Gadgetory

there's nothing like a new smartphone to remind you just how old your car is this thing wants to connect over Bluetooth but your car's stereo is still trying to figure out how to play CDs I'm Donald Bell and today's how-to I'm going to show you some general tips for connecting your old your car stereo to your new smartphone so in a perfect situation you're gonna have a brand new car like this one it's gonna have USB ports for charging and connecting to your stereo you're gonna have a Bluetooth wireless connection for taking calls and listening to music you're gonna have an aux input for everything else but cars like this are still a fraction of what's on the road today how are you gonna make your CD Eric our iPhone ready now some stereos are just gonna be beyond help if you're still rocking an old cassette deck something that doesn't even include an aux input your best bet is to buy a new aftermarket system and have that installed a basic system with installation should running around 200 to 300 dollars not cheap but it's not too bad considering the huge upgrade you'll be getting for something you'll use every day now in some cases you're dealing with the head unit that's so integrated with the design of the car that there's really no removing it in that case a lot of people are gonna give up hope they're gonna go with like a set adapter or the most heinous of all adapters the FM transmitter don't do it quick note on FM transmitters the reason they're so awful is because they're regulated by the FCC they can't be powerful enough to overpower any local stations so they're really just these weak underpowered things that are only gonna work if you live in the boonies but don't give up hope there's a good chance that someone makes an adapter kit for your old car stereo that will add an aux input or an iPhone cable to the back of the system and that will run out to your glove compartment now unfortunately these things are more trouble than they're worth more often than not because there's expensive as a brand-new stereo they still need to be professionally installed and you're still dealing with an old stereo interface you're often tricking this thing into thinking that your iPhone is a CD it's a big compromise but it's workable now if you're lucky enough to have an aux input built into your car's stereo there are a world of options and adapters available to you so take a look around sometimes it's in your console sometimes it's in your coin tray sometimes it's under your armrest look for it because if you have one you're gonna save a lot of money over buying a brand new car Syria now one scenario you can use with Knox input is a cradle you've got the cradle here mount it in your car to position your phone towards you you can run the charging cable from the phone to the power adapter in your car and then an aux cable from the phone to the stereo it's a lot of cables but it works now if your stereo supports bluetooth you can still invest in a cradle just to have your phone position towards you but you can cut that off the cable connection by going over bluetooth now if you don't have a Bluetooth connection in your stereo and you also just don't want to deal with the clutter of the cradle and everything else you can go with the Bluetooth adapter kit these things plug right into your aux input and it still has all the benefits of having a Bluetooth connection you can take your calls with the built-in microphone you can still listen to music all of that but you're not dealing with all that clutter so there you go those are my best tips for getting your older car iPhone ready now you can read Wayne Cunningham's full post over on Cena's car tech blog you can also check out more how to's over how to DOT cnet.com i'm donald bell drive safely you