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Using Phone as Mass Storage in Car Stereo

Hi,
I have been using my phone as a mass storage device for my USB car stereo for a while. I have other applications on the internal storage (Diamond) which have mp3s.
Does anyone have any solutions for hiding non-music mp3s from the stereo (other than deleting!). I am getting fed up listening to ringtones etc...
Cheers
Aidan

buy a cheap usb flash disk

bukhariwaheed111 said:
buy a cheap usb flash disk
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Click to collapse
While some might see this as a bit pointless post since it doesn't really solve the problem, I think it's good advice, not only will you be able to leave it plugged in and not have to worry about having your USB cable floating around, but it would only cost a few quid, give you more storage and solve the problem.

I suppose, if you didnt fancy buying a new usb stick, you could try setting any non music mp3 files to being hidden. I have no idea how a car stereo would react, and it may still pick them up, but its worth a try.
Your ppc will still find them, you just wont be able to see them in file explorer & im hoping that your stereo might ignore them or something.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will have a look at hiding the files.
I really like the ability to download podcasts on the move so wont be able to do that with a USB stick.
Cheers
Aidan

me too. im using my car stereo to play mp3s in my pda via usb.
but i put all songs in memory card to avoid stereo from playing phone's ringtones.
btw, car stereo with a usb input is an instant charger!

Car Audio via USB

searched the forums and im surprised there was not too much about this
just got a 2011 gmc terrain
it has a USB and AUX slot...
i can obviously get audio in working through the headphone jack.
but i wanted to cut down on wires and the usb could potentially charge and play music...
but no matter what settings i use ( mass storage, debugging, media player) the car doesn't seem to recognize it... is there a app or program that will make the car see the phone as just a regular usb stick?

just mount the sd card when you plug it in
else it wont see it

I'm just wondering if you can: Mass storage -> Mount

The official car dock uses the official car home from Samsung to send the audio via the USB if that is what you mean? Otherwise just go to menu/setting/Wireless and Networking/USB settings/set to mass storage or ask on connection.

the best is to set it to Ask on Connection
then you don't need to keep going into the annoying menu all the time

I've just tested it and my Pioneer will only detect the first partition, or in other words, the internal SD card.
You will need to use Mass Storage option. I've tried all of the others, but my car audio won't detect it.
If only there was a way of changing which of the partitions would be the first (internal or external SD) then that would be superb. I've set external first on Kies, but I guess that this only affects Kies itself.

thanks for the replies...
i mean i think i've tried them all but i will try again... would be nice if it worked! lol

On my car stereo I had to mount the sd card very fast to get it work.
Multi Mount Sd-card helped me on this as it'll mount as you plug the usb, also you can mount only external sd.
If you have music on your internal sd only then try with winamp as it has auto-mount option also.

Wesku said:
On my car stereo I had to mount the sd card very fast to get it work.
Multi Mount Sd-card helped me on this as it'll mount as you plug the usb, also you can mount only external sd.
If you have music on your internal sd only then try with winamp as it has auto-mount option also.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
on a related note...
even if you missed the initial scan by your car stereo, before you mounted the internal SD
you should be able to cycle through CD/FM radio/AUX/ and back to USB
then it will detect it as mounted, and should be able to read the songs in the phone

Personally I pair my phone with the car radio BT which is A2DP capable.
Then I start MIUI Music player and it plays automatically through the car speakers, flawlessly. I tried the default phone's music players, but there are lots of lags through BT. None with MIUI.
It plays very well and I can even use my steering stalk buttons to switch song.
I tried with an iPhone 4 too, it works very well.

if our phone had USB OTG would have solve all this.it will be just plugging a regular usb storage.

this is a solution i seemed to have got working.
http://www.samsunggalaxysforum.com/hardware-problems/hooking-up-galaxy-s-to-car-radio-via-usb/

nexus s and volvo c30 -> no audio via usb?

hi
i have a nexus s and a volvo c30 with the multimedia package which has a usb port. With my iphone, I could just plug in the iphone in the usb and i could navigate trough the music and listen to it on my iphone trough the car's stereo.
If i put in the nexus nothing happens, it keeps trying to read the disk.
if i put on usb storage mode, it says after a while that it can't read the disk.
is there any way i can make this work or is it just not possible?

