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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Your automotive’s USB ports can do rather more than cost your telephone.
- Use your USB ports to play music or replace your automotive’s system.
- Even with wi-fi tech, USB ports nonetheless have their place.
In 2005, about 3.3 million vehicles bought included not less than one USB port. Twenty years later, greater than 200 million vehicles have embedded connectivity shops (USB-A), and as of late, a good portion of them have USB-C ports. Some autos have as many as 9 ports. Even many newer-model bikes have USB shops.
Often positioned on the entrance or rear consoles (and typically within the glove compartment), USB ports provide extra than simply charging gadgets. They permit music playback, telephone connectivity, entry to navigation methods, and extra. I’ve put collectively a couple of frequent — and perhaps not-so-common — methods you possibly can make the most of the ports in your automotive, together with some useful notes.
First, it is vital to know that some USB ports are designed for charging whereas others might solely assist knowledge switch. Most will present a measly output of 0.5 to 1 amp — barely sufficient to trickle-charge your telephone if you happen to’re additionally utilizing it for GPS or listening to an audiobook.
The commonest use for automotive USB ports is to cost our smartphones whereas touring. But when you are going to cost any gadget, harness the facility of your car’s 12-volt port (previously referred to as the cigarette lighter socket). Most 12-volt ports are rated at 10 amps, providing a technique to distribute a great deal of energy to a number of gadgets on the similar time.
An affordable answer is to choose up a automotive charger; even high-quality chargers are sometimes beneath $15. With a pair of each USB-A and USB-C ports, you possibly can cost tablets, wi-fi earbuds, digital cameras, transportable air purifiers, or perhaps a laptop computer when you drive — all funneled from one supply. And thru that supply, you could be assured your gadgets are charging at an optimum pace as a result of the amperage from the “cigarette socket” merely dwarfs that of your different USB hubs.
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Most newish autos now assist Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, enabling telephone interplay by means of the infotainment system to make calls, view maps, and work together with voice assistants. Whether or not you employ “Hey Siri” or “Hey Google” prompts to ask your telephone for instructions (“Take me to…”) or to textual content a pal (“Ship an SMS to…”), these good methods are typically dependable for answering non-generative AI questions.
What does this must do with USB ports? Bear in mind, even when a port’s major function is knowledge connection, it can be used to cost transportable gadgets (albeit weak as that energy stream could also be). Regardless of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay functioning wirelessly through Bluetooth, hardwiring your telephone to your automotive’s smartphone integration system is a technique to energy your telephone whereas additionally exploiting its “smartness.”
There are different benefits to utilizing a USB port to attach along with your car’s cellular gadget projection methods. Specifically, it supplies a extra steady connection, larger audio constancy, and diminished potential for interference.
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What’s firmware? Consider it as a type of bridge between the {hardware} and software program configurations inside good electronics. All trendy gadgets require producer firmware updates to maintain them operating easily. Your car’s multimedia unit is not any exception.
Whereas over-the-air updates can be found in a number of the latest autos (particularly EVs), many nonetheless require USB drives for set up. Sometimes, this entails downloading the firmware file from the car producer’s web site to a USB drive and inserting it right into a car’s knowledge switch port to provoke the replace. From there, observe the prompts in your unit head show, often beginning with the “System Updates” choice.
The precise steps to put in these updates through USB will range relying in your automotive’s make and mannequin. Also, it’s essential to format the USB drive in a file system suitable with the car. Relying in your automotive’s producer, this might be exFAT or FAT32. Luckily, most store-bought USB flash drives come pre-formatted with the power to learn these recordsdata.
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The second most typical use of automotive USB ports is for listening to music.
I like music as a lot as I like all tech wi-fi. But I nonetheless have a tiny SanDisk MP3 participant loaded with hundreds of songs in my 2025 Civic. It dangles from a six-inch cable linked to my automotive’s solely USB-C port, which by the way is the one knowledge port in that automotive. This fashion I can take heed to my fastidiously curated songs, but it surely’s type of a bummer that I would like to make use of that port for both the MP3 participant or to interface with my telephone, not each.
Nevertheless, your car might have a USB port that transfers knowledge and permits you to play music instantly from a USB stick or flash drive. That drive have to be formatted in a file system that your automotive helps, like FAT32 or NTFS. And it’s essential to be certain the recordsdata are saved in in style audio codecs corresponding to MP3, AAC, and OGG. Some automotive head items require you to manually navigate to the music file location on a USB drive. Others mechanically detect music recordsdata and play them immediately. Within the latter case, you are greatest off enjoying all of the songs in your library on random mode.
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Possibly it is thought of garish, however I’ve by no means had a passenger in my automotive complain concerning the multicolored scintillation of LED strip lights that I put in on the console, sprint, and above the floorboards. I believe it provides a contact of atmosphere and modernity, if not enjoyable.
These LED strip lights are powered through USB by means of the adapter in my automotive’s 12-volt port. The one disadvantage is the truth that these strips include wires. Unfastened wiring actually diminishes the general aesthetics, not less than in daylight, so it’s a must to set up them discreetly and cleverly to cover the wires if in any respect doable.
If an formidable firm can produce low cost LED tape lights that someway illuminate wirelessly, I will be its first buyer.
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Will vehicles do away with USB-A ports quickly?
My brother-in-law’s 2021 Honda Accord Touring has a luxurious function that almost all vehicles don’t: a wi-fi charging pad under the dashboard within the middle console the place you possibly can toss your telephone to juice it up. (No magnetic mount, and no dangerous fumbling with and plugging in cables required.) Extra awesomely, that pad doubles as a Bluetooth connection level with the automotive’s infotainment system, so it additionally transfers knowledge.
With that tech showing in a four-year-old automotive, it is simple to foresee Qi wi-fi charging changing into an business commonplace in midrange autos. (The time period “Qi,” by the way in which, derives from a Chinese language phrase which means “vitality move,” and describes how electromagnetic induction transfers energy from a charging pad to a suitable gadget with out a bodily cable.)
Likewise, we’ll see an uptick in wi-fi knowledge switch inside autos, which may enhance vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication and allow over-the-air (OTA) updates for varied car methods.
Whereas automotive wi-fi know-how is changing into extra prevalent, nevertheless, it stays unlikely to utterly exchange USB ports in autos. Older USB ports, like USB-A, will ultimately be obsolesced in favor of USB-C with PD (Energy Supply), and a standardized answer for high-speed knowledge switch could be on the horizon.
For now, although, the USB ports in your automotive nonetheless provide benefits in charging pace, knowledge switch capabilities, and common gadget compatibility.
