iPhone Accessories for Car

April 20, 2017 11:19 AM

Old car, new phone, clueless operator. Looking for product recommendations that suit my preferences.

Hi! So, I'm a late-adopter in a huge way. I just got my first smartphone and there are 2 accessories in particular I'd love your help choosing!

Typical scenario for me: driving along, using the phone's navigation system, listening to CDs. I want to use my 2005 Honda's [crappy, there's fully a blown-out speaker] sound system to play CDs while the nav runs through independent speakers. If I'm not using nav, it'd maybe be nice to play digital music files through the car's speakers (or would it be nice?? How nice is speakerphone sound??). I think this product serves this purpose: Motorola Roadster 2, but I'm not totally sure, and I can't tell from reviews if it's great or not.

2nd, just a reco for a dash mount. I was looking at this one: iOttie Easy One Touch 3. I'm drawn to a dashboard mount as opposed to the vent mounts because I use my vents constantly.

I have phone conversations almost never, so being able to talk and drive is a nonissue.

A search of past questions led me here. It may be a useful link for me... I'm not sure!

I'd say "Explain like I'm 5" but the 5 year olds in my life are more comfortable with iOS than I am, so just... please use small words and pretend I arrived last week from 1992.

So much thanks!! -- It's an iPhone 6 btw.

posted by little_dog_laughing to Technology (3 answers total)

I can't tell how much you'd like your CDs and digital music to sound nice. Because it that is an objective, I'd take your old car to Car Toys and get a decent CD player and replacement speakers installed. They charge reasonably, have lots of specials, and their credit card offers a deferred interest period which is quite the deal.

Personally I love listening to music and audiobooks from my phone (or, sometimes, my iPod, via a bluetooth dongle or a cord connection to my audio system) and one nice thing about my iPhone is that it interrupts its own playing of music/audio books to give me the next driving cue when I'm navigating, then returns to playing the entertainment. Also it is easy to use one finger to control playback of whatever with a car mount of the phone. My favorite is the tiny New Trent vent mount, but anything that puts the phone in reach will work.

So, if you want your phone routed through your sounds system in the car, just add bluetooth functionality to whatever you install. Every phone has bluetooth.
posted by bearwife at 2:48 PM on April 20, 2017

I just got a car with Bluetooth, after having a crappy car with a crappy radio and a broken tape deck, and it's magic. Like amazing.

The only issue I have is that my phone runs out of memory, so I'd keep/get a new CD player, if that's what you're used to.
posted by kjs4 at 11:34 PM on April 20, 2017

Thanks!!
posted by little_dog_laughing at 8:59 AM on April 21, 2017