How to play my Droid 2 over my car headunit Alpine IDA-X001

[akoz]

Hey guys, I have been on a couple bmw/vw forums asking for help on this, and you guys are my final hope to fix this issue!

I have a droid 2, and just got my first e30 ('88 bmw 325is) and it has the Alpine IDA-X001 head unit. I searched in the back of it and it does not seem to have an aux port in the back. It only has a usb connection and i believe a blue tooth connection (not very phone savy).

I want to be able to play my droid 2 music, and pandora while charging my phone over my car speakers if possible. I have a usb to mini usb converter, and set my phone to us mass storage or something and it can play some songs. Issue here is i have 10 songs (of all are mp3 format and play through the phone speaker) but the head unit auto loads only 3 of them (rest come up under unsupported format). So it auto loads the same 3 songs and is super annoying.

I am about to bag the idea and just buy a cheap ipod which would work perfectly fine, but i really want to be able to use pandora over my car stereo!

Things i came up with but was not sure about:
- is there a different media player program that could help the unsupported formatted songs?
- Is there a usb to aux wire so i can plug into my phone and play the songs

Thanks again droiders

ps. First post so sorry if its in the wrong section

 

[Viktorr]

I am about to bag the idea and just buy a cheap ipod which would work perfectly fine, but i really want to be able to use pandora over my car stereo!

That would be your best bet, considering the Alpine IDA-X001's USB port is meant for an IPod / Memory Stick connection only from what I've been able to determine. You COULD look into using a program like doubleTwist and see if that may help you, but I've read some negative stuff about that app (or rather it's other half, which you need on your computer), but personally haven't seen anything bad with it during the time I used it.

http://vault.alpine-usa.com/products/documents/IDA-X001 QUICK GUIDE.PDF

 

[lwags67]

This is somewhat low tech, but get one of those FM transmitters that you can plug into the speaker jack of your phone. Set the tranmitter to an open FM signal on the radio and away you go. Used this for years with am MP3 player - works regardless on format of input.

 

[bigdav1178]

This is somewhat low tech, but get one of those FM transmitters that you can plug into the speaker jack of your phone. Set the tranmitter to an open FM signal on the radio and away you go. Used this for years with am MP3 player - works regardless on format of input.

This works; I've done it in my wife's car, and it produced acceptable results. (If you go this route, find something with decent reviews, though).


The USB connector on your head unit is a dead end, if you expect to do pandora-type streaming. The USB connections are typically only designed to recognize specific filetypes on a USB storage medium, so it would recognize stored mp3s and such if you use the Mass Storage function on your phone, but you are hardly getting the functionality available to you from your phone.

The problem is that the iPod/iPhone dominated things for a number of years, and that is all most of these head unit manufacturers incorporated into their stereos - you'll find that there are special connectors for the iDevices, but not other phones, etc. As Androids have become popular, and Bluetooth technology has matured, you'll start seeing more head units that support things such as Bluetooth Stereo Streaming (A2DP) and Bluetooth Remote Control (AVRCP) that allow better ways to interface with your phone.

So, in my opinion, your best option is to replace the head unit with one that supports Bluetooth streaming. It's not the cheapest solution out there, but it will give you the best results. I did this earlier this year to interface with my R2D2, and it does work well; I picked up a Sony head unit that ran around $130-150 (MEX-BT3900U). No wires, decent sound, and depending on the app you're running on your phone, you can control it from the head unit. May be worth looking into...

 

[bigdav1178]

Did a little more research for you - here's a cheap solution:

Your head unit has a CD changer/HD tuner/etc connector (Ai-NET). You should be able to use this adapter cable and a RCA-to-3.5mm stereo adapter cable to plug into the headphone jack of your phone. I actually did a similar setup to this with an old Pioneer head unit, before it died and I replaced it with the Sony.