Playing audio through USB port while charging!

[Oliver84]

Ok, so before you think this is a repost, I'm not talking about mounting your droid and using it as a thumbdrive in your car. I'm talking about having it docked and charging kinda like an iPod only a lot better because it's using a standard USB instead of that crazy iPod connector.

So today I was putting some movies in my Droid to see how they play on it. While it was still connected to my laptop, I unmounted the Droid and played the movie and the sound started coming out of my computer speakers! If I'm totally missing something, forgive me for being so naive but I did not know you could do that. I've always thought that to have sound output, you needed to use an auxiliary cable and take it out from the headphone jack.

But if this works on my computer, shouldn't there be a way to make it work in the car? My only gripe about the Droid is your vehicle integration. You have a dock but no charger on it. You can plug in a charger but the audio comes out of the speakers. With my iPod I just pop it it and it holds it, charges it, and sends the audio through the speakers. But now I'm starting to think that we may be able to do the same with the Droid.

Has anyone tried this? Shouldn't there be a way to have the USB cable do both, charge the Droid and send the audio out to our car's speakers? If it works on computers, there's gotta be a way to make it work in the car. What do you think??

 

[takeshi]

Ok, so before you think this is a repost, I'm not talking about mounting your droid and using it as a thumbdrive in your car. I'm talking about having it docked and charging kinda like an iPod only a lot better because it's using a standard USB instead of that crazy iPod connector.

Still a dupe thread:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-applications/8306-audio-out-via-usb.html

Though posters in that thread are also confusing the 2 and the thread wanders off into BT audio.

If I'm totally missing something, forgive me for being so naive but I did not know you could do that. I've always thought that to have sound output, you needed to use an auxiliary cable and take it out from the headphone jack.

Nope. Motorola sells USB headsets. Don't know if they work with the Droid but the 3.5mm jack isn't the only way in general.

But if this works on my computer, shouldn't there be a way to make it work in the car?

Probably depends in part on your head unit. And I wouldn't just assume that what works on your PC works on your car's head unit.

 

[Oliver84]

Ok, so before you think this is a repost, I'm not talking about mounting your droid and using it as a thumbdrive in your car. I'm talking about having it docked and charging kinda like an iPod only a lot better because it's using a standard USB instead of that crazy iPod connector.

Still a dupe thread:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-applications/8306-audio-out-via-usb.html

Though posters in that thread are also confusing the 2. Despite what the OP seems to clearly state.

If I'm totally missing something, forgive me for being so naive but I did not know you could do that. I've always thought that to have sound output, you needed to use an auxiliary cable and take it out from the headphone jack.

Nope. Motorola sells USB headsets. Don't know if they work with the Droid but the 3.5mm jack isn't the only way in general.

But if this works on my computer, shouldn't there be a way to make it work in the car?

Probably depends in part on your head unit. And I wouldn't just assume that what works on your PC works on your car's head unit.

Thanks and sorry for the duplicate post. To clarify, I didn't mean for it to be plug-in-play for the car. That's why I said there's gotta "be a way to make it work". It would be amazing if you could just plug in a USB cable to the car's USB port and have it charge and play audio. I can see that happening in the near future. But for now, I think it's totally probably for someone to make some kind of connector that'll connect to the power and the aux-in and only have the USB connection coming from the Droid. (it's just way ugly having an extra cable coming out of the side while it's in the holder...)

 

[akj27]

I contacted motorola regards this and i'll keep you posted as soon as I hear from them.

 

[jkayner]

doesn't work for me. when i plug in the USB and try to play audio it still comes out of the phone speaker.

 

[Martin030908]

comes thru my phone speaker as well

 

[Oliver84]

Really? I don't know what's going on then. Can anyone else confirm that you can get audio coming out of the USB when it's connected to your laptop? I didn't do anything special. I just plugged it in to charge and then I started playing a movie. I even tested it with Pandora and same result, audio through my laptop speakers...

 

[akj27]

Really? I don't know what's going on then. Can anyone else confirm that you can get audio coming out of the USB when it's connected to your laptop? I didn't do anything special. I just plugged it in to charge and then I started playing a movie. I even tested it with Pandora and same result, audio through my laptop speakers...

Just tried that and it played using my phones speakers.

 

[Oliver84]

I don't know why but it's stopped working for me. I'm 100% sure yesterday it did what I said it did. I even showed my wife and tried it with different programs. The sound was coming from the computer speakers. I've tried to duplicate it today with no luck. I'm not computer savvy enough to figure out what happened but I do know that it is possible.

 

[akj27]

What motorola replied with:

Dear Bruno,

Thanks for reaching out to Motorola. I’ve reviewed your e-mail and I’m ready to help.

Regarding your concern, please note that the micro USB port on the Droid is only to charge it or connect it to a computer to transfer files. But it is not and audio out port. But the 3.5mm is an AUX, so if you can connect a cable with 3.5mm on one end and either USB or 3.5mm also on the other end, you should be able to listen to the music.

We hope that you find this information useful and look forward to assisting you in the future.

For information about Motorola products and services, please visit us at Motorola Home - Motorola USA

Thank you for contacting Motorola e-mail support.

Best Regards,


I guess you need to take your pills oliver

 

[defdrums]

Well I have been trying to do this as well. It is annoying that we can't use the USB to charge and listen to music through a USB radio.

Does anyone know if this could be fixed with an application? Is this a software or hardware issue?

 

[afrobine81]

it works

You do have to mount USB and also have songs already saved to phone. Music will not steam through USB like it does using auxiliary in. Have music saved, mount and head unit will detect your saved files-music