Patent ID: 8909217

Claim:
An apparatus for wirelessly connecting a smartphone to provide audio content received by the smartphone to a remote FM radio system of a vehicle, for playback over the remote FM radio system, and for controlling a playback of the audio content delivered wirelessly to the smartphone via a wide area network, on the remote FM radio system, the apparatus comprising: a housing adapted to receive a DC power signal from a remote DC power source; a control panel having a display and a plurality of controls for controlling the playback of the audio content on the remote FM radio system, at least one of the controls performing a function in common with a playback control appearing on a display of the smartphone; a first electronic subsystem in communication with the control panel and adapted to establish a wireless communications link with the smartphone to wirelessly receive audio content from the smartphone; and a second electronic subsystem configured to transmit the audio content received from the smartphone as an FM signal to the remote FM radio system of the vehicle, in accordance with one or more user playback commands input at the controls of the control panel.