How to listen to music in the car?

[Rob625]

My new car, a humble Ford Focus, has vastly more technology than I am used to, and mostly just does what I want. The only think I miss is that it doesn't have a CD player. Radio yes, including variants that I have't yet tried. But sometimes I like to drive with my old favourites. The entertainment system connects to my phone, and I know that I could have all the music I want on the phone (it has a micro SD, and plenty of free space) and play it from there. The thing is, I have never used my phone to play music, and I don't know what app or service to use. I want something that is very easy to use, and I don't mind paying a little if that makes things easier. What do you recommend?

Rob

[swill453]

A couple of questions:

- Do you already own the music you want to play (on CD or mp3), or do you expect to subscribe to a service that can play "anything"?

- Is the car stereo sufficiently modern to have the latest interface to mobile phone facilities (called Android Auto or Apple CarPlay)?

Scott.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

We have Spotify which costs £15/Month for up to five users.

Download or stream whatever you need all for the above mentioned £15.

AiY

[DrFfybes]

Our new car is similar, but it has a mini phono input. This means we can use MrsF's old Walkman and listen to our mix tapes again

Paul

[Redmires]

The car probably has a USB port. You can convert the CD's to MP3 files, copy them to the USB stick and play from there. I do this with radio programmes as well.

[Rob625]

Yes, I already own most of the music I want to play. I ripped most of my CDs to mp3 some time ago.

Yes, the car has Android Auto. (It is brand new).

I don't think I want to go quite so far back as to use a "mini phono input".

Using a USB port is probably the most straightforward option. I have about 7GB of mp3's ripped from CDs on Windows. I have just tried copy a few of these onto a USB stick, plugged it in, and it works fine. The only thing is that it isn't clear to me if I can navigate the folder structure as I am used to.

I did have Spotify (paid) for a time, but stopped because I was using it so little. Nowadays when I want to listen at home I almost always find what I want on Youtube (also paid), on my pc. If I were more up-to-date I suppose I would be doing that on my phone (Android). I'm interested to know if people use apps/services in the car, and what they find most comfortable.

Rob

[bungeejumper]

The car probably has a USB port. You can convert the CD's to MP3 files, copy them to the USB stick and play from there. I do this with radio programmes as well.

Sounds slightly clunky, I know, but that's what I do most of the time. You can get a helluva lot of music onto one 16gb USB drive.

Confession: I am a walking notspot as far as bluetooth is concerned - I have never in my life succeeded in getting a connection to work for more than 25 seconds, and TBH it sounds like too much of a battery-draining faff anyway. I did once have a portable CD player that would broadcast to my car's radio, but it was rather prone to track-jumping so I didn't get any further with it.

I don't know about the current Focus, but it's not unknown for cars to have a spare USB or jack socket hidden in the glove compartment, and it could often be a good way of connecting multi-changers (remember them?) and other ancillary stuff. Google should tell you in an instant whether this is the case. Good luck.

BJ

[JohnB]

I use a USB drive for music, Android phone with DoggCatcher for podcasts. The key question you need to ask is whether you want to download music over 4G, which depends how generous your contract it is. Me, I never stream on the go.

[swill453]

With Android Auto, if you connect your phone by USB it will give you a number of apps to use on the radio screen.

Google Maps for satnav, obviously. Spotify or Amazon Music for streaming. And for tracks/albums on the phone there are a number of choices, including Google Play Music (which can also stream of course), VLC, Plex, and probably others. Some podcast apps are available too.

Scott.

[DrFfybes]

Me, I never stream on the go.

If you start, Tena are pretty good.

Paul

[bungeejumper]

Me, I never stream on the go.

If you start, Tena are pretty good.

Remind me to give my Three Tenas recordings a miss.

BJ

[AF62]

What do you recommend?

Tiny USB stick plugged into the USB socket with all your ripped MP3s so you always have something to listen to - something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra- ... 077VYCV37/

In addition your phone connected to the head-unit by Bluetooth and on your phone Spotify for when you fancy something different and a selection of podcasts when you fancy something other than music.

Or at least that is what I do.

[staffordian]

What do you recommend?

Tiny USB stick plugged into the USB socket with all your ripped MP3s so you always have something to listen to - something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra- ... 077VYCV37/

That looks interesting. I've a conventional USB memory stick in the car with most of my mp3s on it, but it sticks out over a storage tray and I'm always worried I'll knock it and damage either the stick or the USB socket when I reach for something. That's a perfect solution.

[swill453]

In addition your phone connected to the head-unit by Bluetooth and on your phone Spotify for when you fancy something different and a selection of podcasts when you fancy something other than music.

