MP3 Player Separate to Phone While Using Android Auto

[Robot Samurai]

Hi,

I've just got my black MG4 Long Range and I'm enoying it so far. I wonder if someone could offer a suggestion/solution to a problem. Both myself and my wife use the car for commuting on different days. I've got some music on my phone and I use that. My wife doesn't have much space on her phone and so can't put much music on it but she is very happy with the phone. So I wonder if there is a suitable MP3 player type device that we can both put our music on that can be used in the car but also allow us both separately to connect our phones for phone calls and Google Maps. Whether there is a device that can have MP3 albums that can be accessed and played on the car screen and uses Google Maps or allows a device like that purely for MP3s while allowing the phone to connect to the car for Google Maps and phone calls.

Hopefully I've made sense and any help and suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[siteguru]

All you need is a USB C pendrive that you plug into the right hand USB C port and then play USB music via the car. That's the simplest approach, although the media player in the car isn't the best.

 

[Rolfe]

I have such a drive, and keep a folder on my computer for its contents. I need to re-arrange the files now I have R33 and a couple of layers of folders, but it worked even before then (at the expense of renaming an awful lot of tracks).

If your infotainment is on R33 then you need to investigate what the player will do with its folders (I haven't tried mine yet, haven't had it a week), then simply create a folder on your computer that's compatible with this arrangement, put the music files on that, and copy it to a USB stick. I find it's impossible to remove the stick without getting the "might be corrupted" message, but it doesn't matter as you can always reformat the stick and reload the music from the computer.

There may be a limit to the number of files the player can handle, so don't dump a huge library on the stick in the first place.

 

[KernowTrophy]

I use an old mobile purely for AA bits. all my music and Waze, a cheap and cheerful data only SIM, and a USB battery brick to keep it powered while I am not driving for days on end. (battery brick on UCB charge, so is charging when I'm driving, phone drawing charge from that. AA on bluetooth) - entire package hidden in the otherwise unused console arm rest.

I actually did this because Waze on my current phone keeps "not responding", whereas my old phone was fine. a case of newer not actually being better for this

 

[Robot Samurai]

Thanks all. I was thinking a separate playing device but if a pen drive will do the trick then I'll try that one and see how terrible the player is. To the famous shopping site that shares a name with a forest...

 

[Rolfe]

I had a conversation on Twitter with an owner who had a USB CD player which she had taped under the central console and it seemed to work very well for her. But I'd prefer not to have to keep changing the CDs. I prefer to put the CD files on a memory stick and plug that into the car.

Were you thinking of a river...?

 

[Rolfe]

Talking of sound quality, I had a bit of a surprise the other night. I was stuck at a ChargePlace Scotland charger which had its DC out of order, and phoned the helpline. I had the phone plugged in to the car, so the sound was coming through the car speakers. The helpline unhelpfully routed me to its hang-on music. That sounded noticeably better than I've heard from these speakers before, including from the radio. But I don't really know why that should be.

 

[Big Ears]

I've been doing that with a slight variation in that I figure a rigid thumb drive could with a good nudge possibly break the USB C (MG3 Hybrid + Trophy) socket & how much would that cost to repair so I do it this way:-

It seemed to work fine but over the last few days it has been acting up, not connecting at all or showing the radio on the screen and not the USB music list like:-

It also puts up a list of BBC news channels too sometimes, but didn't get a picture of that.

Any ideas why this is occurring? as it is yet another annoying freakture of this manic software doing what it wants and not what I want.

 

[Robot Samurai]

Back from hols and the craziness of work....

The Infotainment is R21 I believe. I was indeed thinking of a river as well. It's a forest as well but I've seen enough rain recently so perhaps I'm blocking that word from my mind. Although what word was that.....

The USB stick idea is working great but as mentioned the media player isn't great but isn't terrible thankfully. I've got a few audiobooks on there which run the files into the many thousands so it takes a while to process when first plugged in. It's a small USB stick so I don't think I'll be knocking it. It is Sandisk double ended USB A/USB C so handy for putting files onto it from the computer and for plugging into the car or a phone.

@Big Ears have you tried it without the cable for the USB stick? I found that one of my cables died while using it in the car and another is playing up. Neither were cheap cables so I wonder if there is a short or something occurring that damages the cable. I find it displays the last thing my phone used on the left hand side. Such as Audible and any other audio apps on the phone it could be defaulting to that if the USB stick isn't detected. When you connect your phone does it show that the music is being detected on USB 2 and can be played?

 

[Big Ears]

Back from hols and the craziness of work....

The Infotainment is R21 I believe. I was indeed thinking of a river as well. It's a forest as well but I've seen enough rain recently so perhaps I'm blocking that word from my mind. Although what word was that.....

The USB stick idea is working great but as mentioned the media player isn't great but isn't terrible thankfully. I've got a few audiobooks on there which run the files into the many thousands so it takes a while to process when first plugged in. It's a small USB stick so I don't think I'll be knocking it. It is Sandisk double ended USB A/USB C so handy for putting files onto it from the computer and for plugging into the car or a phone.

@Big Ears have you tried it without the cable for the USB stick? I found that one of my cables died while using it in the car and another is playing up. Neither were cheap cables so I wonder if there is a short or something occurring that damages the cable. I find it displays the last thing my phone used on the left hand side. Such as Audible and any other audio apps on the phone it could be defaulting to that if the USB stick isn't detected. When you connect your phone does it show that the music is being detected on USB 2 and can be played?

I suppose it could be the cable but if the phone isn't connected the thumb drive works fine so there is a connection there somehow, there are no audio apps on the phone and no BBC stuff so that must be coming from the car itself, I have looked through the onboard stuff but it only comes up with Android Auto on, nothing when unplugged.

It's mega annoying TBH.