I'm going to have a go at putting my Echo Dot in the car, running off my 4G mobile phone and into the car via 3.5mm jack.

 

Anyone tried it yet?

Yes i have tried it but with limited success in my octy with my android head unit. The main issue it seems to have is losing internet connectivity while driving around. All requests sent via the dot have to go out via amazon and i suspect the maintenance of this connection (between dot and amazon) is continually checked/tested . It seems this connection must be constant for the dot to remain connected and as soon as it fails connection it attempts a reconnect cycle. This immediately interrupts your music once this happens and light on the dot turns to red. If you are just streaming spotify normally via bluetooth you dont get this issue as spotify (or what ever service you use to stream music) usually has a cache and does not require a constantly polled connection. As such any little blips in data connection do not effect the experience. 

 

If it worked better it would be nice as when used in conjunction with my android head unit with spotify installed and the use of the spotify connect feature, any song i select on the dot appears on my head unit, and in addition, i can then subsequently control the track on the screen or via voice commands to the dot.

 

Nice when it works but really annoying when it fails. Instead i have settled on using the google voice feature of my headunit to control spotify playback. This allows me to say stuff like "play bob dylan" and it will immediately open spotify any play it. I haven't worked out how to skip tracks with it yet but i believe this is also possible.

 

Note : if you intend to use the 3.5 mm jack rather than bluetooth you may find you also need a 3.5mm ground isolator otherwise you get a lot of noise i the signal (or at least this was the case in my experience, but perhaps i had a poor ground).

 

 

Edited 23 January, 20179 yr by djbarnat