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Non-Apple product users: an in-car audio control solution



Jack!

ClioSport Club Member
Right, this all stemmed from me looking for a good dock for my Galaxy S2; I had a gander at some threads around here and stumbled upon some people talking about the Belkin Tunebase, because it offered a good alternative to mounting a dock to the windscreen or over a vent. This product seems very innovative and ideal if you have an Apple device, due to the added one-touch audio control buttons on the device itself, taking away the need to navigate music on the device it self.

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I'd become frustrated by inability to control any non-Apple device via the cars steering/stalk controls, and searched for a product similar to the Belkin Tunebase that worked for my GS2 to no avail.

The problem is, if you're not using an Apple device, and you want to retain the original head-unit (I'm not a fan of aftermarket ones - like how the standard fits in with the dash) then you have to use Aux-in to connect your phone/mp3 player etc to the cars head-unit. This meant the only parameter you could control was volume. I looked for a dock that would put the phone in a good position near the wheel so I could change track from the device, but this meant vent mounting, or one that sticks up from the fag lighter that gets in the way, neither of these solutions really matched what I was after.

This also presented the problem of having the phone somewhere on the dash, that would require taking your eye off the road to find the (small in the case of the GS2) home button, to get the screen to light up, then you needed to press the home button again to get the audio controls up, and then you needed to hit the rather small next track button on screen to move to the next track, and if you were trying to cycle through tracks, you'd either have your eye off the road for a dangerously long time, or would miss the buttons and it was all a bit of an annoyance.

Thankfully, I stumbled upon a small Bluetooth controller for any device compatible with Bluetooth HID 3.0 (most modern smart-phones): http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00824948U/?tag=cliospnet01-21

It should fit nicely in the bit on the door where the mirror and windows controls are, and gives you extended playback options in a place that is easily accessible, and one-touch, and in the case of Samsung Galaxy's 2 through 4, also has controls to bring up the home screen, and may also do so for other android devices.

I may have been missing a more obvious solution, I hope not, but hopefully this will prove useful to anyone else in my situation, who wanted a good solution to control various playback options on a non-Apple device in a safe and very easy way.
 


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