USB Mouse Allows Kids in Back Seat to Control Music...

Trackball is much easier to use

See this post: Pointing Device For touchscreen. I’ve used the Logitech trackball and it’s much easier to use than a mouse, since it doesn’t need a surface to work on.

What a great idea! My kids drive me nuts - can I listen to such and such, all the time. Now I can concentrate on the road. Thanks!

I wonder if I can take this a step further and will try my wireless home theatre remote with keyboard and trackball. I'll let you know if it works
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Update, trackball works on wireless home theatre remote but not keyboard. Well that's better than no control at all for the kids.

I have to wonder if the CD doesn't work because of the power draw for the drive. Therefore, does a powered CD-Rom work?
Apologies is this has been asked/answered already, I'm new here

Out of curiosity, would a phone or tablet connected via Bluetooth solve most of your concerns? Couple it with Spotify/google play music/Pandora/whatever, and anyone can control the music easily.

This assumes you have all your content available digitally of course, which isn't always true.

Twiglett said:

I have to wonder if the CD doesn't work because of the power draw for the drive. Therefore, does a powered CD-Rom work?
Apologies is this has been asked/answered already, I'm new here

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If a USB Floppy drive is recognised by the system as a mass storage device (i.e. so the car can read mp3 files from it) then it's entirely possible that a CDROM or DVDROM drive would do the same.

But that would just allow you to use a CDROM full of MP3s in your car, it isn't the same as reading an actual audio CD which uses an entirely different protocol. So even if it does work it would be entirely pointless - a USB stick is cheaper, faster, more capacious, more robust, and more compact.

I would make the assumption that the tesla console doesn't have generic drivers enabled/installed for cd drive support.

Txy said:

I would make the assumption that the tesla console doesn't have generic drivers enabled/installed for cd drive support.

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Probably right but weird that it does have the drivers for floppy disk support.

wayner said:

Probably right but weird that it does have the drivers for floppy disk support.

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Could it be that Tesla is anticipating the next retro phase in audio? Right now it is vinyl. Next up is the floppy disc ;-)

wayner said:

Probably right but weird that it does have the drivers for floppy disk support.

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That is actually quite bizzare. My best guess would be that the floppy drive is emulating a generic USB mass storage device for compatibility with newer computers, while CD Drives (due to standards) show up quite differently to the operating system.

I have connected my teens phones by Bluetooth. They can pick their own music and control it from their phones. simple.

Txy said:

That is actually quite bizzare. My best guess would be that the floppy drive is emulating a generic USB mass storage device for compatibility with newer computers, while CD Drives (due to standards) show up quite differently to the operating system.

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it may be the other way around in that USB a devices are emulating floppy drives sice floppy drives predate USB by a decade or two.

Or maybe the floppy driver is hard wired into the Linux kernel used by the Tesla.

Yes, but will this work?
Amazon.com: Ion TTUSB Turntable with USB Record (Discontinued by Manufacturer): Ion: Electronics

Back on topic-
my kids love controlling the music with the mouse from the back seat!
If anyone ever needs any extra convincing that this is just a computer on wheels, the mouse seals the deal.

It's too bad the scroll wheel doesn't work.
Also, the kids' accuracy isn't great, so when trying to click around they often mis-click and start messing up the seat heaters or temperature, etc.
And one time they hit the no-sign too many times too fast and it kind of messed up slacker and we had to call Tesla to get them to reset the account (it was asking for a captcha to log in).

So, give the little overlords in the back a bit of control, but don't let them go crazy.

I would love an app that would enable guests in my car to have access to the music on my USB drive so they can choose what they'd like to hear. Maybe controlled with a smartphone or iPad but without access to any other controls for the car.