Hi all.
A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of a new Abarth 595 with the fancy TFT dash and everything. When I got it home and found out that Blue&Me doesn't do bluetooth media I felt pretty mugged off, especially after trying to use USB and finding it was so slow and I could only see about half a track title even with that massive LCD screen.
Luckily the car has a 3.5mm AUX in next to a USB port, so I bought one of these:
While fitting a Focal underseat sub (iBus 2.1 which also amplifies the front speakers) I was looking for a place to fit it, and the best I came up with was this:
Which worked OK - I started the car, pressed the dot on the Anker device and it connected to my phone. Another press and it would play whatever I had left my phone playing - Spotify works great.
The sound was awful. Since I fitted it at the same time as the Focal sub, I put the blame on the sub seeing as there was little bass and a general "strange" sound. Turns out the Anker bluetooth receiver just had an awful DAC.
At the same time as I ordered the Anker one, I also ordered a generic ebay cheapo one too. I tried it and it sounded much better, and it also automatically connected on powerup so it took one less press to start music.
Rather than just stick the other one on top of the ashtray, I designed and 3d printed a holder for it to sit flush in the cupholder - the ashtray made it hard to get a coffee in the next cupholder.
Heres the design and prototype:
I vapour smoothed it but it could do with a coat of paint ideally to give it a matt finish. Anyhow, it sits in the cupholder and play music off my phone and it works pretty well.
I can't post external links yet, but both the bluetooth receivers were about £10.
It'll do for now. Depending upon if the promised B&M AD2P update ever comes, I'll probably try and build a new unit which interfaces with the CANbus to pick up the steering wheel controls, to save me reaching down. If I can get hold of a cheap enough dash to modify on the bench I'll try and work out how to get track data displayed too, but it's a long way off.
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