Spotify is one of the apps that's fully integrated into Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, so can be controlled from the touchscreen of the car audio unit.

Scott.

[tikunetih]

I'm interested to know if people use apps/services in the car, and what they find most comfortable.

You asked what do others do:

For music I use Spotify in conjunction with Android Auto.

I rarely use Mobile Data on the phone, so that being the case I have a bunch of Spotify Playlists set to Download automatically to the phone. These playlists are all six of the "Your Daily Mixes" that Spotify auto-generates on a weekly basis, plus the auto-generated "Release Radar" and "Your Discover Weekly" playlists. In addition to these 8 auto-generated (weekly updated) playlists, I have a single manually-curated playlist of my own "My Current" also set to download to the phone. In total, this lot gives me an ever-changing pool of >450 tracks split over 9 playlists able to be played on the move without requiring any streaming (no Mobile Data).

My car's a couple of years old, which means Android Auto requires the phone be connected via a USB cable to the car, and there's a slot in the centre console to do this in; the bonus is that this then charges the phone. The very newest cars are newly able to use Android Auto without a cable connection to the car for extra convenience.

As well as the car's touch-screen (centre console display) control of the Android Auto Spotify interface, my car has some steering wheel controls for volume and track skipping.

I can also use voice control via Google Assistant (GA), but this does require Mobile Data to be switched on. With this you can issue various commands, including outlier things such as skip/rewind 27 seconds etc which wouldn't otherwise be possible via the touch interface. The car has a "Voice/Talk" button on the steering wheel which can be pressed to trigger GA to begin listening; this means that GA can be configured so that it's not always listening for the (Hey/OK Google) "hotword", only listening for commands when triggered by the steering wheel button press.

This setup all works great for me, the weakest link being the Google Assistant bit which sometimes doesn't get it right, but I rarely use that (only when I've switched on Mobile Data for traffic info within Google Maps on a longer journey).

NB Youtube Music is also integrated with Android Auto, but I haven't used that.


For navigation I use Google Maps, which is better than the built-in VW Sat Nav.

[Redmires]

I'm interested to know if people use apps/services in the car, and what they find most comfortable.

You asked what do others do:

For music I use Spotify in conjunction with Android Auto.

I rarely use Mobile Data on the phone, so that being the case I have a bunch of Spotify Playlists set to Download automatically to the phone. These playlists are all six of the "Your Daily Mixes" that Spotify auto-generates on a weekly basis, plus the auto-generated "Release Radar" and "Your Discover Weekly" playlists. In addition to these 8 auto-generated (weekly updated) playlists, I have a single manually-curated playlist of my own "My Current" also set to download to the phone. In total, this lot gives me an ever-changing pool of >450 tracks split over 9 playlists able to be played on the move without requiring any streaming (no Mobile Data).

My car's a couple of years old, which means Android Auto requires the phone be connected via a USB cable to the car, and there's a slot in the centre console to do this in; the bonus is that this then charges the phone. The very newest cars are newly able to use Android Auto without a cable connection to the car for extra convenience.

As well as the car's touch-screen (centre console display) control of the Android Auto Spotify interface, my car has some steering wheel controls for volume and track skipping.

I can also use voice control via Google Assistant (GA), but this does require Mobile Data to be switched on. With this you can issue various commands, including outlier things such as skip/rewind 27 seconds etc which wouldn't otherwise be possible via the touch interface. The car has a "Voice/Talk" button on the steering wheel which can be pressed to trigger GA to begin listening; this means that GA can be configured so that it's not always listening for the (Hey/OK Google) "hotword", only listening for commands when triggered by the steering wheel button press.

This setup all works great for me, the weakest link being the Google Assistant bit which sometimes doesn't get it right, but I rarely use that (only when I've switched on Mobile Data for traffic info within Google Maps on a longer journey).

NB Youtube Music is also integrated with Android Auto, but I haven't used that.


For navigation I use Google Maps, which is better than the built-in VW Sat Nav.

..... I just put the radio on

[JohnB]

I've not listened to any radio station for a decade. Podcasts have entirely replaced them, though many come from Radio 4.

[Midsmartin]

I usually listen to radio 4, because I'm afraid that I might miss something interesting if I turn it off. But otherwise I have mp3s on a usb stick, or I listen to Radio Paradise
. This is an internet music radio station which I highly recommend. They have a free phone app that allows me to download any amount of music to listen to offline when I connect my phone to the car by Bluetooth.

The only thing I'd like to do it to set my phone to ignore phonecalls while on Bluetooth do I can call on listening to the 'radio' and not answer or be disturbed by the call.