Recently I’ve been interested in purchasing a new car radio, as my current one has no auxiliary input and is basically a rudimentary device. Thinking about different options, and even considering a carputer project, it occurred to me that there should be a car radio that would be powered by your smartphone and allowed seamless integration with the car.

Here’s what I’m thinking: (sorry for the disorganized post, just writing stuff as I’m thinking)

The “radio” itself would be nothing more than a headless Bluetooth (or other protocol) interface for the smartphone to hook up with. The front face would simply be a dock for your phone, and maybe a few additional buttons and knobs for volume, calls, etc.

The reasoning behind this is simple: I already own a pretty decent computer (my smartphone), why should there be another one to function as my radio? Not to mention, my smartphone has many other features that are only found in very expensive car audio solutions.

So this would cut costs tremendously on this device. I don’t see how it could cost more than $100, if that.

Moreover, there’s the issue of security. You purchase a very expensive radio and you hope it has a removable face plate, which you then have to stash somewhere or take with you, or even mask with ridiculous solutions such as this one. This, of course, rules out very expensive LCD radios out there, which are cool to have, but incredible thief magnets. With my proposed solution, your radio face plate would be your smartphone. You already carry it around all the time, and never leave it inside the car. This solution would help you remember to take your phone with you, and also serve as a great car dock for your phone, of which there are no clear winners in the car market.

This also solves the OS issue. Unless you’re building your own carputer, pretty much every car radio manufacturer uses their own proprietary operating system. With your “Smartradio” (TM?) you’d be using your phone’s OS, which you already know and love (Android, of course).

Of course, this would mean you’d need specific car apps. Most phone manufacturers ship with specific car-mode interfaces, and this works fine. Like I mentioned above, the Smartradio would interface via Bluetooth to your phone, which means with A2DP your phone’s audio would sound in your car speakers. This is already a feature of many expensive car radios out there. There’s really no need for a separate microphone cable, as most smartphones today already do a good job of capturing sound and cancelling out noise.

Another interesting connection would be an OBD-II Bluetooth hookup, which today works using special devices and software.

So about the apps… It would be great having a single app that joins all these features into one: calling, radio, navigation, OBD stats, etc.

Existing alternatives

From a quick Google search, this is what I’ve been able to find.

• Building your own carputer would give you the features I’m looking for, but it will also cost you a lot of money and work putting it all together. Not to mention it’s a thief magnet (unless you hide it somewhere) and you still have no where to put your phone.
• Parrot Asteroid. Essentially an Android smartphone reshaped into a radio with a big screen. Expensive, thief magnet, nowhere to put your phone.
• Pioneer AppRadio. More like what I’m looking for, the unit is essentially dumb and driven by your smartphone, but it’s still surprisingly expensive ($300+) because of the screen and the Pioneer brand. Plus the apps that can be used must support the Pioneer APIs, which is… meh. Also a thief magnet, and you still have nowhere to put your phone.

Let me know if there’s anything else I’m missing, or if this is already done.

I’ll be working on some mockups of how this might look, and hopefully be posting them here soon.