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Honest question, why are you still using a 3.5mm jack for connecting to car audio? Outside of very old cars that have not been retrofitted with more modern he

Honest question, why are you still using a 3.5mm jack for connecting to car audio? Outside of very old cars that have not been retrofitted with more modern head units, every car that I can think of in the last 10+ years has had Bluetooth as a standard feature. It's just far more convenient.

monocasa 3y ago
Because pairing/connecting to crappy headunits is a task apparently defined by Satan to cause as much human suffering as possible.
- Kirby64 3y ago
  My experience does not mirror your anecdote, quite frankly. Sometimes pairing is a pain the first time, but any car I've driven in recent memory has very workable bluetooth that connects successfully every time. I even installed a SUPER cheap head unit in a car like 8 years ago (I literally sorted by cheapest head unit that had radio and bluetooth... it was like $35) and that was essentially bulletproof. The only case where this tends to be a pain in the ass is if you have multiple people attempting to use the bluetooth that are frequently in the car at the same time (e.g., a couple who both use the car, and you alternate who uses the bluetooth). In that case, a dongle that is connected to USB-C power and a 3.5mm aux jack directly seems superior, since you just need to connect a single cable to both charge and run audio.
  - monocasa 3y ago
    > The only case where this tends to be a pain in the ass is if you have multiple people attempting to use the bluetooth that are frequently in the car at the same time (e.g., a couple who both use the car, and you alternate who uses the bluetooth). One of many scenarios that I have hit where Bluetooth breaks down. > that case, a dongle that is connected to USB-C power and a 3.5mm aux jack directly seems superior, since you just need to connect a single cable to both charge and run audio. USB is on the bottom generally, headphone jacks are normally on the top. There're a lot of places to rest a phone in a car where the headphone jack is available, but the USB is not.
    - Kirby64 3y ago
      Not sure what the issue is with just placing the phone upside down in whatever 'resting place' is needed. Unless you're actively using it, in which can presumably you would be holding the phone... so it doesn't matter too much if the cable is above or below your phone.
      - monocasa 3y ago
        Yes, she likes to glance at the screen when she's stopped at a red light and can do so safely.
bigstrat2003 3y ago
My dude, my car doesn't even have aux input, let alone Bluetooth. I have to use a cassette adapter (or an FM transmitter) to get audio into my car. Not everyone, or even close to everyone, has a car made in the last 10 years. The nice thing about a headphone jack is it's basically universal. It's been around for some 40 years now! Anything you want to pipe into most likely can accept it. I have nothing against Bluetooth, but killing off a universal standard for one which is merely common is very short sighted. It's a perfect example of why people accuse the tech industry of being out of touch with reality.
- Kirby64 3y ago
  So... buy an FM transmitter that has Bluetooth as an input? Or replace your head unit with one that has Bluetooth? There are plenty of solutions that exist to solve this problem for very little money. I did this myself for less than $50 in parts on an older car I owned. Choosing a phone purely based on the outdated technology of your car is much more shortsighted in my view. At some point (which, has already happened with 3.5mm jacks largely) the world moves on. Also, Bluetooth IS the universal standard. It's in every single car that has been sold recently, and has been for years and years. Hell, I'd argue Bluetooth has been more universal in phones for longer than 3.5mm jacks. Early phones often had fully functional Bluetooth but had weird proprietary aux jacks (2.5mm, that weird Nokia plug, proprietary USB extensions, etc).
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    Or, hear me out... I could buy phones which use the universal standard we have had for audio connections for 40 years. I have neither the skills nor the inclination to replace my car stereo, and I can only guess you've never used an FM transmitter if you are seriously suggesting that as an option. They suck, full stop. Meanwhile, I stick to phones which aren't designed by people so short-sighted as to think that everyone has Bluetooth available. I genuinely have no idea how you can call Bluetooth a universal standard with a straight face. It's not even close. A 3.5mm isn't truly universal (little or nothing is), but it's as close as you can get. Ditching the latter in favor of the former is absolutely asinine. Seriously man, 10 years ago is not that long in real world terms. It's a long time in the tech industry, but the rest of the world simply does not move on at that pace. As an industry, we need to pull our heads from our asses and realize that most people aren't techies living in a major city for whom anything invented more than 5 years ago is old, and anything invented more than 10 years ago is positively ancient. That simply is not how the world works.

monocasa 3y ago

Because pairing/connecting to crappy headunits is a task apparently defined by Satan to cause as much human suffering as possible.

