[Q] Audio out through micro USB - Motorola Atrix 2

I had asked a question similar to this a while back in the accessories section specifically if anyone knew how to hardware trigger the car dock mode and enable the audio out through the usb port. I hadn't gotten an answer and I can't find it anywhere else. I figured I'd ask in general since it's not a feature unique to the car dock (I'm pretty sure another Atrix 2 or Atrix 4G dock can do it as well) and I was curious if it could simply be a software trigger to enable the audio out without needing the dock (obviously you'd still need a spliced cable to allow the usb to split into the audio + charging).
So, has anyone figured out a diy method of getting audio through the usb? I think I'm going to cave and just buy a car dock (AT&T has them for $30 now from the website), but I wanted to check one last time because I prefer being able to do it myself . I assumed it was something that was triggered on the ID pin and then the data pins became left and right audio, but it may be something less passive than that.

since usb is data there is no real audio out. This car dock would have to have a DAC (digital to analog converter) in it. essentially the sound is sent in digital form to it and then it is decoded to analog to be played by the dock, not the phone. in other words you cannot just enable audio out because it does not exist

lkrasner said:
since usb is data there is no real audio out. This car dock would have to have a DAC (digital to analog converter) in it. essentially the sound is sent in digital form to it and then it is decoded to analog to be played by the dock, not the phone. in other words you cannot just enable audio out because it does not exist
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, you are right. I picked one up today and took a look inside and indeed there is definitely some active components in there. My previous phone was a Captivate, so I was used to just changing a resistor value to switch different dock modes and also have the option to have the audio L/R on pins 2 & 3. I was also hopeful since I thought the DAC would need power to work and the A2 car dock works even when not plugged into the charger.
Alas, the diy dock was not meant to be (although, I think I will still need to make my own modifications, of course ).

Related

My solution to the lack of aux jack on the car dock.

