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Pairing Vista Bluetooth Laptop

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Audio and Electronics' started by JoelIrwin, Nov 1, 2011.

  1. JoelIrwin

    JoelIrwin New Member

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    Has anyone had any success pairing a bluetooth enabled laptop? I have a pretty standard fully up to date/upgraded Dell XPS laptop with Vista SP2. It has a USB bluetooth adapter. I have been using it with no problem playing audio to the new Bose Soundlink (which is their first battery operated bluetooth A2DP enabled speaker).

    I wanted to be able to take that same laptop and pair it with the Prius bluetooth to play audio from my laptop through the car speakers (instead of spending time putting the music on a flashdrive and sorting it in the correct order).

    Almost all the time when I try to pair the laptop, it will bluescreen (no pun intended) with an IRQ message. Keep in mind, this same laptop has already been paired with the Bose and works fine.

    Once or twice I have made it without a bluescreen and then Windows asks me for the OEM files - which of course I don't have since Windows is supposed to already have what it needs to pair. It did not ask me for files when paring with the Bose.

    So I am currently at a dead end.

    Toyota of course says they don't support laptops which may mean they have not fully implemented the A2DP bluetooth profile. Or perhaps the generic USB adapters I purchased on eBay are incomplete implementations and y'all know of a bluetooth adapter which will work with the Prius?

    Anyone with experience trying a pairing Windows device?
     
    #1 JoelIrwin, Nov 1, 2011
  2. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    IMHO, sounds like a waste of time and I sure wouldn't want to lug around a laptop in my car, wait for it to wake up, hibernate or sleep, wait for apps to launch and deal w/non-driver friendly UI, just to listen to music... Unless you have some mount, have fun if you have to brake hard or swerve to avoid an accident.

    I'd say buy an iPod of your liking and be done with it. (I have a 2nd gen Prius so there is no A2DP support, but my primary listening device is my 80 gig iPod Classic and secondary is my iPhone 4 for streaming music from Pandora, news from apps like NPR News and podcasts synced over since it has a 2x playback mode and a 30 second back button).

    Even if my car had a USB port for playback from flash drive, I likely wouldn't bother since I depend on smart playlists, (my) song star ratings and the last played date being updated after a song's played.

    You might have better luck w/the error if you lookup the exact BSOD by Googling stuff like for site:support.microsoft.com blue screen irql less equal [followed by other info].

    I don't "sort" my music. I have playlists and smart playlists (based on criteria) as my primary means of listening to music (see http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii.../75317-best-mp3-player-prius.html#post1048677).

    If cost is a concern, you can try refurbs at http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod. Stock comes and goes. Or, buy from somewhere out of state to avoid sales tax.
     
    #2 cwerdna, Nov 1, 2011
  3. JoelIrwin

    JoelIrwin New Member

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    Agree with your points. I have an iPhone 4 and use it the way you described. My interests are twofold - first just to see if it can be done since I want to better understand how the Prius implements A2DP. Secondly, for long drives, it is easier for me to play off the laptop than to load either a flash drive or a USB hard disk or my Iphone (which is starting to run out of space and I have a 32 GB model). I live in Houston and my daughter lives in Atlanta - door to door that's 805 miles.
     
    #3 JoelIrwin, Nov 1, 2011
  4. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    Heh, I have only a 16 gig iPhone 4 and a lot of space is eaten up by apps (I have >300 on it). I only can keep 2 small smart playlists and a small # of eps of a few podcasts on it. My 80 gig iPod Classic has plenty of free space despite holding my PC's entire music and podcast library.

    Perhaps pickup an iPod Classic if you need the space and consider Pandora. If you're grandfathered into unlimited data, then maybe consider iTunes Match when it becomes available (but it's not free).
     
    #4 cwerdna, Nov 1, 2011
  5. joshjta

    joshjta New Member

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    Any luck yet? I want to be able to listen to lectures on DVD.
     
    #5 joshjta, Nov 12, 2012
  6. JoelIrwin

    JoelIrwin New Member

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    I have not tried it again since my original post. You may want to move your data off your dvd and onto a usb device (flash or hard disk) and listen to it that way. Another option would be to attach the laptop mini audio jack to the aux port in the prius.

    Joel
     
    #6 JoelIrwin, Nov 12, 2012
  7. joshjta

    joshjta New Member

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    Yes I was thinking the mini audio jack would be my fallback - I remember there being such a jack, though I couldn't find it just now after a casual search. It would be nice to go wireless though. Since the lectures are on DVD-video (rather than audio files stored on a data-DVD), the usb strategy won't work, though I've used it with books on cd. Did you go the usb route or the mini-audio-jack route or both?
     
    #7 joshjta, Nov 12, 2012
  8. JoelIrwin

    JoelIrwin New Member

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    What you have depends on your year, model and options. I have an 11 Prius IV w Navigation which gives me bluetooth, USB, and AUX. I almost always put music on an 8 GB flash drive and stick it into the USB adapter which sits in the middle under the rest next to the AUX port which I have never used.

    I do occasionally use USB from my iPhone - most of the time its for TuneIn Radio or the Pandora apps. I use TuneIn to listen to WQXR FM (NYC Classical) from Texas. I use Pandora to play Elmo and Sesame Street when the grand kids are around. Last week I played live streaming CNN through blutooth on election night but that uses up ALOT of data (about 400 MB in 1 1/2 hours).

    Here is one other tip on bluetooth. As you know, there are two bluetooth profiles: one for the phone and one for audio. For the iPhone 4, you pair once for both. For the iPhone 5, Toyota has made it more difficult for us and you will need to pair each bluetooth file sepearately.

    By the way, there are lots of utilities/software that will extra video or audio files from a DVD-Video which you can then put onto a flash drive or a phone/mp3 player.

    Joel
     
    #8 JoelIrwin, Nov 12, 2012
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