B8 modern audio options?

[mrming]

We’ve now got our 3.0 TDI Avant (thanks to everyone who helped with my daft diesel questions). The car is awesome. Fast, comfortable and practical.

As seems a familiar situation for owners of older Audi’s, we quickly realised there’s no good way to connect a modern smartphone and use Spotify / Google Maps / Waze etc.

The car has MMI 2G high with phone prep low. It has: Satnav with DVD in the boot, 6 CD changer in the dash, AMI socket in the glove box, and phone cradle in the armrest. It has Bluetooth for phone calls only.

Two of us drive the car and we both have iPhone SEs (Lightning connector).

What can be done to enable decent, modern connectivity for the phone?

I don’t mind if it’s wired or wireless. If it is wireless it needs to be able to remember two paired devices.

I’m software savvy and confident with plug and play type wiring but not so much soldering. If it gets to pulling out pieces of the dash I might be more comfortable with paying someone to do it.

Is there anything up to say £350 that will connect without messing about every time?

Ideally the phone would charge and connect. Doesn’t matter if the charging is wired and the connection is Bluetooth. I don’t like the sound of the Bluetooth dongles where you have to start the source playing before you can select the input - would rather avoid that if possible.

What do people recommend?

 

[R0cket]

you can connect the phone to the AMI with the older 30 pin connection and then the adaptor to lightning cable. This works in my car like that. I ended up just leaving a older 80gb iPod classic in the glovebox now though.

It's worth extending the connection to the centre console though to save opening and closing the glove box a lot.

 

[mrming]

I’ve bought the cable / adapter and am going to give that a go.

I’ve also bought a cheap Bluetooth to FM transmitter from Amazon - don’t have high hopes but you never know!

 

[kanecullen89]

I think the Tune2air devices are one of the best around:
Amazon product

They're steadily going up in price though. They work by emulating a wired ipod/iphone via bluetooth so it allows all of the song titles etc on the screen. spotify was never designed to work well with the MMI 2g system so you cant skip spotify tracks through the car but it still displays the songs.

I dont use this method myself, I cant justify the outlay. I have an apple airplay compatible wifi box connected through an mmi aux cable. Fantastic audio quality I must say with it being wifi rather than bluetooth. I dont think it will be compatable with your needs though as it only allows one wifi connection at a time.

 

[mrming]

Yep it’s pretty pricey. Will see how my two cheaper options go first.

 

[Jorgen44]

I have bluetooth on my car, but its just for calling, not media. So I bought a cheap ebay bluetooth FM transmitter that I have in the 12v socket in the back of the car, out of visibility. My phone (Samsung galaxy S8+) can connect to two bluetooth devices at once. So when I start the car, it automatically connects to the original bluetooth for calling, and the FM transmitter for music

 

[mrming]

I have bluetooth on my car, but its just for calling, not media. So I bought a cheap ebay bluetooth FM transmitter that I have in the 12v socket in the back of the car, out of visibility. My phone (Samsung galaxy S8+) can connect to two bluetooth devices at once. So when I start the car, it automatically connects to the original bluetooth for calling, and the FM transmitter for music

Yep I now have that setup. The volume is a bit low from the transmitter I bought but at £15 I can try another one. What is the particular one you’ve got? Does it come through at the right level?

 

[countwilliam]

I’m running a similar setup - but instead of a Bluetooth connection then transmitting the audio over FM there’s a Bluetooth to aux line in module sitting in the middle console. Plugs straight into the aux port. Works nicely, gives the radio a good strong signal.

Only issue is buzzing through the speakers from a noisy power adapter when not playing audio.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[xpoweruk]

https://rsnav.com/ gets great reiews

 

[mrbubba]

I have one of these for streaming music, works very well and isn't that quiet

https://audistream2air.com/

I would like something that can get Waze on the Audi screen though

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

 

[Jorgen44]

Yep I now have that setup. The volume is a bit low from the transmitter I bought but at £15 I can try another one. What is the particular one you’ve got? Does it come through at the right level?

I use this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Car-Kit-Ha...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Its a bit lower than if I use SD card, but its fine. No unwanted noise