Kirby64 3y ago
My experience does not mirror your anecdote, quite frankly. Sometimes pairing is a pain the first time, but any car I've driven in recent memory has very workable bluetooth that connects successfully every time. I even installed a SUPER cheap head unit in a car like 8 years ago (I literally sorted by cheapest head unit that had radio and bluetooth... it was like $35) and that was essentially bulletproof. The only case where this tends to be a pain in the ass is if you have multiple people attempting to use the bluetooth that are frequently in the car at the same time (e.g., a couple who both use the car, and you alternate who uses the bluetooth). In that case, a dongle that is connected to USB-C power and a 3.5mm aux jack directly seems superior, since you just need to connect a single cable to both charge and run audio.
- monocasa 3y ago
  > The only case where this tends to be a pain in the ass is if you have multiple people attempting to use the bluetooth that are frequently in the car at the same time (e.g., a couple who both use the car, and you alternate who uses the bluetooth). One of many scenarios that I have hit where Bluetooth breaks down. > that case, a dongle that is connected to USB-C power and a 3.5mm aux jack directly seems superior, since you just need to connect a single cable to both charge and run audio. USB is on the bottom generally, headphone jacks are normally on the top. There're a lot of places to rest a phone in a car where the headphone jack is available, but the USB is not.
  - Kirby64 3y ago
    Not sure what the issue is with just placing the phone upside down in whatever 'resting place' is needed. Unless you're actively using it, in which can presumably you would be holding the phone... so it doesn't matter too much if the cable is above or below your phone.
    - monocasa 3y ago
      Yes, she likes to glance at the screen when she's stopped at a red light and can do so safely.

bigstrat2003 3y ago

My dude, my car doesn't even have aux input, let alone Bluetooth. I have to use a cassette adapter (or an FM transmitter) to get audio into my car. Not everyone, or even close to everyone, has a car made in the last 10 years. The nice thing about a headphone jack is it's basically universal. It's been around for some 40 years now! Anything you want to pipe into most likely can accept it. I have nothing against Bluetooth, but killing off a universal standard for one which is merely common is very short sighted. It's a perfect example of why people accuse the tech industry of being out of touch with reality.

Kirby64 3y ago
So... buy an FM transmitter that has Bluetooth as an input? Or replace your head unit with one that has Bluetooth? There are plenty of solutions that exist to solve this problem for very little money. I did this myself for less than $50 in parts on an older car I owned. Choosing a phone purely based on the outdated technology of your car is much more shortsighted in my view. At some point (which, has already happened with 3.5mm jacks largely) the world moves on. Also, Bluetooth IS the universal standard. It's in every single car that has been sold recently, and has been for years and years. Hell, I'd argue Bluetooth has been more universal in phones for longer than 3.5mm jacks. Early phones often had fully functional Bluetooth but had weird proprietary aux jacks (2.5mm, that weird Nokia plug, proprietary USB extensions, etc).
- bigstrat2003 3y ago
  Or, hear me out... I could buy phones which use the universal standard we have had for audio connections for 40 years. I have neither the skills nor the inclination to replace my car stereo, and I can only guess you've never used an FM transmitter if you are seriously suggesting that as an option. They suck, full stop. Meanwhile, I stick to phones which aren't designed by people so short-sighted as to think that everyone has Bluetooth available. I genuinely have no idea how you can call Bluetooth a universal standard with a straight face. It's not even close. A 3.5mm isn't truly universal (little or nothing is), but it's as close as you can get. Ditching the latter in favor of the former is absolutely asinine. Seriously man, 10 years ago is not that long in real world terms. It's a long time in the tech industry, but the rest of the world simply does not move on at that pace. As an industry, we need to pull our heads from our asses and realize that most people aren't techies living in a major city for whom anything invented more than 5 years ago is old, and anything invented more than 10 years ago is positively ancient. That simply is not how the world works.