Found simple solution for smartphone music integration

[potxoli]

I recently switched from iphone to android and was wanting a cleaner install for music. Plugging in an aux cable manually got old, plus you had this cable sitting around looking messy. I thought about bluetooth, but my non-nav car does not have blue tooth audio. So I ended up buying two things from amazon:

a cheap Mpow bluetooth audio receiver:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and this nifty Kenu cell phone holder:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The bluetooth device works great and sounds very good. Almost indistinguishable from aux in on my HTC one android phone.

I installed Bluetooth auto connect from the play store:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....btautoconnect

and I set the HTC one bluetooth profile for the Mpow device to be music only so that my cell calls still route through the BMW bluetooth integration.

Everything works great. I get in the car, turn radio on to AUX, hit the power button on the Mpow until I hear the sound that says it is on and I'm good to go. Simply turn on my phone and use pandora, or play music or whatever.

The Kenu airframe holds my phone at arms reach on the dash in an elegant way.

I additionally used a binder clip to install the Mpow on the side of the center console right by the drivers seat. The audio and power cable can be routed out of the way and the little buttons on the device to go forward/back are very easy to get to.

Finally the Mpow has a battery and uses micro USB like my HTC One, so in the case my phone is running low on power, i can simply pull the usb plug out of the mpow into the phone to charge.

All in all for about ~$40 total a good, clean solution. I hope this helps someone. Took me a while to do research and some failed attempts before I zeroed in on this.

Here are pics of the two in the car:

[sparky1_2007]

I got the same bluetooth audio reciever, sound quality is great for what you pay for.

i bought a $10 one on a whim and it sounded like garbage, the mpow one has great reviews

[febul]

I got one of these, but have no idea of how to mount it the way you did.

[schmidtp]

Do you have to hit the power button every time you use this? I am looking for a bluetooth solution for my 1er that can charge via USB since I have an early gen where the cig lighter power is not under the arm rest.

[potxoli]

I do have to hit the power button every time to use this. I agree that part is a bit of pain, but then again for the price it works for me. You don't have to turn it off however. It turns off automatically if there is no bluetooth connection once you walk far away enough from the car.