USB flash drive for radio

I'd go with buying a cheap, Like really really cheap mp3 player and load up some songs. Get an aux jack and BOOM no need to format.

You can even add storage with micro USB

 

I used them for various things (but never with heat, vibration or in the car), often for transferring videos from computer to a BluRay player at home, or from one computer to the other. I've had SanDisk SD cards that have been no problem, but all 5 of thier USB sticks for this model failed on me -- including the 2 replacements SanDisk sent me to replace 2 that had failed.

I've never seen anything like it. The worst I ever saw from anyone else was simply the housing falling apart on a Centon DataStickPro (only on 1 of the 3 I have of those), but never had a problem with the internals going bad except with SanDisk. I know SanDisk sells a lot of product, but I now avoid them because this wasn't a fluke -- all of them went bad (same model, though different sizes).

In my car I keep an old 1GB Staples 2.0 that has held up quite well.

Another tip (someone else pointed this out, but it was in another thread):
Holding down the center circular audio mode button on the left of the steering wheel for about 1 second will pause your MP3 playback (whereas letting go of it quickly will cycle through audio choices), but holding it down for about a second will pause playback. Holding it down for a second again will resume playback.

 

Phone memory is limited vs a huge USB stick. Isn't using the car display easier than the display on your phone (although you can use Siri on the phone and the car player has no voice search)?

 

people still have MP3s?

 

My phone has 64GB (2x 32GB) of memory. My buddy has an iPhone with 128GB of memory. The thumb drive I use in the car is 32GB. I don't know what I'd do with more.

For common navigation functions, HELL NO!!! I can pick up my phone, hit the Google Maps button, hit the button that lets the phone listen to me, and say, "Flos restaurant on Frank Lloyd Wright" and it finds it. The stupid nav with these cars cannot be used while you're driving, first off. And then you have to start with the State, City, street#, and so on. Punching each thing in one letter or number at a time. The UI is exactly like the $50 Garmin GPS I got 7-8 years ago that I used until I figured out how to use Google Maps. Then I gave it to Goodwill.

In every respect I can think of, the features of Google Maps on my mobile devices are far better than what's built-in to the on-board nav in the Prius, which is, as far as I can tell, pretty much the same crappy nav system that was in my 2012 Prius V.

 

There is a file and folder limitation on the USB interface. So if you have lots of music, then you need to first sort them within the limitation of the system. Also, the infotainment does not organize the tags properly.

But for me, i generally listen to at random shuffle so the ordering is not a concern to me.

 

Problem is theres only one usd slot and Im using that for my phone

 

Are you using USB for phone to just charge or to connect to the head unit? If you are using just for charging, then you can buy one of those cigarette lighter USB adapter and use the rear seat plug. If you are using phone to connect to the head unit and want to switch back and force between USB thumb drive and phone as audio source, you may want to try using USB switch like I showed on USB flash drive for radio | PriusChat I connect my phone with bluetooth, so I have not tried using phone on the USB switch, but I have ipod connected to one of USB port on the hub and others being occupied by thumb drives. I have no problem switching the source of audio between thumb drives and iPod using the switch on the hub.

 

Even better, it is now on sale on Amazon, only cost $3.84 with free shipping over $25.
Sabrent: 10W Qi Charger $9.70, 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub - Slickdeals.net

 

You're right about phone memory as long as you have a phone with a lot of memory. I had a 16 gig iPhone and ran out.

You can do voice search while driving with the on-board navigation system. It doesn't work well however.

The Bluetooth with Google Maps sucks as well. I have to turn mine off on the phone to hear the prompts. So frustrating and fumbling with a phone while driving is distracted driving.


iPhone ? Pro

 

Sounds like you need to upgrade your phone. I have a friend who drives for Lyft and he kept complaining about similar stuff. I finally dragged his butt into a T-Mobile store and got him set up with a new account and a new phone. Prior to that, he was using Cricket, and one of their cheap free phones, and it was totally underpowered. With T-Mo he got a new Galaxy S6 (latest one at the time) and it blew him away how much faster it was. Previously, his phone would just seem to freeze-up while in Google Maps doing some nav functions while he was en-route. The new phone never did that once. He recently upgraded again to a newer phone and likes it even more.

Even the newest free phones today are far more powerful than what you'd get 4-5 years ago. Some places are offering Galaxy S6's and S7's for free as their "low-end" phones today!

Also, it may be worth mentioning that most Android phones have a slot where you can install a micro-SD card. Apple phones have never offered that, but their memory is typically way larger than Androids (and you pay a pretty penny for it).

I just bought a 64GB micro-SD card at Best Buy for $29 a couple of weekends ago. The prices are constantly dropping.

 

Actually, I've got an iPhone X with 256 GB memory. Someday I'll copy over the full 32 GB usb stick full of music over to my phone.

 

And it doesn't have enough horsepower to run Google Maps???

I've had zero problems with GMaps on an iPad Mini 3 with 16GB of storage. I think the CPU and RAM in the iPhone X are both about double what's in my iPad Mini 3.

 

The issue with Google Maps is being able to hear the voice prompts; not a memory but a Bluetooth/Google Maps problem. You either have to turn off Bluetooth on the phone (no phone calls) or in the Google Maps setting (not a persistent setting), or select Bluetooth audio in Entune. The latter limits you to just hearing what comes from the phone (I.e., no Sirius XM, etc.).

Also, I forgot why I originally went with a USB stick instead of the phone; usb audio is better quality/fidelity than Bluetooth audio.