Add me to the list of people that want this capability. I used to listen to music off of my iPhone connected via USB in my Mustang at least half of the time. The other half I was listening to Sirius, so I had to change my listening habits completely when I got my 3 since I can’t do either of those things. I’d be very happy if they eventually add the capability to stream music from a phone or iPod via USB. In my opinion my 2018 3 should have at least the same media capabilities that my 2012 Mustang had...
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Feature request -- USB audio from phone
- Thread starter lotusland
- Start date
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Why?
I mean the Nav system doesn't even have the capabilities a 2003 Garmin did (waypoints, travelling salesman problem, etc)
Tesla is simply terrible at infotainment features.
Do we know that Tesla doesn't support AptX/AptX HD? How can you tell a paired device supports it?
Wooloomooloo
Member
Very true, which is exactly why they should defer to CarPlay and Android Auto. It would seem V9 should have the ability to have it as a floating app.
You can connect with a computer / android and sniff the bluetooth communication. AFAIK Tesla only supports AAC. MCU1 has Parrot audio bluetooth system and is locked to that 3rd party hardware vendor. MCU2 is intel. Maybe MCU2 has it. I will try to find out today or this weekend by sniffing.
Just because iPhone doesn't have it doesn't mean having it is meaningless. Not all of use have iPhones. My 2015 android supports it ...
In the context of "wanting USB audio from phone", it is meaningless. It does not replace having wired USB for phone users. In fact I don't think it truly replaces wired USB for anyone.
Well, I was replying to existing discussion about Apt/AptX in the thread.
I've never used USB audio from a phone for anything. I suppose it could work, as long as the phone supports USB audio devices. Not sure what the out of the box support on Android is there - though there is a standard USB interface for audio devices so simply passing audio should be trivial, and as long as nobody went out of their way to remove the support it should be baked into the Linux kernel already. I can see it working for iPhone simply by using the lightning-to-headphones approach but instead of headphones, it would be taking the digital audio off as digital without any extra conversion, and played back same as any other streaming source in the vehicle. It'd be a lightning audio to USB audio bridge.
The problem would be control. The faux headphones approach would let you have some basic pause/play/etc same as buttons on headphones do, but USB audio device itself wouldn't support this. You'd have to also implement some other USB device at the same time, that provided a path for those controls back to the phone. I'm not sure if there's any kind of USB standard in this direction (in the opposite direction, you can emulate a USB keyboard with media keys for pause/play/etc, but to send such controls down to the audio device, I'm not sure if this is a defined interface - might require inventing something and then having some kind of OS support or background app support on the phone to implement it)
I've never used USB audio from a phone for anything. I suppose it could work, as long as the phone supports USB audio devices. Not sure what the out of the box support on Android is there - though there is a standard USB interface for audio devices so simply passing audio should be trivial, and as long as nobody went out of their way to remove the support it should be baked into the Linux kernel already. I can see it working for iPhone simply by using the lightning-to-headphones approach but instead of headphones, it would be taking the digital audio off as digital without any extra conversion, and played back same as any other streaming source in the vehicle. It'd be a lightning audio to USB audio bridge.
The problem would be control. The faux headphones approach would let you have some basic pause/play/etc same as buttons on headphones do, but USB audio device itself wouldn't support this. You'd have to also implement some other USB device at the same time, that provided a path for those controls back to the phone. I'm not sure if there's any kind of USB standard in this direction (in the opposite direction, you can emulate a USB keyboard with media keys for pause/play/etc, but to send such controls down to the audio device, I'm not sure if this is a defined interface - might require inventing something and then having some kind of OS support or background app support on the phone to implement it)
smjbh5
Member
I'm coming from a 2004 Lexus IS300. I added a grom adapter to the aux input on my stock sound system. I was then able to connect my iPhone via usb to play play music (bluetooth wasn't an option back then). The sound quality was way better vs what i'm hearing in the M3 (via bluetooth).
Was that actually via USB? My friend installed a similar adapter in his Mazda and it was basically working as an iPod integration (much like one of those iPod speaker systems that you place an iPhone/iPod into), not actually using USB but the proprietary interface. The apple device though it was in a fancy speaker system and the car system thought it was an unreasonable large cd changer.
smjbh5
Member
yeah, USB. there was a box that hooked into the changer with a harness. USB on the other end. Plugged in a sync cable, played music, through the speakers, used the stereo controls to control the phone (skip, forward, rewind, suffle...) and changed the phone too.
