USB audio output on a Droid?

[tehstup]

Get an FM transmitter or bluetooth if your car has it

while i have considered that route, fm transmitter still requires you to plug something else in, and most bluetooth transmitters are expensive. bluetooth and fm transmitters also suffer from quality loss.

i've pretty much concluded that it was coded out of the software, or never coded in. im hoping google will make the necessary changes to enable audio over micro usb, or else i am forced to just use a hard line to the stereo jack.

 

[barry99705]

Phones with usb audio out just have the audio circuit wired to the usb port. It has nothing to do with software, it's 100% hardware. The Droid doesn't have the hardware capability.

 

[tehstup]

Phones with usb audio out just have the audio circuit wired to the usb port. It has nothing to do with software, it's 100% hardware. The Droid doesn't have the hardware capability.

you are wrong. the phone uses the id pin to tell what mode it is in. a different resistor on the pin means different modes. there is a USB mode, a UART mode and an Analog mode. If the phone isnt programed to recognize the different modes, it wont work. phones that dont have an external headset jack are programmed to switch between USB mode and Analog mode.

 

[pmvbdg]

This data sheet has a chart of the relevant ID resistor values and their functions:
http://media.digikey.com/PDF/Data Sheets/ST Microelectronics PDFS/ISP1302.pdf

 

[bwanna]

Long post ahead, Cliff notes:
Droid should be capable of analog audio in/out over the data port.
MicroUSB port is a CEA-936-A Compliant car kit port.
I have done some testing and have not been successful.
There are MicroUSB to 3.5mm plugs on the market that supposedly work for the droid but i have not seen any posts saying whether or not they do work nor have i gotten ahold of one for myself.

I signed up just for this. I have the same exact desire and did not want to settle on using bluetooth or pluging in the headphone jack. I did some research and found that the droid can do audio over usb, at least it is in the design. The micro USB plug was designed into the phone to be a OTG CEA936-A compliant plug. What that means is that it must do what we want it to.

The microUSB plug has a 5th pin that is not standard to the regular USB plug. the 5th pin is an ID pin. The droid uses it to tell what mode its data port is being used in. Supposedly, there are 3 modes - USB, UART and Analog. A resistor from the ID pin to ground on the cable side is what tells the phone what mode the data port is in.

In the analog mode, the D+ Pin becomes a microphone input and right speaker output and is switched by the phone (ie, the D+ pin is a microphone input when in a call and is right speaker output when not in a call). The D- pin becomes the left speaker output, regaurdless of whether you are in a call or not. The ground pin is used for the speaker and microphone negative connections.

i opened up my "multimedia" dock (what a joke) and spliced into the cable in there. i used a prototype board so i could easily change resistor values and then hooked up the D- and Ground pins to a volt meter to see if i could get some audio out of the usb port with different resistor values.

so far, i have had no success. i believe the key to cracking this is in the resistor value needed, so far, all i have tested is a 200kOhm and 400kOhm (actual resistances were 220k and 440k, go 10% quality resistors!)

if anybody has found a copy of the CEA-936-A specification book, it should have the appropriate resistor values needed to get the analog mode for the droid. from there, i would need to test to see if you can charge while in Analog mode, as that would be a final criteria needed for my project to be complete.

I found a MicroUSB to 3.5mm adapter on ebay but i havent seen any report whether or not it works on the droid. i need to make a radio shack run today anyways, so i will have to see if i can find one and report back what i find.

I found this on Wikipedia:
____________________________
OTG Micro Plugs
The USB On-The-Go standard introduces a new plug receptacle called Micro-AB. It can accept either a Micro-A plug or a Micro-B plug. Micro-A Adapters allow for connection to Standard-A plug type USB cables, as used on standard USB 2.0 Devices. An OTG product must have a single Micro-AB receptacle and no other USB receptacles.[6][7]
The OTG cable has a micro-A plug on one side, and a micro-B plug on the other (it cannot have two plugs of the same type). OTG adds a fifth pin to the standard USB connector, called the ID-pin; the micro-A plug has the ID pin grounded, while the ID in the micro-B plug is floating. The device that has a micro-A plugged in becomes an OTG A-device, and the one that has micro-B plugged becomes a B-device (see above). The type of the plug inserted is detected by the state of the pin ID .
Three additional ID pin states are defined[6] at the nominal resistance values of 124 kO, 68 kO, and 36.5 kO. These permit the device to work with a USB Accessory Charger Adapter which allows the OTG device to be attached to both a charger and another device simultaneously.[8] These three states are used in the cases of:
A charger and either no device or an A-device that is not asserting VBUS (not providing power) are attached. The OTG device is allowed to charge and initiate SRP but not connect.[8]
A charger and an A-device that is asserting VBUS (is providing power) are attached. The OTG device is allowed to charge and connect but not initiate SRP.[8]
A charger and a B-device are attached. The OTG device is allowed to charge and enter host mode.
______________________

Is this what you need?

Good Luck!

