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Comment by elliotec | Hacker News Reader

How often do you do that?

Often enough, actually, when I'm driving. My car has a stereo-USB connection that works very well most of the time, allowing me to charge my phone and cycle through my music collection. Its charging speed is slow though, going only at maybe what, 500mA, 1A if I'm lucky? It takes even longer if I'm using Google Maps. To counteract this problem, I've recently started using a power converter, that I normally have for charging my laptop, to charge my phone because it offers a 2.1A USB port that works a LOT better for me.

Why does this matter? Because I can still have my phone's audio going to the car by way of an AUX cable.

I do almost every day in my (circa 2007) car which has a 3.5mm aux jack and no Bluetooth.

There are lighter-plug Bluetooth receivers that have an analog out specifically for cars, I'll likely have to buy one of I end up getting the 7.

Whenever I'm listening to something and the phone is about to die.

Edit: also in the car (I have an older car with just an AUX jack).

There are 2.1A lighter-socket USB adapters.

The point is that you can only hook up audio OR power, not both simultaneously.

Most of the time when I'm driving I have my phone connected to my car with an aux cable and charging via lightning.

I had an old iPod that was unlistenable while it was charging, because noise from the charger leaked into the audio. I tried again recently with an Android phone and found the same problem to a lesser degree. Nice to hear that people are able to do this without trouble.

Sounds like you may need a ground loop isolator.

I've got portable speakers that sound absolutely terrible when actively charging. Do you reckon this would help?

Ground loops are very odd phenomena that can be hard to debug, but it will probably work.

(The stupid option is to lift the ground on your mains adapter, but you really shouldn't do that, somebody might get killed.)

I do that quite frequently. When I take a road trip, generally I have my phone plugged in, doing the navigation, and providing music. I use the headphone jack to connect to my car's audio system (no Bluetooth) and a 12V to USB adapter for power.

Nearly every day in the car.

very often, it's a great way to dj to an arbitrary device, plug 3.5mm aux cable and charger, apply shuffle, enjoy music. i would hate to drain my battery playing music with my phone when it's sitting next to an outlet and is only incapable of charging due to poor design decisions.

maybe they'll make a lightning hub/splitter so you can do both?

I imagine it's fairly common, since streaming music (even over WiFi) drains the battery.

My own setup for a while now, when playing music for long periods, has been to connect the phone to charge using the lightning cable, and then connect to a (wireless) Bluetooth speaker which itself is also plugged in and charging using its own USB cable connected to a USB charger. It has much the same effect as having a "charging dock", but just requires two powered USB ports rather than a custom piece of equipment.

This setup is becoming more and more similar. My own system is my iPhone just plugged into whatever Lightning cable I want (laptop, bedside left, bedside right), with either Bluetooth or Spotify Connect to the Amazon Echo on my shelf.

This is the wireless future they're talking about. We shouldn't have to have a device to charge and listen through at the same time. We should charge wired and listen "wirelessly" (even if the audio device is wired for power).

I do this all day, every day. Long skype conference calls tend to drain the battery pretty fast.

Just my view but I do it daily while at work.

I do quite regularly.

This is huge for cars. Power and Podcasts via a single Plug.

All the time at work

Every night while falling asleep to a podcast.

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