Audio -- not headphone audio but the phone's digital audio stream via USB -- is a very common feature in car stereos. Not just factory entertainment but after market as well. I believe most car stereos over the last five years at least include this. If you plug a phone -- iPhone or Android -- into the car's USB, you get an audio stream and control via USB. We own three mid-range vehicles that all have this, and I have used it in many rental cars. It's nearly ubiquitous. That is why I am saying that the hardware and most likely the software is already there. Tesla would need to provide some UI support but the important underlying logic is already there. BTW this is not CarPlay/AndroidAuto -- it's just direct USB control of the phone and its audio.
I've never had a car with a USB based phone playback feature on it, but I always assumed that this wasn't playing audio as a USB audio device but instead was having the head unit load files via either pseudo USB mass storage interface or via Media Transfer Protocol - Wikipedia which is a different method of file access (vs audio streaming).
From some googling I haven't found any concrete information on what sort of USB playback method is being used as you described, aside from some mentions related to CarPlay/AndroidAuto (which you said this is not). do you recall a specific car model or aftermarket head unit that did this? Everything seems to either support CP/AA or regular USB and/or MTP.
Yes, my current head unit in my Lotus has it -- Pioneer MVH-8200BT. Yes I know this is a bluetooth head unit but I only use it via USB cable to my IPhone. This head unit is very old and I believe it pre-dates CP. For Spotify specifically, the Pioneer unit will display the song info and the album art, and can control the track forward and back. I also owned a 2010 Corolla that offered similar control (minus the album art) and I currently have a 2014 Mazda CX-5 -- again with the base stereo -- and it offers the same. The Tesla is the first car I have owned in the last decade that did not have this feature.
Judging Android compatibility seems difficult. We have a few Android users in the family but it seems their phones have worked sometimes but not always. In fact that is true of the iPhone as well -- one iPhone release killed this functionality but then it came back again on a later release.
Interesting. Definitely appears to be Apple specific support that you are using. The manual is dated 2009 and CarPlay arrived in 2014. Not CarPlay, but something else that predates it - probably an updated USB flavor of ye olde iPod/Apple Accessory Protocol. I've seen some mention of it being updated to work over USB instead of regular serial but I haven't found any information on how it actually works. There was another interface spec called "iPod Out" developed together with BMW that predates CarPlay but that was apparently in 2010, so it seems unlikely to be what your head unit is using. So while in theory Tesla could add this, it would only help Apple users (which isn't to say I'm against it, just that it's not a universal solution).
caskater47
Member
Couldn't have said it better myself. Streaming != high quality. If you want high fidelity music by some CDs, rip them to FLAC and toss them on a USB drive. That's what I do and I'm 36, not over 40.
It may just be called "iPod mode", although the fact that it plays so well with Spotify seems to indicate something more.
I actually find Spotify's 320kbps stream to be very good. It's definitely good enough to where I would not bother jumping through any ripping/encoding hoops to get something better. I generally like to listen to new music anyway, there is very little that I listen to long enough to make a USB drive for. My ears are pretty old, so I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I can generally make OK qualitative comparisons. When not it the car I listen through JH Audio Laylas.
Whether this works for Android or not, if the hardware is already in place in the car -- which I suspect that it is -- then it should be turned on.
I actually find Spotify's 320kbps stream to be very good. It's definitely good enough to where I would not bother jumping through any ripping/encoding hoops to get something better. I generally like to listen to new music anyway, there is very little that I listen to long enough to make a USB drive for. My ears are pretty old, so I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I can generally make OK qualitative comparisons. When not it the car I listen through JH Audio Laylas.
Whether this works for Android or not, if the hardware is already in place in the car -- which I suspect that it is -- then it should be turned on.
caskater47
Member
Oh and the SQ is amazing in the Model 3 with a proper source. The bass hits hard enough to feel in your seat and the highs and mids are crystal clear.
caskater47
Member
The M3 has Bluetooth 5.0 as far as I know. So the bandwidth capability is 2Mbps minimum. At 320kbps streaming over Spotify you aren't getting near to the limit of the bandwidth capacity. So the quality should be identical to a physical wire. That is to say it's still low but its the best you'll get regardless.