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Comment by aetch

3 years ago

Older 1999-2007 model year Ford vehicles don’t come with an aux input audio option and they have a cd changer under the seat instead. I made an Arduino shield that emulates the CD changer and injects my iPhone’s audio pretending to be a CD. The shield also handles intercepting the car headunit’s playback commands when you press the physical radio buttons on your car so it does a second emulation of a earphone clicker and passes headunit playback commands back to control the phone over the aux cable.

In short I can control my phone’s audio playback using my retro radio headunit using only a wired connection and no Bluetooth.

My schematic and source code are available at https://github.com/ansonl/FordACP-AUX

11 comments

aetch

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oftenwrong  3 years ago

One of the easiest ways to add an aux audio input to a car is to get a radio antenna bypass box, like the iSimple IS31.

gymbeaux  3 years ago

2007?! They were putting CD players in cars in 2007?! Are you in the US?

  • blcArmadillo  3 years ago

    Ford's first iteration of their Sync infotainment system came out in 2007. What were they supposed to use before that?

  • critsysdev  3 years ago

    I’m not sure if that’s surprisingly early or late

    I live in the US and had a 1991 Acura Legend with a six disc CD changer in the trunk (it was ahead of its time in a few ways) and have recently had a 2014 Honda Accord with a single CD player in the center infotainment area

    • gymbeaux  3 years ago

      I'm not sure what I was thinking, I must have been tired and maybe mixed up 2007 and 2017. 2007 absolutely would have been CD player central with a sprinkle of Aux/3.5mm connector every now and then.

  • aetch  3 years ago

    Yep, the 2007 Ford Escape hybrid I have is a US model. The next year in 2008 was when the new Escape model design had the Ford Sync audio system with aux input.

  • sleepytimetea  3 years ago

    I had a 2008 Lexus RX with a CD changer and a cassette player in the dash. Old people is their primary target audience.

  • mthoms  3 years ago

    My 2010 Audi (bought used) has a 5 disc changer and an iPod connector. Very futuristic.