I would check out the manual or Google it. I bet the Volvo stereo only supports FAT16 or FAT32 format (i.e. USB flash thumb drive). Just a guess. Hope it works out...
Also, does it support Bluetooth? If so, see if the stereo can accept audio over bluetooth. I've got a 5-6yr old Alpine head unit that can do it, so I'm betting there's a good chance yours can.

The manual says it indeed only supports usb2 and fat partitions...
Is there any way this can be done on the nexus?
I have bluetooth, but there is no mension about being able to play music over bluetooth, phone does work and addressbook syncs, so bluetooth works as it should

I'm honestly not sure about the formatting issue. I would assume that repartitioning the phone would be a tough job to do without messing something up.
As for Bluetooth, I don't really have any experience with audio-via-BT, but I would try atleast pairing it to the car to see if you can play around with it. Go to Settings > Wireless and Networks > Bluetooth Settings. Enable Bluetooth and turn Discoverable on. Then try using your car to pair with it, or vice versa. If you manage to get it connected, I don't really know what the next step would be, since I've never had a stereo that supported it without paying $200 for an adapter.
I would just play around with the bluetooth stuff and see if you can get it running. Since I'm not familiar with Volvo car stereo systems, I don't know if it really supports playback, or just phone calls. See if there's an input in the menu (ie CD, FM, AM, AUX, etc) called BT Audio, or something like that. 3rd party head units typically have this input if they support it, similar to the AUX input option. I'll see if I can find a generic guide for it in the meantime.
What year is your C30?
Good luck

So it looks like your car does NOT support the audio via Bluetooth protocol, known as A2DP. I found a great resource for your car that you should check out, called C30 World. From there I found a thread on this, where people say it doesn't support it, and that your best bet is to use the aux input jack in the center console. Unfortunately, it also looks like that jack is disabled if you have the Bluetooth package installed.
My advice is for you to post on the C30 World forums and ask for some help. I'm sure there's some very knowledgeable people over there that can help you.

thanks man
I think I will just put a usb splitter in there and use a thumb drive in the usb with my music and use the phone as a phone on bluetooth and still have the option to charge my phone

Try using the BT adapter that I use. Been using viseeousa 2000 plugged to my USB port. Flawlessly stream music wireless. Plug and play device and works with android for bluetooth streaming.

Play SR on Kenwood car stereo via USB?

Hey all - tried to search for this but didn't find anything... I have a Kenwood car stereo that plays iphone via usb port, but I wasn't able to see how to get it to work by seeing the SR as a media device. On my captivate, you could choose 'media player' as a usb mode, but that wouldn't work either. Any ideas? I like the idea of playing music while being able to charge the phone at the same time. It does charge off of the deck via usb, but just can't get it to find the music on the SR.

That is such a coincidence, I just put in probably the same (or similar) Kenwood stereo into my car (KDC-248U). I was looking around on the website and under the KDC-252U they list an Android app "Kenwood Music Control" it's in the Market. I am going to give that a try later today.
*** EDIT
Apparently the app analyzes your music or something and then puts a file on your device to make it readable, worth looking into.
Also check here http://androidforums.com/android-media/167502-kewood-car-deck-problem-solving.html

Nice call! You have to have the music on the external SD though, in case anyone else has a problem getting it running Then choose 'auto output' in preferences. Also appears that the program stays active all the time... which I'm not crazy about, but it does work!

