First iPad Car Installation [Video]

The 5 Best iPod Car Adapters, and How to Install Them

So your car doesn't have an iPod dock. Rather than scrapping your mp3 player for burned cds, (or scrapping your car, for that matter) owners of dockless vehicles can patch together a method for streaming their MP3s through the built-in stereo. Effort and expense will vary, and some setups will sound much better than others. Here are five options to connect your iPod to your car.

By Seth Porges

Illustration by Mark Cabuena

Option 1: Wireless FM Transmitter

INSTALLATION: Easy
SOUND QUALITY: Poor
FM transmitters are the most popular and convenient way of playing an MP3 device through a car stereo. They typically plug into an iPod’s dock or headphone jack to create what is essentially a low-wattage pirate radio station—powerful enough to be picked up by your car radio inches away, but not strong enough to interfere with neighboring car radios. Unfortunately, these transmitters need to compete with real (and far more powerful) radio stations and are easily swamped by 6000 watts of classic rock. When this happens, the sound that comes out of the speakers can be a cacophonous mix of static, local radio stations and whatever your iPod is playing. This problem is exacerbated by FCC regulations, which prohibit FM transmitters from broadcasting at greater than 18.75 nanowatts, essentially ensuring that they won’t work well. And while this problem is particularly pronounced in cities with crowded airwaves, the issue exists nearly everywhere in the country. There’s another downside to FM transmitters: Even under ideal conditions, FM radio just can’t deliver excellent sound quality.

That being said, FM transmitters are extremely convenient and, with many models selling for as little as $15, affordable. If you decide to use one, choose a model that lets you pick any FM frequency (some restrict you to a few stations on the top or bottom of the spectrum). This will increase your odds of finding an open channel.

Option 2: Cassette Adapter

INSTALLATION: Easy
SOUND QUALITY: Good
Audio cassette adapters take advantage of an increasingly rare feature: a car’s tape player. These adapters are shaped exactly like a cassette tape. They are cheap (around $15), commonplace and deliver decent sound quality. To use one, simply plug one end into the MP3 player’s headphone jack and the other into the tape deck. If your automobile has a cassette player, there is no easier way to get interference-free listening.

Option 3: Wired FM Modulator

INSTALLATION: Moderate
SOUND QUALITY: Good
With wireless FM transmitters, the signal has to travel through high-traffic airwaves on its way to your car antenna. Wired FM modulators, which usually come as small boxes with a few cords running out from them, intercept the connection between the car’s antenna and radio, allowing you to inject your iPod’s signal directly into this wired pathway. The result is dramatically improved sound quality—although the final result is still hampered by the limitations of FM radio, which is far from audiophile-friendly.

These modulators are inexpensive (they can be found online for as little as $15) and relatively easy to put in, as long as you are comfortable fiddling with your car stereo’s wires. To install one, position yourself underneath the dash. Reach up and unplug the antenna from the back of the stereo and plug it into the modulator’s antenna input. Take the modulator’s output cord and connect it to the stereo’s antenna input. You can then set the modulator to run at any FM frequency. Pick one with weak competing signals (usually at the very top or bottom of the spectrum), and plug the modulator’s audio output cord into your iPod’s headphone jack.

Option 4: Stereo With Line-In Port

INSTALLATION: Moderate
SOUND QUALITY: Very Good
If you’re lucky, your car stereo has a headphone-size line-in port right on the front. If so, all you have to do is jack your MP3 player into this hole, tune your stereo source to “Auxiliary,” and crank some tunes. Unfortunately, most car stereos lack this port. Installing a new car stereo that has one is one method for getting excellent sound using your iPod. New stereos with the port can be purchased for under $100 and installed either by you or a professional. (Some shops offer free installation with purchase.)

Option 5: RCA Port

INSTALLATION: Moderate
SOUND QUALITY: Very Good
Some car stereos—primarily ones with CD players—include an RCA jack in the back. Hijacking this audio connection from the CD player will provide excellent sound quality for music coming off an iPod. First step: Remove the stereo. If there is an RCA port, you will see dual jacks—one with a red and one with a white input (similar to the RCA jacks on home stereos). RCA-to-headphone cords can be bought for a few dollars at just about any electronics store. Plug the red and white ends of this cord into the stereo’s RCA jack and the other end into your MP3 player’s headphone jack. Finally, tune your stereo to either “CD” or “Auxiliary” (the exact setting depends on your stereo).

