[bceye]

I would like to connect my macbook to BMW so I can use car's speakers for laptop's audio output. I am trying to do this in order to take measurements of the car's audio response.

I can't figure out a way to connect my macbook to the car properly however. There's no aux input in the car that I've found. I tried bluetooth, but my macbook is recognized as phone and not audio source, and trying to switch to audio source comes up as an 'connection failed'.

Are there other ways I can try so I can use car's audio system as my laptop's audio output?

[VirtualGuitars]

Bluetooth might work. It’s just audio streaming.

[Paladin1]

As VirtualGuitars says, you can basically pair any BT device as an audio source and use the BMW more or less as a BT speaker. Go to Media, Mobile Device, search for device and pair. Should work with any phone, tablet, laptop, watch, etc., but there could be specific problems related to BT version on the device - would check to make sure versions are current. Works great with my Samsung Tab S8 Ultra (you obviously need to have audio files on the device, and select to play).

[VirtualGuitars]

You won’t be able to plug it in directly via USB. Bluetooth streaming is the only way I can think of…

[Paladin1]

Correct - wireless only for an audio connection, other than a flash drive.

[bceye]

Thanks for the replies. Hmm, as I mentioned above, bluetooth streaming from macbook pro (m1) doesn't work as car thinks it is a phone and not an audio device (very strange). And car doesn't let me pick 'audio' option under the connected device settings for the laptop. If you were able to do this yourself, please let me know how you did it.

[VirtualGuitars]

Originally Posted by bceye

Thanks for the replies. Hmm, as I mentioned above, bluetooth streaming from macbook pro (m1) doesn't work as car thinks it is a phone and not an audio device (very strange). And car doesn't let me pick 'audio' option under the connected device settings for the laptop. If you were able to do this yourself, please let me know how you did it.

You could probably eff with the MIDI audio settings on the MacBook to get around this, but probably not worth it. Just buy yourself a cheap iPod instead.