I agree that having an aux jack on the Nexus One car dock would be pretty sweet, but it is what it is, and I wanted to move on... Here is what I did:
Nexus One (duh)
Nexus One car dock (...)
Kensington LiquidAuxbluetooth car kit: us.kensington.com/html/14484.html
Micro USB cable
Plug the Kensington L.A. into the accessory outlet, and connect the audio output plug to your AUX on your stereo. The L.A. provides a USB port to use for the Micro USB cable. (for charging)
Plug the micro USB cable in this port and route to your car dock.
Once you pair your phone with the L.A. place it in the car dock and setup the audio to be whatever combination you would like. I personally use the dock for calls (because the mic is better) and the L.A. for audio.
One accessory outlet, (no splitters) one wire coming from it to the dock, audio routed through the AUX in your stereo, and (IMO) really great call audio thanks to the dock and noise canceling, which still works with the phone in the dock...
Just sharing my experience, YMMV, IANAL, OMG, WTF, BBQ...
Pics - Add http to them to view (I can't post links yet apparently...)
yfrog.com/2r20100415073238j -LiquidAUX Device
yfrog.com/1420100415073316j - Plugged into AUX and has Micro USB connected.
yfrog.com/2m20100415073324j - Cable Routing 1
yfrog.com/j120100415073338j - Cable Routing 2
yfrog.com/4720100415073414j - Wheel wireless remote, media functions work, I couldn't get phone button to do anything, but that may be a settings thing.
yfrog.com/0b20100415073331j - Dock on the windscreen, the stock MicroUSB cable that comes with the phone is pretty 'stiff' and stays in place very well.
Pics please...
Awesome Find.
30 bucks with free shipping on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-LiquidAUX-Bluetooth-Remote-Phones/dp/B0011UIX2K
I'm about to order mine
+ 1. That looks like a really good solution. Another benefit you did not mention is that by powering the Car Dock with the Micro USB cable, you do away with the spiral lead that is on the Car Dock power supply. So easier to route and hide.
Any issues with charging the phone and powering the car dock? Isn't the car doc charger higher output than regular chargers and perhaps the one on the LiquidAux?
how's the music sound quality?
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
logger said:
+ 1. That looks like a really good solution. Another benefit you did not mention is that by powering the Car Dock with the Micro USB cable, you do away with the spiral lead that is on the Car Dock power supply. So easier to route and hide.
Any issues with charging the phone and powering the car dock? Isn't the car doc charger higher output than regular chargers and perhaps the one on the LiquidAux?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No issues I have noticed so far, there is no additional <warmth> on the LiquidAux I have been able to detect, and the phone charges just as quickly as it would when plugged in using OEM adapter. And yes, losing the spiral lead is a nice bonus...
yellowy0y0 said:
how's the music sound quality?
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sound quality for me is great, there is no interruptions, etc I have noticed. But I suspect that this would be a YMMV kind of thing based on the car stereo used and the distance / path (if that even matters with the relatively short distance) between the LiquidAux device and the phone...
uansari1 said:
Pics please...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I added some pics above (imageshack) but couldn't post links (yet) so just add the http part and you can see them...
um, do you realize you can still use the headphone jack when the phone is plugged into the dock?
http://www.google.com/support/android/bin/answer.py?answer=178184
MonkySlap said:
um, do you realize you can still use the headphone jack when the phone is plugged into the dock?
http://www.google.com/support/android/bin/answer.py?answer=178184
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why yes, but some people in this particular forum were voicing their displeasure of having a mass of wires dangling all over their car / phone etc...
I was offering an alternative, and it worked well for me, nobody said or implied that you need to do it too...
<Sheesh/>
How long is that cable(the 3.5mm one from the liquid aux). Looks pretty short..
tokyomonster said:
How long is that cable(the 3.5mm one from the liquid aux). Looks pretty short..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is in fact short (4") while this works fine for my use, YMMV...
Interesting solution, I like it
Here are clickable links for the lazy
http://yfrog.com/2r20100415073238j -LiquidAUX Device
http://yfrog.com/1420100415073316j - Plugged into AUX and has Micro USB connected.
http://yfrog.com/2m20100415073324j - Cable Routing 1
http://yfrog.com/j120100415073338j - Cable Routing 2
http://yfrog.com/4720100415073414j - Wheel wireless remote, media functions work, I couldn't get phone button to do anything, but that may be a settings thing.
http://yfrog.com/0b20100415073331j - Dock on the windscreen, the stock MicroUSB cable that comes with the phone is pretty 'stiff' and stays in place very well.
furbyslayer said:
It is in fact short (4") while this works fine for my use, YMMV...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm. I guess, worst case scenario, I can just buy a short extender.
Another question for you... Does the remote work with the phone? I'm waiting for mine to get here but I had read from many reviews that the control did not work properly with the iphone, just wondering if the nexus one had the same problem.
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
awesome writeup... Even if this thing doesn't work to pickup calls I don't care, I always have a bluetooth headset for the car anyhow. I think I'll get an extra socket and mount it all under the dash out of sight.
Even thought you can plug in a wire to the headphone jack I want a solution where I can stick the phone in the holder when I get in, and pull it right out without messing with cables every fricken time... Most the time I don't plug my phone in right now just because of that very reason.
With a nice setup like this I'd plug my phone in every time I get in the car... awesome, Thanks!
Just ordered mine off amazon.. seems like a great price for the product.
Nevermind, reread your first post, missed the info I wanted the first read through. Well, since I'm stuck with this post existing, may as well clarify, you said you can choose to have the phone calls go through the dock with this, right?
furbyslayer said:
It is in fact short (4") while this works fine for my use, YMMV...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4 inches, is that all you've got? - that is short
I think perhaps you meant 4' or four feet.
yellowy0y0 said:
Another question for you... Does the remote work with the phone? I'm waiting for mine to get here but I had read from many reviews that the control did not work properly with the iphone, just wondering if the nexus one had the same problem.
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The media functions work fantastic with the Nexus, the iPhone does not support track skip, where the Nexus does. I have not been able to get the phone button to start voice dialing like the iPhone does. I have not actually had a call while driving to pickup yet, so I can't say for certain whether that (pickup incoming) works or not...
kitsunisan said:
Nevermind, reread your first post, missed the info I wanted the first read through. Well, since I'm stuck with this post existing, may as well clarify, you said you can choose to have the phone calls go through the dock with this, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have call audio go through the dock, yes. The LiquidAux has a microphone, but it is quite far away from the the speaker's mouth IMO. Additionally, the dock still uses the extra Michael for active noise cancelling and is quite crisp and clear for calls. (I have so far made several outbound calls with great results.) The music pauses, audio routes up to the dock for the duration of the call, then the music resumed on the car speakers automatically...

Car dock = Desktop dock; so audio out possible?

