Tunes in your car

One of the great things about having a smartphone are all the different ways you can listen to audio. Playlists of music on the phone, internet radio, podcasts, playing audio from cloud storage and more.

My first thought was how I would get the sound into and through the speakers in my car. My blue-toothless car.

My first attempt at phone-to-speakers in the car was to buy an FM transmitter. This works by matching the radio dial and the transmitter to the same station. Sound is then transmitted through the radio and into the speakers. This worked well for a while, but I constantly got background noise and static. I wondered if there were any alternatives. Hmmmm.... What to do? Enter Bluetooth.

So, it turns out that I have an RCA jack hookup in my car (You may have a similar set of ports or possibly a single jack setup. It should work the same way as I will explain). I began thinking about how to setup a Bluetooth connection so in order run the audio through to the car speakers.

Here are the parts that I used and how I put it all together:

Similar parts can be obtained via Ebay:

And here's how I put the pieces together:

So, after you get all the pieces plugged in, the next step is setting the radio to AUX (auxillary). My car radio switches to AUX by pressing and holding the CD button down for 2 seconds. Check your manual as the way you switch over from radio to AUX may differ.

I also suggest that you turn the volume up all the way on your phone and control the volume from the radio volume control. In addtion, here is another small tip:

So, there's an inexpensive and very effective way to install bluetooth into your car. Enjoy the tunes!