Using a smartphone through a dumb USB stereo

[Guest fluffcat1]

Just occured to me whilst replying to another post, there are lots of stereos, both car hifi and home, that have USB slots on them at the moment. These are to dock MP3 players or memory sticks to, to enable you to playback the songs stored on them through the hifi. From the specs I saw, the stereos do search the entire file structure for suitable files, so would they also browse a smartphone's memory and playback from that?

Hmmmm. Interesting. Models I have seen are a Hitachi home stereo in DSG shops for £69.99 with a USB slot, and a Tevion car stereo in Aldi for £49.99 with a USB and SD slot.

edit - link to Currys.

May have to buy one to try it out. In the case of the car stereo, it may even charge the phone - or would you have to bridge the USB cable?

Richard

Edited January 6, 2006 by fluffcat1

[Guest fluffcat1]

Tevion car stereo:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...item=5849238072

Don't bid it too high, it was only 49.99 in aldi a couple of weeks ago ( not that I shop there :oops: - but they have silly low prices on stuff every thursday ) and your local branch may still have one.

Richard

[Guest spacerace]

I don't know for sure, (but since no-one else has replied) but I'd guess that no the car steroe can't browse the smartphone as the smartphone isn't visible as a mass storage device. I imagine this is how the head unit "searches" the plugged in device.

[Guest fluffcat1]

I don't know for sure, (but since no-one else has replied) but I'd guess that no the car steroe can't browse the smartphone as the smartphone isn't visible as a mass storage device. I imagine this is how the head unit "searches" the plugged in device.

My samsung i300 has a USB mode where it works as USB mass storage - to enable faster transfer without activesync. Still haven't bought one to test it with...

Richard

[Guest spacerace]

yes I guess phones with that ability would possibly work. As more HD phones come on the market this feature will become more common. Be interesting to try it. Does the phone work normally "as a phone" when in mass storage mode ?

[Guest bb79]

I have a T-mob SDA with a 512 mb card with a load of mp3s on and a DVD player with a front USB port. The DVD player will play MP3 quite happily off my 1GB flash stick but when I plug in my phone it won't recognise it or the card but it does start charging it! I've tried a card reader with the card in as well but no joy either, may be cos it's a multi card reader. Seems its a simple old USB flash stick nothing else for devices such as DVD/stereos with USB slots?

Hope that helps

BB79

[Guest fluffcat1]

What DVD player out of interest? My panasonic recorder has an SD slot for playback.

Just ordered one of these Hitachi stereos to use with the i300.

Richard

[Guest bb79]

What DVD player out of interest? My panasonic recorder has an SD slot for playback.

Just ordered one of these Hitachi stereos to use with the i300.

Richard

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I got it from Maplin it's the older version of the one they have on sale now - the Chili/Yamada DVD MX305. Mine is a 205 and just has a USB slot not the card reader. Is a nice machine, had it about 3 months and has played all the .avi i've thrown at it. mp3/wma playback off my memory stick is fine too although the navigation interface for viewing whats on your stick is a bit prehistoric. It can only display the first 6 letters of your folder and file names so just seeing "THESTR~1" gets a bit annoying when you've got the strokes and the streets on there and whatever else but overall i'm v happy with it.