I amazed I'm the first one to notice this, so I'm probably not. I took apart my car dock and found the PCB inside is almost identical to the desktop dock (see photos). The upshot here is that I would strongly guess that you could easily solder on parts to either one and add things like:
- An audio out jack to the car dock (!)
- Volume up/down switches to the desktop dock
- Speakers (small ones!) to the desktop dock
- An external mic to the desktop dock
Most of that doesn't seem so great, but adding an audio jack to the car dock would be fantastic.
Pictures 1 & 2 are the desktop dock, 3 & 4 are the car dock.
Notice the unused pads on the car dock PCB (pic #4) for a headphone jack at bottom left.
Notice the pads for the speakers in pic #2 (desktop dock) at the top.
Also in in pic #2 you can see where the volume rocker would connect at bottom left and mic at bottom center.
Finally the tiny circle near my thumb in pic #4 looks to be a micro antenna jack, hard to tell for sure.
JB
That's incredibly lame of google to not put the audio out when it's the same pcb.
James Bell said:
I amazed I'm the first one to notice this, so I'm probably not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good find.
Along a vaguely similar vain, I suggested over here a method of using a Desk Dock as Car AUX input. It has certain benefits over non OEM accessories that do similar. I am in the process if fitting a USB power supply to my car. Once that is done I will fit the Desk Dock semi permanent out of site as a BT AUX in feed.
Of course getting an AUX jack in the Car Dock would be much better.
next thing would be prying off the metal cover and see if they have the same circuitry inside. Then if yes all you have to do is solder a 3.5 female jack on it and voila'...
fan or heatsink?
cool beans!
i wonder if you could install a copper backing plate connected to a heatsink (like ones you can buy for ram) instead of the plastic piece to help with the high heat issues some are having...hmm...
seems like there's enough room
Dude, love how you tore the desktop dock apart on your desk and the car dock in your car.
Since the pcb's are the same size, couldn't you swap them out, cut a hole in the case and then you'd have audio out on the car dock?
=D
@muncheese
Yah I think so. Problem is it'd recognize it as the desktop dock...errr and you'd lose the speakers and volume rocker from the car dock.
My motivation to solder on an old headphone jack is low - my '01 325 doesn't have an aux in to plug into it! Maybe I'll do it anyway if I can find the right jack.
@SPAS79
I started to pry off the metal top but ran out of time to fool with it. I want to look up the chips and see if any of their outputs can be used to trigger the mute line on my stereo.
Well the speaker wouldnt matter since it'll be going through the car audio system, same for the volume, just control the car stereo volume. =)
I took off the metal cover on the desktop dock, picture below.
There's a daughtercard called an NF2301. Made by nFore and (poorly) described here:
http://www.nforetek.com/products.htm
Adding an Aux out on the Car Dock will place it on the Dock itself.
Ideally for neatness, it would be on the base near the suction cup. I suppose you could run a short cable along the chrome arm and situate the jack on the base near the USB outlet.
Chrome arm should be hollow as it already has power running through it. Might be enough room to run a small cable through it.
This is very exciting
Keep us updated on what happens with you!
Bump!
this is fantastic news. I actually have an audio socket left over from my desk dock audio switch project. If someone wants to buy me another car dock or can prove that soldering on a jack will work then i'd be willing to rip it apart and do what google SHOULD have done in the first place!
I cant wait for some chinese company to make this for the nexus:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.19747
I have one currently that I used with my iphone and while it felt cheap.. It did everything:
held my iphone in place in the car
charged and did audio out with single sync cable
audio out can be routed either to the 3.5mm aux line AND the built in FM transmitter
remote (which stopped working after 1 week)
Mostly I like the fact that it mounted/charged/audio-out my iphone all at once with 1 cable and was only $12 shipped.. I would love something similar for my nexus
If all the talk about the 2.2 update enabling the FM transmitter is true. It would explain why the car dock has no audio out.
And if Google keeps the Nexus One updates on the same track it should be arriving next Tuesday.
First Tuesday of every month has had a blog update and the second of update of each month has been on or around the last Wednesday.
sweltzin said:
If all the talk about the 2.2 update enabling the FM transmitter is true. It would explain why the car dock has no audio out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have seen no talk of enabling an FM TRANSMITTER. Just rumours of them enabling an FM receiver, which would be no solution for the car dock.
Even if it did have an FM transmitter, I would prefer the audio out on the dock. Less hassle, better sound.
logger said:
I have seen no talk of enabling an FM TRANSMITTER. Just rumours of them enabling an FM receiver, which would be no solution for the car dock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's both.
muncheese said:
It's both.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a fairly vague comment.
Yeah the radio is a transceiver. Thats fairly obvious. It is after all a cellphone.
But are you saying Google will be activating the FM transmitter in such a way as it will transmit audio to a car FM radio? Or are you just saying the FM radio fitted to the phone is a transceiver.