 

[jennyloca715]

? i don't get any of this, lol.
but I plug my droid to my home theather system and listen to pandora all day long.
through the earphone outlets I know that some cars have the earphone outlet.

 

[xanthias]

I would settle for a clean charging cable hack for the car dock. Anyone seen one? I have an overhead console in my vehicle with a display, so a 12V source is available in the vicinity. I want a clean way to go from that 12V down to the micro usb 5V we need to charge....

 

[wurf]

i'm sorry if this is obvious, but is there any possibility to get digital audio out of the usb port?

i'd love to stream it to an external D/A converter.

thanks.

-wurf

you are wrong. the phone uses the id pin to tell what mode it is in. a different resistor on the pin means different modes. there is a USB mode, a UART mode and an Analog mode. If the phone isnt programed to recognize the different modes, it wont work. phones that dont have an external headset jack are programmed to switch between USB mode and Analog mode.

 

[bhjazz]

i'm sorry if this is obvious, but is there any possibility to get digital audio out of the usb port?

i'd love to stream it to an external D/A converter.

thanks.

-wurf

Not obvious at all..........and it's exactly what I am looking for, too! Using USB to send just audio bits would allow users to bypass all internal Droid audio chips and processing.

I think the design of this software could be similar to Asio for the pc, but I'm sure there are other USB streaming options.

 

[vmmeup]

HTC Multifunction Audio Adapter for HTC Hero / Sprint Hero / T-Mobile myTouch 3G, myTouch 3G Fender / Verizon HTC Droid Eris

HTC Multifunction Audio Adapter for HTC Hero / Sprint Hero / T-Mobile myTouch 3G, myTouch 3G Fender / Verizon HTC Droid Eris - Phandroid Store

 

[barry99705]

you are wrong. the phone uses the id pin to tell what mode it is in. a different resistor on the pin means different modes. there is a USB mode, a UART mode and an Analog mode. If the phone isnt programed to recognize the different modes, it wont work. phones that dont have an external headset jack are programmed to switch between USB mode and Analog mode.

I know how usb otg works, I'm saying the Droid's usb port isn't wired for sound! There has to be a circuit between the audio dac and the usb port. The only phones with that capability are the ones without a real headphone jack.

 

[thericksonebay]

ok i am going to buy the audio adapter from the link i found one for 11.00 just googled droid usb audio and found one for 7 and 4 to ship i will try it out and let you know. i think this could possibly work but might need some software to push audio to usb. I use to do the same thing with the omnia.

 

[turlz]

Just found this thread, I'd totally love this functionality too. I have experience in writing drivers, maybe I'll take a crack at some kind of USB Digital Audio driver for Android. If anyone else is trying, PM me and perhaps we can set up a github or something and collaborate. Advice and research are also welcome.

 

[virtus]

Is there really a big difference in sound quality if you use bluetooth?

I'm considering buying a Droid 2 car dock because it has a built-in usb plug - no need to manually plug it in anymore. For audio, I would like to use bluetooth since that eliminates a wire. And finally, I can use tasker to detect that the droid is in the dock and automatically fire up the bluetooth, pair with the car, and load up the media player.

That all sounds great, but if bluetooth audio is sub-par, I'll have to go back to the headphone jack.

 

[thaDroidz]

i have the motorola bluetooth 505 (i think) stereo headphones and they are awesome for music and video play back. I was watching a movie one night on the Droid and it's like having a mini surround sound setup.. I also use them for my PS3 online gaming for voice chat.

 

[Derekr995]

If we get a car dock with a usb and a hdmi plug on it it seems like we could get the cable here 1.5m High Speed Mini HDMI to 5 RCA Audio/Video AV Cable (Black) 1.5m High Speed Mini HDMI to 5 RCA Audio/Video AV Cable (Black) : ShopXter.com, - Your Biggest Electronics Gadget Store. Best on Price, Good Quality and Large Selection Of Products! Worl and plug it into a head unit that has rca input and then get a car charger for are power to the battery.

 

[takeshi]

The cable isn't the problem. Read above -- the Droid does not support audio via USB.

 

[ClownTrigger]

And finally, I'd considered making an app that spoofs an iPod, since my HU has iPod controls, but that's more work than it's worth when the Android music player's controls are just as good.

BAM...

Bluetooth Rec?eiver for iPod iPhone 3G Docking Speaker - eBay (item 190402178083 end time Mar-29-11 21:43:50 PDT)

That should work with any phone with A2DP functionality, and it should allow use of your ipod controls on your HU through the bluetooth AVRCP profile.

As for quality, from what I've used personally, BT audio can sound pretty good IF the BT reciever can handle the higher quality codecs (i.e MP4, AAC...).

Bluetooth profile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think the biggest limitation is bandwidth, since the max throughput of BT 2.0 is 1.4 Mb/s. Unfortunately, it looks like that BT reciever only handles "SBC & MP3 codec".

