Airplay In The Car

History

Shortly after getting my iMac in 2008, I bought an Apple Airport Express to stream music from iTunes to my stereo using Airplay. When Apple released the iPad in 2010, I noticed it could also Airplay music to the Airport Express an immediately started thinking about having Airplay wireless streaming music in my smart.

I saw a broken Airport Express on eBay for not very much money and bought it. I took it apart (requires cutting) to see how it all worked. It was a fairly simple design taking the mains voltage and bringing it down to 5v and 3.3v to power the PCB. I considered using an inverter but it seemed silly and inefficient to go from 12 volts to 240 volts just to bring it back down to 5 and 3.3 volts. The easier option was to remove the mains voltage convertor and fit a 12v to 5/3.3v convertor PCB instead.

I bodged it all together, wrapped it in electrical tape and connected it to the auxiliary input (MP3 lead) on the stereo. After a little set up using a computer, it was up and running as expected.

Problems & Advantages

The only problems were that it took a little time to start each time, it looked a state and the cheap voltage convertor board I used burnt out after about 18 months. The advantage is that almost all Airport Express units that die will fail because of a faulty voltage convertor. The bit we are removing. So you can pick them up cheap off eBay.

Redux

I wanted to reinstate an Airplay device in my car again but wanted a better way to do it, so I looked and found this. Look on eBay and search for Airplay receiver and you should find something similar, if not the same.

Not only does it work with Airplay, you can also use QPlay and DLNA. WOW! Dunno what the fuck they are to be honest, probably computer and Android stuff.

The back shows how simple it is to fit to your car, we only need 2 of these connections.

The headphone socket connects to your aux in to your stereo (MP3 lead). DC5V goes to your USB power socket. This will either be a cigarette lighter socket adapter or…

…if you have a 451 with a factory fitted aux in, you’ll have a USB slot in the glove box.

Plug them both in. If you are keeping the device in the glove box, buy some shorter leads.

When you turn on the ignition, you get lights to tell you what is going on. To the left you get Wi-Fi status and on the right is the power light.

Select your auxiliary input on your stereo. Shown below is the Bosch Highline.

With the aux input selected, head on over to your Airplay device.

Go into settings and tap on Wi-Fi, you will see airmusic_A00***. Tap on it and let it connect.

Once it has connected, go into your music player, tap the Airplay symbol and select airmusic. If you can’t see the airplay symbol then either do the following:

Up to iOS6 – Swipe up with 4 fingers, swipe the lower bar right and airplay is there.
iOS7 – Swipe up with 1 finger from the bottom of the page and airplay is there.

The music (after a brief pause) should start coming from the speakers.

Don’t Own An Apple Product?

Weirdo! You should consider it, they are very good.

OK, so you are one of those strange Android owners, never mind, you can still play. Go to your favourite Android app store like the Google Play store. You’ll need to download a DLNA streaming app such as AirShare, BubbleUPnP, iMediaShare, AOA Airplay etc.

Go to your Wi-Fi settings and select airmusic_A00***. Once connected, open your DLNA streaming app. Select a track to play and somewhere on the app will be Airshare logo, click it and select airmusic.

Want To Do Something Else?

Scan for Wi-Fi connections with a computer and select the airplay connection. Go to your web browser and go to 192.168.222.254

The page you get has 4 options:

Music Service
Basic Settings
Internet Connection
Upgrade Firmware

Have a play with it and see what happens.