanks guys
I found one on ebay, it seems useful. I'm going to try that I think. It's cheaper and seems like more comfortable.
I picked up the 3 in 1 adapter, which lets me plug in headphones a car charger and still use my mic from my headset.
Sounds like useless adapter, however
I plug the stereo output of the adapter into the line input of my car stereo, the OEM headset mic gets clipped to my seatbelt and the car charger gets plugged in.
Turns my Tytn into a mobil office and car theater system. I get to hear the audio from calls going through the 6.1 speakers in my car as well as play all my MP3's and videos through the phone.
The adapter was only about 15 bucks IIRC.
I found this Bluetooth car unit last weekend and would like to share with you all.
In my own experience, this is the best one I ever tried.
LiquidAUX™ Bluetooth® Car Kit
http://us.kensington.com/html/14484.html
I got it for total $75 in Comp USA. This unit plugs directly to car cigaratte power plug, and the 3.5 mm audio jack plugs to your car AUX port. Yes, its designed for car stereo that has an audio AUX plug. I know there are some products that also integrate FM transmitter for feeding the audio to the car stereo, and I have tried those, but this one is much better if your car has an AUX input and you simply need to add a bluetooth connection to your phone.
The microphone is very good, even though my power plug in deep buried, and I was thinking to extend the plug with an extension cord, but indeed it still works well.
It auto connect to my HD when I turn on the car, and it transmits both phone and music (A2DP) with a very good sound quality.
It comes with a remote control that you can tied to your steering wheel to make it even better. Our HD does not have a DPAD and controlling music playing has been a challenge in the car. With this remote, all those issue no longer there.
I used to use a direct cable connection to connect my HD to my car stereo, and sometimes when I simply forget or feel lazy and just want to go right away, I will not be able to accept call or play music from my HD. With this BT connection, when I walk in to my car and switch it on, it auto connects to the HD, and the remote works right away to start playing music or make a phone call.
The previous BT dongle I used to have, such as the itech BT dongle, or the Jabra BT dongle, I always have issue to swith them on, swith them off, and sometimes it does not connect, and then have to remember to charge them once in a while.
With this unit, I don't have all of those issues, and it simply merges together nicely with my car stereo as if it has BT integrated.
I highly recommend it, if you have a AUX port in your car stereo. If you have a casette player, it should work also, but you would like to use a coupler to connect the both 3.5 mm audio jack together.
I got one of these from for about £40 from Amazon, but I had the problem of the cig lighter always being on show, which was annoying.
I go this handsfree kit, http://www.parrot.com/uk/products/hands-free-car-kits, which is by far the best I have ever used. Has full iPod support, 3.5mm jack and usb support.
Full colour screen and phonebook storage / voice dial.
nicelad_uk said:
I got one of these from for about £40 from Amazon, but I had the problem of the cig lighter always being on show, which was annoying.
I go this handsfree kit, http://www.parrot.com/uk/products/hands-free-car-kits, which is by far the best I have ever used. Has full iPod support, 3.5mm jack and usb support.
Full colour screen and phonebook storage / voice dial.
Click to expand...
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a parrot that works well with a smartphone?! really...? I'd heard nothing but bad about probs with the old touch dual i had - has this been fixed since & works with the HD then? if so i'm in...
Lord of the Badgers said:
a parrot that works well with a smartphone?! really...? I'd heard nothing but bad about probs with the old touch dual i had - has this been fixed since & works with the HD then? if so i'm in...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, parrot really works fine both with my HTC Touch Cruise(P3650) as the HTC Touch HD
I use the xcarlink USB/SD adaptor with bluetooth module. It plugs directly into the CD changer port of the stereo, allows me to charge my phone via the USB port whilst streaming audio through the bluetooth connection. Audio auto-pauses when I receive calls, which also use the stereo speaker system and music functionality is controlled via the normal stereo controls or the cars steering wheel controls. Track time, etc., is displayed on the normal car stereo display.
There are a few functionality niggles, but they are easily overcome with a dash mount for the phone and a skin for mobile media player that has large buttons. I designed a skin, just for use in the car, so everything is really easy now.
I bought one of these off of eBay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/In-Car-FM-Tra...s_RL?hash=item3ef725a26f&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
Unfortunately its very disappointing. It does not charge the phone whilst plugged in. The audio quality is acceptable whilst the car isn't moving. Part of this is due to the very poor quality USB charger supplied, a better one from my Sat Nav improved the situation slightly.
I already have a cheap transmitter that plugs in the 3.5mm socket, but this seems to cut off the bass from the music.
I am looking to replace my Sat Nav and MP3 player with the phone. I have already ordered a car cradle, but would consider a cradle with built-in FM transmitter. I also don't really want the hands free built-in like the transmitter above. I would rather use my bluetooth headset.
Any suggestions?
I know people have mentioned the motorola T505, but I suspect that the battery life on that isn't more than a couple of hours.
Hi well as far as iam aware no of these will charge any of the HTC devices ment for audio only but could be wrong
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001QIXDNG/ref=ox_ya_oh_product
I got a slightly different one, but the link now shows this item... Universal audio input, usb socket for charging anything you choose. Audio quality is reasonable, but it's a transmitter so it will always sound a bit dodgy. Also, the hero is a phone so its audio quality isn't incredible either, but it'll do for whiling away a road trip!
The only way you'll get high quality sound is with an aux input cable, decent speakers, and a high quality source file playing on a decent mp3 player.
Product-specific docks are stupid.
Use this with the device you bought of ebay...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Multifuncti...3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250372929&sr=1-3
Plug the fm transmitter into the audio part and the charger into the charging part.
Then just plug this into the phone with those parts already connected