Internet-Connected Car Radios Need Data Plan

posted on Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:28AM EST

Here's one more way to get music any way you want in the car: Internet audio streamed to your dashboard via two new radios just introduced by Blunkpunkt in conjunction with MiRoamer.

How does it work? (The MiRoamer press release doesn't cover this minor detail.) It's indirect: You use a 3G-capable cellphone to capture the stream, then it's transferred via Bluetooth to the Blaupunkt radio, either the double-DIN Blaupunkt New Jersey or the single-DIN Blaupunkt Hamburg. Prices will be $300-$400 when they ship this summer or fall.

There are 16,000 Internet radio stations, more or less, six pushbuttons on the average radio faceplate, and no keyboard. So you access the stations by first going to the MiRoamer site and choosing your favorite stations, which are relayed to your phone and to the Blaupunkt / MiRoamer radios. They appear as a list or as pushbutton presets. You can also use the MiRoamer site to add in the URL of any audio source not already in the MiRoamer database.

The big question with Internet radio is: How will the sound quality be? (After, perhaps: Do I have an unlimited data plan?)

Originally posted at Gearlog.

Internet-Connected Car Radios Need Data Plan by Yahoo! Tech

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