Bluetooth for Your Car

by trey710

18K3214

Intro: Bluetooth for Your Car

I first tried this project with a bluetooth earpiece but was not pleased with the sound quality. I found a bluetooth stereo headset for cheap and thought I'd try the project again. Now I plug a bluetooth dongle in to the aux in in my car and stream Pandora through my stereo.

STEP 1: Disassemble One of the Headphones

On my particular headset there were three screws, t5's to be specific. When I opened the earpiece up I found the main board. This board had the battery, bluetooth module, aux in and the mic. The black wire coming off the left of the picture runs through the headband and connects the secondary board.
This is something I didn't realize. I assumed when I started this project that there would be a wire connecting the other speaker but found that it connected to another board that operated the volume control and powered the speaker.

STEP 2: Disconnect the Speaker

Disconnect the speaker wires from the speaker being careful to leave them attached to the board. I suppose you could solder directly to the board but that's just extra work. Also, this would be a good time to go ahead and disconnect the wire that connects the two headphones. Doing that will leave you with something looking similar to the picture.

STEP 3: Finish the Disassembly

Once you remove the wire that connects the two headphones and disassemble the other headphone housing you end up with something that looks like the picture.

STEP 4: Connect the Wires

Take a stereo 2.5 mm cable, cut one end and strip the wiring. Under the black sheath is a red wire, white wire and a bare wire. Split the bare wire and twist in to two seperate wires. Strip the red and white wire.
The bare wire serves as your ground. The red can be your stereo right positive and the white can be your stereo left positive.
On my headset there was a blue wire and a red wire. On the right headphone I soldered the bare wire to the blue and the red wire to the red wire. On the left headphone I soldered the bare wire to the blue wire and the white wire to the red wire.

STEP 5: Reassemble the Housing

Before you start screwing things back together, connect the wire that connects the two headphones and pop out the speakers. The connecting wire can rolls up nicely in the spot once occupied by the speaker. The 2.5 mm wire comes out where the band that connected the two headphones used to connect.

STEP 6: Connect the Two Pieces

The adhesive that once held the padding that covered the speaker does a nice job for me in holding the two headphone pieces together. I suppose you could glue them if you wanted.
Plug the jack in to the aux in in your car or run it through your tape deck, connect your phone and stream music through your car stereo.

Also, this particular headset had a mic included. My next step is to run the mic to a place in my car that can easily pick up my voice and have my phone calls through my stereo. I haven't gotten to that yet but let me know if you can get it to work.

15 Comments

dwsworks 10 years ago

you dont have to kill your bluetooth headset

dwsworks 10 years ago

dear friends, a non distructive idea for same thing more easier, and you can use your bluetooth headset and as bluetooth for car. I simply soldered a mini stereo female socket inside my bluetooth headset. Wala, now I connect my bluetooth headset to any music system, speaker, car music system via stereo male to male wire, and enjoy worldwide internet radio on my old music system.

vader406 10 years ago

Run your mic up the A pilar to the driver vanity flappity mirror

Prophes0r 11 years ago

Nice. But you can buy an A2DP dongle for like $5USD. This could be useful if you have a pair of bluetooth headphones with a band or case so broken that you cant fix it, but it seems wrong to waste a perfectly good pair of headphones for this.

You could also wire it into a rear Aux port on your stereo and hook it up to the 12v of you car and not have to worry about a dongle at all, or charging it.

dedlast 14 years ago

Nice job. Good to see you got it done. Are you happier with sound of this setup, compared to the other? -- Bill

trey710 14 years ago

For sure. The sound quality on the stereo headphones is much better than the mono headset. Also, I have better control over the volume.

rlamb2 12 years ago

Great tutorial! With regard to quality, I'm by no means an audiophile, but I tend to like my music pretty loud. I've bought dongles for the aux input that cut the volume in half compared to traditional aux but also result in crackeling, buzzing, and a static reminiscent of FM transmitters.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 = FM Transmitter (entering a competing radio tower signal area) and 10 = Direct Aux line in, how is the reception of the audio signal? If it's anywhere over a 7 I'll be hoping on this wagon this week!!

Thanks again!
Russ

trey710 12 years ago

I'd say it's about a 6.

janob09 12 years ago

thanks for this! i have the exact same headphones and had the exact same idea but i was not pleased with the sound quality and was sure i was doing something wrong with the wiring but i couldnt put my finger on it! turns out i was missing the ground wire on the female 3.5mm jack i bought from radio shack. works like a charm now :-D

trey710 13 years ago

The android phone I have does auto pair when i get within range of my car. However, there is no way to charge this particular headset while its paired. This hasn't been an issue for me. I use this primarily on a short commute to work everyday. I charge it only once every week and a half or so. Let me know if you find a work around.

iahaleem 13 years ago

Can this setup charge the battery and play music at the same time? I'm thinking about getting a usb car charger and hooking it to this bluetooth receiver so that it charges while in use. And how about auto-pairing each time you bring your music player into the car? Does that work?

JmsDwh 14 years ago

I have these same headphones and they work great as either headphones or a headset. You were disappointed with the Bluetooth headset's sound quality because they use the HFP or HSP profiles which have lower quality, mono sound. These Motorola headphones have both of those profiles, but also use the newer A2DP profile which has higher quality stereo sound and the next and previous track buttons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile

WhiteLikeRice 14 years ago

No joke, I was looking for this EXACT diy! I have the same headphones and thought this would be a great idea. Awesome job! I'm also looking into a way to use the mic.

trey710 14 years ago

That's awesome. I was really surprised when I started that somebody else hadn't already posted the idea. The mic is my next challenge. I have a Toyota Yaris and it seems that all new toyota's already have the slots for the mic just under the front dome lights. I've already run the line to the dome lights, just have to get out in the heat and connect the mic. Thanks for the comment!

WhiteLikeRice 14 years ago

My only concern is the sensitivity of the mic. Are you using the mic from the headset and just attaching a longer wire, or are you using a different mic? I guess that, from the dome light, the sound should pick up fine. Just curious.