A Geek’s Guide: How To Pimp Your Car With Linux

Author: Jesse Casman

Author’s note: I was intending to research and write a piece on how Linux is being used as an mp3 player in cars. I’ve owned a Linux based mp3 player for six years. I was assuming it was not the only solution. It’s not, but as of the fall of 2008, buying a Linux-based mp3 player for your car is not super easy.

If you’ve just started using Linux, you’ve probably noticed an interesting phenomenon. You’ve entered a group of rugged individualists, non-conformists, people who know how to pull things apart and put them back together, people who don’t like being spoon fed. There’s plenty about Linux and the various desktops and applications in open source that’s easy and fun to use. But real Linux nerds prefer rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty.

One branch of this rugged individualism, so to speak, is running Linux in different environments. Just using Linux in your PC? Ok, that’s pretty good. But how about building a Linux system from scratch? Or on your phone? Even better, how about in your car?

Linux as Car Stereo

Using Linux for other things — not just as a stereo — in your car is possible, of course. You can connect in with the OBD-II (On-Board Diagnostics II) interface to the car’s sensor network. This interface has been required on all cars since 1996 and produces quite a bit of data on the functions of the car.

Sometimes this is called a “carputer.” Though a little dated, mp3car.com has a good “Car Computing 101.” Linux may become the operating system of your car in the near future, but that’s probably out of the hands of hobbyists.

Not for Mere Mortals

First, let’s get the really geeky, really great stuff out of the way. Time Killer is probably the pinnacle. The TITLE tag on his web page says “The Coolest Car in the World.” In this case, I would hardly say that’s hyperbole. Time Killer built the Linux car stereo from scratch, modified his dashboard, and put it all together with a touch screen monitor.

There are some other great Do-It-Yourself sites out there as well.

In reality, the quick answer to “Can I put Linux in my car easily?” would be probably… no. Please prove me wrong! But I’ve been using Linux in my car for years, and I’m pretty much a hardware lightweight. So you know where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Homage to the Empeg

The Empeg was, I believe, the very first mass produced in-dash mp3 car stereo. It was called the Empeg Car, and it was first shipped to customers in 1999. It was a fully functional Linux computer that had a “sled” that was mounted in the single DIN slot in your car, just like a pull-out car stereo. The computer’s main display was set to handle playlists and all sorts of information about your music. The faceplate lens was, by default, the blue color, as pictured here.

Lens kits, which included green, amber, and red lenses, were sold separately. In Silicon Valley, car stereo installation places generally knew of the Riocar and would do the installation. Whether they knew it or not, installing a sled and connecting good speakers and a sub woofer was not advanced work for them.

In November 2000, Empeg was acquired by SONICblue Incorporated, which continued to market an updated version of the car player – the Rio Car - until it was discontinued in January 2002. The total number of existing players in the world is about 4000 players.

It was right about this time that a friend told me he had an extra one, and I could buy it. They were considered really good mp3 players but generally too expensive. Somewhere in the range of $800 - $1200. But because they had been discontinued, the price had dropped. I paid $400.

You can still buy an Empeg Riocar at Amazon and other places. But it is often not available, so you’ll probably need to set an alert and keep checking.

Some Technical Details

Today, there’s a slowly fading but still committed Empeg Riocar owner community. This is Linux after all. The community is the real strength. The version of Linux used in the Empeg Riocar is called Hijack and it is hosted on SourceForge, the famous open source projects repository.

Disk drive size varied depending on the model. All models below 60GB were single-drive models, leaving one of the two bays free for the addition of a second disk drive. A lot of my friends added extra disk drives, though I settled for the 20GB. That is, actually, a lot of space for your music.

The player did not come with a radio tuner. An add-on AM/FM/RDS radio tuner module, that installed inside the dashboard behind the docking sled, was sold separately. One DIN-sized car docking sled with four 4v line-level outputs (stereo front/rear) and two line-level aux inputs (stereo). One AC adapter for using the player indoors. One USB cable for loading songs into the player. Here’s a great summary of the different model specs. And extreme details here.

Finally…

It’s tough if you specifically want to run Linux in your car and are looking for a ready-made product. There is nothing like that being sold currently. But with some digging and some effort, there are Do-It-Yourself projects or discontinued products that still have active support communities. The bragging rights are worth it!