sooty
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Post by sooty on Sept 10, 2016 5:30:54 GMT
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Post by Humph on Sept 10, 2016 6:40:01 GMT
I see people texting or otherwise typing on their phones while driving every day. Every single day, several times a day. Often young men but in particular it seems to be a female trait. It's as if it's a drug to them that they can't leave alone.
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Avant
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Post by Avant on Sept 10, 2016 11:17:08 GMT
The law needs to change so that it carries automatic disqualification, as with drink-driving. It can be distinguished from other offences because it involves both loss of concentration and lack of eye-contact with the road.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 10, 2016 13:25:08 GMT
...not to mention loss of physical contact with the controls of the vehicle.
I keep an old iPhone in the armrest, loaded with downloaded Deezer music and BBC radio programmes, which play through the 30-pin iPod interface that lives in there. Trouble is, neither app is designed with car use in mind, so when I get to the end of an item (the typical Radio 4 28 minutes isn't quite enough for my drive to or from work) it's difficult to easily and safely select something else.
So I'm on the lookout for a better solution. Voice control, maybe, or an extension cable flat enough to exit under the lid without preventing it from closing, that would then let me put the phone on a dashboard mount. Perhaps a combination of the two; maybe an Alexa on wheels?
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Sept 10, 2016 19:04:09 GMT
So they don't support playlists for the apps?
Does the iPhone/iPod cable plug into a proprietary socket in the arm rest. That's how it is on the Audi - except I don't use it but it is standard with Audi's MMI. I'd use Bluetooth and have the phone in a cradle but I don't suppose your ICE does Bluetooth and you're a bit of an audiophile and won't like music via Bluetooth either.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 11, 2016 10:22:16 GMT
Deezer supports playlists, and I have a few, but they're fiddly to set up on the phone interface so I seldom bother. IPlayer Radio doesn't, though.
The BMW interface consists of a USB socket and a 3.5mm audio-in port, connected by a proprietary Y cable that may or may not contain a DAC (I suspect it does) to an Apple 30-pin iPod plug. The Enhanced Bluetooth option offers Bluetooth for music but, as you suppose, my car doesn't have it. I'd be perfectly happy if it did; as I've said elsewhere, audiophilia and automotivia are mostly incompatible anyway. I suppose a small-enough USB-powered Bluetooth adaptor could work: put that in the armrest to feed the 3.5mm and clip the phone to an air vent for control.
I'm happy with the quality of sound I get out of the system from whatever source - mostly 320k files on an iPod Classic; I'd just like a bit more convenience in the selection. Voice control would be ideal but I don't imagine Siri would be up to it.
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Post by crankcase on Sept 12, 2016 6:37:51 GMT
There are a few apps out there that allow voice control for Spotify, amongst others. They may for all I know work with Deezer too. Siri can play music ("play me the White Album", "play me some ELO") etc, but it only works if your music is in iTunes, which none of mine is.
Incidentally, if you set up a playlist in Spotify on any device, including a PC, they appear on all your other devices too. Deezer doesn't do that?
I've created a couple of playlists called "car" or variants, then start the first when leaving on a journey. The cable I use to power the phone also has audio controls on it, so I have a physical button there that will start and stop the list as required.
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Post by Alanović on Sept 12, 2016 10:22:43 GMT
I've given up worrying about trying to play my own content in the car and just listen to Radio 4 or 5. When neither of them have anything I'm happy to have on, I just turn it off.
It's going to be far too expensive to get my current car set up to have any kind of input from my phone/music player. I suppose I could grab some CDs off the shelf and do it the old fashioned way. But can't be too bothered.
I coughed a couple of hundred for an aux-in input to be installed in my Laguna and look where that got me. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 12, 2016 10:50:27 GMT
Deezer can do playlists across devices too, but I very seldom bother switching on a PC at home these days. I'd have to set up the playlist and then go to my car iPhone to download it, which seems like a lot of home time to spend on planning my drive to work.
I'm researching Bluetooth converters that will take power from the USB port while feeding audio to the 3.5mm socket. Some claim to work only in mono (!) while others run off an internal battery that can charge of play but not both at once. (That might be handy for the coming world of jackless iPhones.) I have a little Logitech one I no longer use but that runs off a plugtop transformer rated at 5.5V, so even with the right cable it's unlikely to work on USB power.
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Post by Hofmeister on Sept 12, 2016 11:39:19 GMT
I've given up worrying about trying to play my own content in the car and just listen to Radio 4 or 5. When neither of them have anything I'm happy to have on, I just turn it off.
It's going to be far too expensive to get my current car set up to have any kind of input from my phone/music player. I suppose I could grab some CDs off the shelf and do it the old fashioned way. But can't be too bothered.
I coughed a couple of hundred for an aux-in input to be installed in my Laguna and look where that got me. the beauty of the lancer is that it came with a standrd single din radio slot, the old radio went out, a second hand Alpine unit went in, one with USB slot, Ipod cable, Bluetooth, and 3.5 mm audio plug. It currently has plugged in, an old iphone jailbroken into a standard ipod, and 32gb thumb drive in the USB socket, for a total of about 40gb of music, and I can add another 20gb via bluetooth and my android phone. Thats more than enough audio for all journey, inc holidays. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 13, 2016 8:49:49 GMT
Yes, quantity wise that's fine. I have 80GB in the 'Pod, which I've still not filled after eight years, and that's fine for my permanent collection. I just want a way to bring the services I use for more 'immediate' stuff under the same control. An Echo Dot might do it; anyone know how to get one?
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Post by crankcase on Sept 13, 2016 9:29:54 GMT
I don't know how to get one, but I enjoyed finding out what one was.
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Post by Hofmeister on Sept 13, 2016 14:29:40 GMT
Yes, quantity wise that's fine. I have 80GB in the 'Pod, which I've still not filled after eight years, and that's fine for my permanent collection. I just want a way to bring the services I use for more 'immediate' stuff under the same control. An Echo Dot might do it; anyone know how to get one? In the car I much prefer to have my music on shuffle. Never know what comes next, sometimes it a pleasant surprise, sometimes its a "skip" |
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Post by Alanović on Sept 13, 2016 14:30:41 GMT
Yes, quantity wise that's fine. I have 80GB in the 'Pod, which I've still not filled after eight years, and that's fine for my permanent collection. I just want a way to bring the services I use for more 'immediate' stuff under the same control. An Echo Dot might do it; anyone know how to get one? In the car I much prefer to have my music on shuffle. Never know what comes next, sometimes it a pleasant surprise, sometimes its a "skip" No need to be quite so hard on the Lancer, Zedder. |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Sept 13, 2016 14:54:57 GMT
In the car I much prefer to have my music on shuffle. Never know what comes next, sometimes it a pleasant surprise, sometimes its a "skip" Cranks will understand when I say shuffle doesn't work so well with Wagner. I know each act ought to be a single track but they're seldom indexed that way, and you wouldn't want yer gods crossing the rainbow bridge to Valhalla before yer giants have finished building it, would you? |
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