Hey all, just thought I'd share my personal alternative to Connected and or Navigation and or Bluetooth options on the CM.

Took delivery about a week ago of a car I ordered several months back. As I knew all CM came with an AUX in, I opted not to pop for the rather pricey integration stuff, I figured this would work... whaddya know... it does!

Pictured below is my Motorola Droid in a $25 universal cradle (eBay) with a $5 Radio Shack aux jack-to-aux jack cable (with a right angle adapter for cleaner lines and less chance of damage) and the Moto factory car charger cord for the Droid ($20 when I bought my phone). I cut away the suction cup from the mount and used 3 strips of 3M VHB tape to secure it into the bottom of the passenger side cupholder, which happened to be coincidentally virtually identically sized. The phone is very secure in the mount, able to be pivoted through 90 degrees for landscape or vertical style, charges, and plays through the MINI's sound system.

I have now tested the system pretty thoroughly, and it will play all my music (stored as well as Pandora/streaming) through the HK stereo aux jack, give navigation directions while muting that music, also mute the music to take calls, play the caller's voice through the stereo, and the directionality of the mic on the phone pointing right at the driver's head is such that I have made several calls with good clarity on both ends, or at least with no mention of poor call quality from the other end.

Just thought those of you looking for an alternative might be interested. I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work with an iPhone or the like, and it also worked with my wife's Samsung (different charger, but same aux).

Cheap and easy, so far 100% functional! (But no fish bowl or 'mission control' or what have you )

Click the thumbnail for images which hopefully are clear enough...

Cheers,
Tad

PS- I tried several rail mounted options before giving up because of the stupid handbrake interference... also have noticed that with the $250 armrest in the standard, lowest position, it actually interferes with getting the brake all the way up (which may be the cause of the thread here about the guy's manual transmission car rolling away while he was at work). Any vendors paying attention could probably make a mint with a retrofit handle that clears both the rail and the armrest... jus' sayin...

 

Why not try it and see what happens - good going!

 

BTW, gearshift is in 3rd in the top pic, 4th in the second for reference, and does not interfere in 5th either. 5th does slightly block the phone from view, and is the only gear that impedes viewing, but I think 5th is the least used gear in any 6 speed in my experience.

Also, for the sake of a clean install, I wrapped the charger cord coil around the mount's flexible arm. I suspected, and confirmed that the voltage is insufficient to cause interference with the signal on the aux cable, which is routed inside that coil, and stays relatively tight around the lower right side of the shifter shroud and into the rail/aux in spot.

Cheers,
Tad