[Q] galaxy s to ipod dock... is it possible?

hey all
ive been roaming thru the forums n google searches trying to get all the info i need in order to create a galaxy to ipod dock connectivity.
im simply doing this as there is an abundant of idocks but nothing really for the galaxy.
my plan is to wire a micro usb and 3.5mm headfone jack into a female ipod cable (taken from an ipod extension cable) to create a small peice that can charge the phone and play music to the dock.
having all the cable outputs on top creates a sorta problem as the screen doesnt rotate upside down (not that im aware of anyway) so id have to create a sorta stand to incorporate it into
my question is, is it acheivable to charge, play music and maybe use for alarms etc? i kno in my head it makes sense but whats the thoughts of the more knowledgable people?
and can anyone help me out with pin numbers for bothe the ipod cable and the micro usb cable?
thank you all
Is this what you are looking for?
Quality is really good and with Voodoo Sound Control installed its really great!
Or if you are good in DIY than have a look here.
Hope this helps!
Try this: http://cgi.ebay.ph/Sprint-Anycom-Bl...er_MP3_Player_Accessories&hash=item2c54a47edb
it basically adds bluetooth functionality to ANY ipod dock..
it works, tried it with a car audio system.
@laurens something similar to that cable but im more interested with being able to charge my phone aswell. i sorta want to harness everything from the dock i can. so charging and playing music, much like i would get if i plugged an iphone onto the dock.
@neilbantoc nah im not a big fan of bluetoothing as it gives a pretty bad sound (usually) plus doesnt really charge the phone.
after much searching i found this link. its pretty much exactly what i want except its for a different phone
wow and i cant add links.... well i found it buy searching iPod dock adapter for the Motorola Droid/Milestone
what u think is it do-able with galaxy?
You can do audio and charging through the USB port, using a 365k resistor between pins 4 and 5 of the plug to enable desk dock mode, and some software to route the audio signal through the USB port. You can charge at the same time by supplying +5V through the Vin pin (pin 1) of the USB port.
The Apple dock pinouts are as shown on this "ipod dock adapter for Motorola Droid" post.
Using a Bluetooth dock adapter would give you the play control functions of the Apple Dock, I can't think of a way to get these with a direct connection.
hey guys all good got the phone to charge and sync using the cable but i cant get the 3.5mm TRS plug to work. tried numerous plugs but no go. ive got the wire strand shield twisted and goin to pinout 2, red wire goin to 3 and white going to 4.
i re wired it up n tested the cable n it works fine just cant get it to work when wired to the ipod board.
any ideas/help?
thank you LaurensJ!
you solved a problem i didnt think of trying to solve before...hehe

[Q] MicroUSB Headset/Charger?

Has anyone seen a microUSB dock/charger/headset that has audio capability as well as charging the phone? What I'd like is to play music from, have headset controls from, and charge the phone all from the microUSB port on the bottom... or is this what car docks are supposed to do?
The way my car is, it's annoying to plug in the charger on the bottom AND the line out on the top - if there's a headset/adapter type thing, I figure I'll buy one of those and build my own car dock, and potentially speaker dock for the indoors.
OR: Just a microUSB headset - maybe I could add charger wires to it...
Month-long bump: I've realized that all I want right now is a microUSB headset, like for the older phones with no headphone jack. Obviously they don't make these for the G2x; has anyone confirmed another LG headset that works with this phone?
I honestly dont know if anything like that exists but I dont think so because of several reasons. Just a few that come to mind I'm not sure if the kernel driver supports it even if it could; the power running parallel to the audio probably would sound terrible; the USB would probably have to be used with a USB (female) to micro-USB (male) adapter since if you were to find it, it would probably be for PC so needed to be converted further adding to the reduction in sound quality.
Silly question.... why not just use Bluetooth and then usb to charge/data only??
Not a silly question at all. I don't feel like paying for a bluetooth adapter but also, because I've had bad luck with them in the past, as far as sound quality goes; I wasn't very impressed. Are there any good/reasonably priced bluetooth adapters that you've had luck with?
The blackberry audio gateway has been reliable for me and sounds decent.
Hmm maybe... not really a fan of having to plug that in, in addition to my stereo. I'll keep it in mind. Any others?

[Q] Dock Mode for Galaxy Note 4?

