Anyone messed with car's built-in USB?

[scott43]

WTF!?! Paddle shifters? Unless you are driving an F1 car, all you need is 3 pedals and a lever.

dm

Meh..those 3 pedals and the lever are getting harder and harder to find.. I remember when Japanese vehicles were first arriving in NA, all my friends talked about how dumb and lazy North American people were because they all drove automatics and how front-wheel drive was far superior to rear-wheel drive. Now everyone wants automatics and rear-wheel drive... plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...

 

[scott43]

I talk to a lot of traffic safety researchers, and they all agree that distraction is as dangerous as drunk driving at the legal limit and that the distraction is not just phones, it's built into your dashboard now.

dm

I've tried to impress this upon the unblinking herds..they just don't get it. I said drowsiness is as bad as drunk...unblinking.."how so??" Why do we need a law for cell phone distractions? We have a law that says "careless driving". Pretty self-explanatory, isn't it!? Sigh..

 

[Monique]

WTF!?! Paddle shifters? Unless you are driving an F1 car, all you need is 3 pedals and a lever.

dm

Well, you obviously missed that other thread. I drove stick for more than 15 years. Never thought I'd want an automatic. But stick + uphill traffic BLOWS. Any traffic, really. That plus some other requirements, and this was the choice.

 

[François Pugh]

I've noticed that my phone charges slowly when connected via USB to my Mazda. It hasn't been a problem though. I suppose if I needed a quick charge I could connect via blue tooth and use the cigarette lighter, err I mean power port, to charge the phone.

 

[ScotsSkier]

I can just use one of the 110v outlets in my truck....

 

[Monique]

I can just use one of the 110v outlets in my truck....

Again, that's not the point ... the point is getting the data as well as the fast charge.

 

[scott43]

Just googling while I watch the cut my tree down outside..it seems like you can run Android Auto via Bluetooth. I suppose that means you could charge the phone via the USB port with a better charger (I know..) and use Bluetooth to do the actual communication bit. You could try that.

 

[Monique]

Just googling while I watch the cut my tree down outside..it seems like you can run Android Auto via Bluetooth. I suppose that means you could charge the phone via the USB port with a better charger (I know..) and use Bluetooth to do the actual communication bit. You could try that.

I was wondering about that! But I'm not sure my car supports it. Is this general capability, or were you looking at Subaru specifically?

 

[scott43]

In general. I know I can stream from my Android phone to my 2013 Outback via Bluetooth..but I don't know if the Auto bit can work that way. I should download Auto and see...

 

[scott43]

Nope..looks like WiFi or USB only..

 

[Dadskier]

Get an iPhone? I've not had any trouble keeping my phone charged and using Waze and Carplay. According to the article they send double the juice to iPhones.

 

[Monique]

Nope..looks like WiFi or USB only..

WiFi? I'll have to look into that.

Get an iPhone? I've not had any trouble keeping my phone charged and using Waze and Carplay. According to the article they send double the juice to iPhones.

Yeah, no. iPhones irritate the crap out of me on principal. The new "no audio jack" thing is just the latest in a line of forcing users to adapt to the device rather than vice versa. They send double juice to the iPhones, but twice almost nothing is still not much. And the double juice thing just pisses me off more, because it proves that the car companies *can* send more juice to the phone, but they don't just in case someone is running a first generation Android, I guess? Ugh.

 

[ScotsSkier]

Again, that's not the point ... the point is getting the data as well as the fast charge.

Not an issue for me. The nav is built in via sync 3 and I get texts on screen and Siri goes through sync as well. But yes, if I wanted to use carplay I would need to plug it in

 

[scott43]

Get an iPhone? I've not had any trouble keeping my phone charged and using Waze and Carplay. According to the article they send double the juice to iPhones.

Yeah that's kinda like telling a BMW owner to go get an Acura....

 

[Snowfan]

And the double juice thing just pisses me off more, because it proves that the car companies *can* send more juice to the phone, but they don't just in case someone is running a first generation Android, I guess? Ugh.

I picked up a Samsung car fast charger that uses the 12v hole. Charges fast. The car USB charge/data slot was worthless.

 

[Monique]

I picked up a Samsung car fast charger that uses the 12v hole. Charges fast. The car USB charge/data slot was worthless.

And, again ... the point is to get charging AND data. I already have a fast charger, as I've mentioned several times in this thread. But then I can't display Android Auto on my car screen.

 

[Monique]

Looks like Google announced Android Auto over Wi-Fi, but it's still not reality:

https://ausdroid.net/2017/05/30/google-still-actively-working-wireless-android-auto/

And I read in a different article that Apple had also planned it, but yanked it from a demo.

 

[Carl Kuck]

There's something about charger cables (true charger cables, as opposed to using a data cable for charging), two of the lines are shorted together (IIRC). You can also do this on the charger side of things (i.e. the doodad that plugs into the "cigarette lighter"...). Having said that, the Subie has two USB ports, an Aux port (not sure what that is useful for), and a lighter port. We have a very nice charger plugged into the lighter port, nothing in Aux, a USB cable in one of the ports connected to a phone (very nice for running the navigation app while on long drives, keeps the battery from draining), and a 16GB memory stick with an increasing number of CDs loaded there (.MP4 files) which are accessed by the sound system. It's a wikked pissah! Oh, did I mention we have another lighter port in the covered part of the center console? That one also has a charger plugged into that for XC trips. Both of our lighter port chargers also have a 2nd USB port in addition to the connected cable.

 

[jzmtl]

I've thought about this before, a possible solution is to cut off wires going to the two power pins in the USB port, power a high amperage charger from cig lighter socket next to it and solder the output to the aforementioned power pins. Everything is neatly tucked under the center console of course.

Won't bother with it myself since I have the poverty spec infotainment.

 

[Dave Marshak]

I've thought about this before, a possible solution is to cut off wires going to the two power pins in the USB port, power a high amperage charger from cig lighter socket next to it and solder the output to the aforementioned power pins.

That won't work.

The device reads the data pins to determine the charge rate. A dumb USB has fixed voltages applied to the data pins. It doesn't matter how you bring voltage to the power pins, if the device doesn't like what's on the data pins it's not gonna charge. That plus IME it's hard to make reliable solder connections on small stuff in a car. If I can make it work at all, it all vibrates apart in a few months. Your soldering skills may be better than mine.

Your best bet is a Y-cable. That probably won't work for the same reason as above, but it's cheap and won't cause any harm. Maybe it's possible to hack an android to take more power off a USB, but that's beyond my skill level. Apparently, this is a pretty common problem, so it's worth searching hacker sites for that.

dm