Help How can I play music through my car's USB port?

[bionik9]

I have already searched the forums. I saw some vague answers and not were particular to the vibrant...

Anyways, I was very excited I got the 32gb memory card. Now, the downside is that I still have to use the AUX input to play music. It's very inefficient to lose the concurrent charging capability by ignoring the USB output right next the the 1/8.

This seems like a major negative on the part of this phone. There really has to be a way to get the head unit to communicate with a phone with such incredible technologies.

Ideas guys? How can I do it?

 

[perpetual]

Can your radio read usb flash drives? I remember, when I had the G1, that as soon as I plugged it to the radio's usb port, the G1 would prompt me to mount the sd card and the radio would read it like a regular usb drive. I haven't tried it with the vibrant though.

 

[bionik9]

Yes, sir, it does read flash drives. It's a Kenwood Excelon - one of the better top of the line decks. I used to be able to control my iPhone through the head unit. Actually, I had loaded some music onto a flash drive and that played fine through the deck.

It just blows my mind that a piece of technology like this phone is limited to the AUX jack. It would be fine, but I don't like not being able to control the music with the head unit, and worse that the USB must be hooked up anyway to charge...

 

[perpetual]

Well you see this is not the phone's fault but the head unit's. It's up to the head unit's manufacturer to make it compatible with the phone.

I have a recently released alpine head unit. I will test the vibrant to see whether the vibrant works as the G1 and allows to mount the sd card to the head unit to be read as a flash drive.

 

[dan0zone]

Go to your setting and put your phone into mass storage mode... then plug it into the unit and see if you get the mount prompt ( little usb icon @ the top left of your screen).. your unit should see it as a sdcard.......

 

[m4r10]

wish there was a way to listen to pandora using the usb...

 

[Big-Dog]

I haven't tried the USB on the Ford Sync cuz the blutooth is so damned convenient. I'll try it and let you know.

edit: Well, the USB cable I have in the Ford wouldn't recognize the phone. I'll use the samsung provided cable when I get a chance.

 

[krichek]

I haven't tried the USB on the Ford Sync cuz the blutooth is so damned convenient. I'll try it and let you know.

Ain't that the truth! I love how it pauses/unpauses when I enter/exit my car. I love that the steering wheel controls actually work to control it as well!

 

[PlowRox]

well if you can get the car to act as a blue tooth head set the vibrant plays music that way just fine...

Good Luck!

 

[Big-Dog]

Finally hooked up the stock Samsung USB cable to the car. The phone recognized it was connected immediately and I chose "Mass Storage." The car still didn't recognize it until I selected "Mount."

Then the car recognized a USB device and informed me that it did not support some of the "protected media" present on the device. I ignored that and selected the first album and it started playing. All controls were active on the head unit and the phone was passive. It did seem to skip quite a bit though.

The blue-tooth is SO much simpler to use even though I don't have complete control over the phone. It only allows play, pause, skip. With Blue-tooth, I don't get album information or the ability to browse or search. With USB, I did have that option.

Of course, I was playing media stored on the phone with the USB, I have only used Pandora with the Blue-tooth. I'll try it with the stored media and see what happens.

edit: I tried to stream music over the USB and no luck whether on mass storage or meadia player. The car wouldn't recognize the USB device unless I mounted the drive under mass storage.

I also used bluetooth for playing stored media and it was the same as streaming. play, stop, skip, but no track or album information, no searching, no browsing on the head unit. That control remained with the phone.

BTW, I use the bluetooth to play audio in the car while watching movies waiting for my wife.

 

[mcnolan000]

How come I played music through my car USB port for 40 minutes on my Galaxy S 4G and I haven't been able to do it since?

 

[DrPennington]

Idk? Did you lose the cord? Was it not plugged in? Was your phone off?