Ozark_8125 said:
Nice call! You have to have the music on the external SD though, in case anyone else has a problem getting it running Then choose 'auto output' in preferences. Also appears that the program stays active all the time... which I'm not crazy about, but it does work!
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That's great news! I gave it the ol college try but came up empty. Maybe you can help me out.
First what model stereo do you have and second, how do you store your media on your external SD , in a folder "music" or under a second level folder? Lastly, how did you get it to recognize did you plug it in and quickly choose USB storage or did you plug it in, choose USB storage and then cycle sources till you landed back on USB?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

So I've been playing around with it and now I can get it to play all the time. First plug USB into phone then into Head unit. When head switches to "Reading" change source to something else (Radio, Portable, etc.). Now enable USB storage and open Kenwood App, while doing this switch to "USB" on the source and it will play.
Now I am having lots of issues getting new music to read, I have tried manually analyzing to no such luck. What options do you have on? I noticed that at one time on reboot it re-did the scan.
It's not very elegant but it works. I wish I didn't have to use an app running all the time.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk

I first scanned the music so it was all recognized by the app. Plug it in, and while the stereo is showing 'reading's then turn on the PC storage (and assuming you have auto output enabled). Then it worked. Clunky, but better than nothing for linger car trips. My stereo is the x695 excelon deck.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using XDA App

I first scanned the music so it was all recognized by the app. Plug it in, and while the stereo is showing 'reading's then turn on the PC storage (and assuming you have auto output enabled). Then it worked. Clunky, but better than nothing for linger car trips. My stereo is the x695 excelon deck.

Kenwood Music Editor Light
After playing around a bit it seems really clunky and I don't like the idea of the app running all the time. However I did find a solution, the Kenwood Music Editor (Light Edition).
http://www.kenwood.com/cs/ce/music_editor_light/english/download.html
You are still limited to music on your external SD card but it does not require the Kenwood app to be running or present to work. It was meant to make music playable on any USB device so it can be used for flash cards as well if you are having issues reading them. You plug your device into a computer (Windows only) and then run a scan and you should be good to go.
After doing this it's the same situation to play for me, plug in and turn on USB storage (it takes long for my phone to get into USB storage so that is why I have to cycle the Sources after it's connected to get the stereo to play). It remembers track position and everything.

promiseofcake said:
After playing around a bit it seems really clunky and I don't like the idea of the app running all the time. However I did find a solution, the Kenwood Music Editor (Light Edition).
You are still limited to music on your external SD card but it does not require the Kenwood app to be running or present to work. It was meant to make music playable on any USB device so it can be used for flash cards as well if you are having issues reading them. You plug your device into a computer (Windows only) and then run a scan and you should be good to go.
After doing this it's the same situation to play for me, plug in and turn on USB storage (it takes long for my phone to get into USB storage so that is why I have to cycle the Sources after it's connected to get the stereo to play). It remembers track position and everything.
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newer car-stereos usualy suport any file when you put the phone in "storage-device"-mode.
im looking to get controll over the phone from my stereo, yther use the player in the phone or spotify. works great whit an iphone, but cant find any solution to get the same controll from my htc desire hd...
im guessing its not the stereo itself but the phones software thats the problem, not allowing audio out or controlls in from the microUSB
id love a solution to this though

Check out the other apps like kenwood music control for android:
http://www.kenwood.com/cs/ce/

Connecting android via usb to car stereo

Hello. I made my s4 mini as usb drive (mass storage), and it perfectly working in car stereo, I can switch songs and folders, but to make it easier to find songs i would like to control everything not from car streo player, but from my phone like in this video (1:40). Is that possible on android?
youtu[DOT]be/h0T7JdUpq1A?t=1m40s

SeipRandomas said:
Hello. I made my s4 mini as usb drive (mass storage), and it perfectly working in car stereo, I can switch songs and folders, but to make it easier to find songs i would like to control everything not from car streo player, but from my phone like in this video (1:40). Is that possible on android?
youtu[DOT]be/h0T7JdUpq1A?t=1m40s
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Click to collapse
No, because of the way Mass Storage works, that wouldn't be possible. You could however use Bluetooth instead.