Bluetooth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[marksa17]

If the micro HDMI can handle sound/picture, would it be possible to splice a micro hdmi to a 3.5 mm aux cable?

 

[trav473]

If the micro HDMI can handle sound/picture, would it be possible to splice a micro hdmi to a 3.5 mm aux cable?

Well, you asked this question in a "Droid" forum, which the Motorola Droid does not have an HDMI port, the Droid X does. And as for your question, I believe you would have to go through a Digital (HDMI) to Analog converter to get the left and right channels seperated into seperate wiring.

 

[surfsup]

getting ready to upgrade both car audios to some very nice kenwood systems... this lack of (very slick) iphone interface is a major bummer for android owners. seems the industry is not moving at all to support android - my contract is up in november - is it time to throw in the towel and move to the dark side?

 

[rogerthepan]

Hello, I've also been looking into this, thought I'd register so I can share what I found.

This might be the definitive answer:

I found this link after searching around for a while: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8650967/audio-over-micro-usb-android-open-accessory

The Android Open Accessory library provides a basic communication channel with devices via USB. What you do with it is up to you.
(It doesn't have any inherent support for audio, and you can't route the system audio over it. But you could write code which outputs a custom audio channel from your app.)
Keep in mind that the Open Accessory library uses a custom protocol, so won't work with things such as a standard USB DAC.
(For that, you'd want to use the USB Host mode APIs: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/host.html. The same caveats about not being able to route the system audio still apply.)

So: as I read that, it might be possible to make some custom apps that can send certain audio over a USB port to a compatible USB-equipped device. However, since it doesn't use the "analog" feature of the microUSB standard, you can't just solder some headphones to the pins of the USB connector. You'll need some electronics on the other end to receive the USB messages, strip out the digital data, then put it through a D/A converter and amp to get to your ears. The end product would look something like http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Stereo-SYN1458A-Headset-micro-USB/dp/B001EJL1UE , but you couldn't use this because the protocol android is building into their USB support is probably different, but I don't know anything about it.

So, if all that is true, you'd need to make custom Pandora or YouTube apps that send the digital audio to the USB port, then have your custom/prorammable usb-equipped headset receive and decode it. Not impossible, but a bit of a project.

 

[DanBa]

Android/Linux USB audio driver compliant with FiiO USB DAC E7:
"The FiiO E7 Headphone Amplifier is an USB DAC dedicated to high fidelity headphone.
It works out of the box with my Ubuntu 11.04. I just plug it when I need it and several seconds later it appears in my output sound devices list."
FiiO E7 Headphone Amplifier (Audio Devices) - Linux Hardware Compatibility List

"Buried in this thread is another person who successfully used his Beresford Caiman USB DAC on an Android tablet using USB Host. It's pretty easy to get working, all you need is an Android device with CyanogenMod7 support and USB HOST enabled. You need a powered hub for it to work though."
USB headphone AMP with Android Phones, possible ???


USB Audio Driver for ALSA "usbaudio.o" is likely missing in the current stock kernel of Android 4.0.3.


"Usbaudio.o" is present in the mod kernel of the Nook tablet which allows FiiO USB DAC E7 & Nook to interoperate:
https://github.com/dalingrin/nook_kernel/tree/encore-32/sound/usb
[webcam support] USB Host support that YOU can try (now in nightlies) - xda-developers
xda-developers - View Single Post - [webcam support] USB Host support that YOU can try (now in nightlies)

"Usbaudio.o" is likely not present in the 4.0 kernel and FiiO USB DAC E7 doesn

 

[sirwes]

First of all let me say I'm extremely disappointed with my new Android phone and tablet. I bought the new Samsung Galaxy S 2 Skyrocket (for starters that name is ******ed). Andriod, and thus Google needs to understand that the experience of using a smart phone is much more than what the phone will do. It is what the phone will do with accessories. I dumped my iPhone 4S because I must have 4G data. Now I learn there are virtually no accessories available for this phone.

As far as a car dock what you want is a ProClipUsa custom mount. ProClipUsa is the gold standard for car docks. You put in your model, year, and make of car and they have a custom made part to attach to your dash (usually two or three options) without any glue or screws (and thus it will leave no marks when you remove it). Then you buy the custom dock for you model of phone. For most people this will work.

I just learn however, that this will not work for me because my 2012 Hyundai Sonata has a proprietary USB cable (which actually has two jacks connect as one) and that they sell those cables for iPhones but not for Andriod phones.

Google has something like $50 Billion in cash sitting around. If Google is serious about making a play in the smart phone market Google needs to do what it takes to insure that accessories will be available. Perhaps if Google bought a company like Logitech and made accessories for everything not Apple products.

 

[DanBa]

Efforts are ongoing to enable the USB audio feature in a modded Android/Linux kernel.

But if you want the USB audio enabled via official firmware/kernel, please vote (i.e. request to Google) here:
Issue 24614 - android - Enable USB audio on the Galaxy Nexus (or any Android 4.0 device) - Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project - Google Project Hosting