Using the Nexus Home Dock in the Car…
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As some of you know, I’m…er…cheap. Ok, look, I’m an old man with a nine-year-old, so there’s not much disposable income anymore. And also as most of you know, I have a bunch of XM Satellite Radios around, all but the first one bought at substantial savings over “retail” (no, no, I don’t have a “guy,” I just am always watching out for sales and such). One of the radios I have is a Samsung Nexus 25…actually, we have two Nexus 25’s (from henceforth known as the Nexii); one I was given as a Christmas Present from my wife and my daughter, and the second was a killer deal from Crutchfield a while back that included a $55 XM prepay card, bringing the price of the unit down to under $15, including shipping.
(A quick explanation about how the Nexus works; there are actually three parts, all required: the Passport, the Nexus, and the cradle. The Passport is the XM Satellite Radio…it contains the Radio ID for which I pay, and is a cool system so that no matter how many Passport-ready XM radios you have, you only pay for the one subscription, and wherever the passport is, there you are (of course, thanks to the knuckleheads threatening to merge, this cool technology will probably be smashed by the Sirius overlords, assuming those of us vehemently against the merger can’t get it stopped). The Nexus is the player, allowing for recording of live XM while in a cradle, and when out it’s an XM/MP3 player only. The cradle is the piece that puts it all together. So if Annie has the car, she can take the Passport and her Nexus and listen live. When I have the Passport, she listens to recorded XM material (she still has like four hours of the St. Patrick’s’ Day Celtic Channel on it) and MP3s (her Marshall Chapman tunes, some Old-Time Radio) while I’m listening live. Both Nexii run off of the same Passport, so this only counts as one “radio.”
Each of the Nexii came with a home kit, but neither of them came with a car kit. Now we’ve had XM radios in the car for a while now (beginning with the Roady2 I activated in September 2004, running through the Tao XM2Go which was also a loyal and faithful servant), so not having one in the car now seems kinda silly. But I didn’t have a car cradle for the Nexus, just two home cradles…which look identical, but have minor differences (only in the home cradle will the radio record scheduled programming, and only the car cradle has an FM transmitter - didn’t need that, since my car is old and has a tape deck). So instead of spending $70 on a car kit for my Nexus, I decided to use the spare home kit in the car.
This sorta assumes the Nexus isn’t your first radio, and you already have mounting hardware in your car (if you don’t, this doesn’t make much sense). It also assumes you have a spare home kit, or are planning to carry your home unit back-and-forth (this is perfect if you want to record The Bob Edwards Show in your car while you’re at work, BTW). Either way, this is about as close to a “0″ on the difficulty scale as you’re gonna find…honest, this is simple. Copious photos after the jump…
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