I found my Note 4 have dock mode with the old dock for other Samsung's phone. But doesn't work with the audio out.
Have anyone know the purpose of the dock mode for the Note 4?
Or there is audio out for the dock mode, which only my dock doesn't fit the electric requirement?
julianfong said:
I found my Note 4 have dock mode with the old dock for other Samsung's phone. But doesn't work with the audio out.
Have anyone know the purpose of the dock mode for the Note 4?
Or there is audio out for the dock mode, which only my dock doesn't fit the electric requirement?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does your Note 4 have the "Audio output mode" setting in Settings, General, Accessory, Dock? That's what tells it to use external speakers when it's docked.
Does it output via hdmi? 720p, 1080p?
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda app-developers app
Also, is it an official Samsung dock?
Official Samsung Multimedia Dock (for Note 2 & 3)
I have verified that my official Samsung multimedia dock works EXCEPT that the standard audio out jack does not appear to work.
HDMI audio works in both stereo and surround mode. Video is output at 1080 30P.
Has anyone tried it with the plain OEM desktop dock (EDD-D200BEGSTA) that just has audio output? I wonder if the Note 4 doesn't handle all of the extra outputs of the fancier one (EDD-S20JWEGSTA).
JimSmith94 said:
Does your Note 4 have the "Audio output mode" setting in Settings, General, Accessory, Dock? That's what tells it to use external speakers when it's docked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The option does not appear to be available on the Note 4?
mherzfeld said:
The option does not appear to be available on the Note 4?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct! This is one reason I went back to a Note 3 for now.
If you search you'll find that this has been discussed at length in several other threads. I'll sum up here for you though- basically the Note 4 at this time does not support audio out over USB the way the previous gen Galaxy devices did. This means it won't work with the desktop docks or with the car docks/cables that split audio and charging on one cable. Essentially any device that tries to provide both audio and charging simultaneously through the usb port will not work. The Note 4 WILL support audio over USB with a USB OTG cable and a DAC, but you can't charge while using them.
However, Android 5.0 Lollipop does have audio out over USB included as a standard feature, so it's quite possible that once we get the 5.0 update this will begin to work. I haven't been able to find any solid proof, but my suspicion is that Samsung knew that 5.0 would have this feature included and so they just didn't bother to build it in to the initial release of the Note 4 (interestingly the S5 also suffers from this). Why take the time to develop a feature that's already being included in the first software update anyway? Again it's just my own personal theory, but I wouldn't be surprised to have this feature start working once we get Lollipop.
Anyway, a simple search of the forum will turn up a bunch of other info on this, take a minute to look!
With Lollipop now, this feature does not work. Could be a hardware limitation.
I believe it has something to do with the Fast Charging capability.
Standard USB uses only 2 pins for power, meaning either of the remaining pins can be utilized for audio, probably the data+ pin, or possibly the second ground pin.
However with fast charging, the data+ and data- pins are used to communicate with the charging controller, so they can't be used as audio out. This seems to be the case, as an old "faster" charge cable I made way back does not work with Fast Charging. (the cable was made by an old common trick where you short the 2 data pins in the USB A side, essentially telling the phone no data was going to be used, just charging."
I have the Multimedia Dock as well, and I noticed that limitation when I got the phone. Though honestly it didn't bother me all that much, as the Note doesn't like to stay in it anyways, and I rarely used the audio out.
MasterTentacles said:
I believe it has something to do with the Fast Charging capability.
Standard USB uses only 2 pins for power, meaning either of the remaining pins can be utilized for audio, probably the data+ pin, or possibly the second ground pin.
However with fast charging, the data+ and data- pins are used to communicate with the charging controller, so they can't be used as audio out. This seems to be the case, as an old "faster" charge cable I made way back does not work with Fast Charging. (the cable was made by an old common trick where you short the 2 data pins in the USB A side, essentially telling the phone no data was going to be used, just charging."
I have the Multimedia Dock as well, and I noticed that limitation when I got the phone. Though honestly it didn't bother me all that much, as the Note doesn't like to stay in it anyways, and I rarely used the audio out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bet you're right, but I don't know of any other phones that have audio out to compare against. For example the Nexus 6 supports dock mode for Daydream, but I haven't found any docks that can activate it.
How to activate Dock Mode
I discovered that with the app called "Smart Connect" you can customize what apps will activate based on what peripheral device is connected. You can set this up for the usb dock, 3.5mm input, etc. You can control what happens when something is connected and when it is disconnect. You don't need root either. This isn't perfect, I still preferred the way the Note 2 and 3 worked but it does help.
Youtube video on this issue
we go over this in our video on YouTube, no go on the audio out for the Note 4.
Luke @ Galaxy Tech Review
degeiso said:
we go over this in our video on YouTube, no go on the audio out for the Note 4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The dock could be used to attach usb dac to phone and to charge phone at the same time, right?
The question is: will usb dac & charge work at the same time if I connect dock to low level usb power cable? e.g. if I connect dock to car charging adapter?
We unfortunately do not have a USB dac to test this.
Yes i can confirm that using a usb dac with smart dock obviously does work.
The only thing that does not work as it was said before is the dock audio jack.
My dack is my best workaround solution so far.

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