Blue & Me USB memory sticks

[scout]

I am in the process of buying a new 500c with blue and me. What is the general concensus on the optimum size of USB stick to use for music. The car I have at the moment (with aftermarket stereo) takes quite a while to load a 32GB stick and in fact I can sometimes end a very short journey before the music starts playing. I have found that 8GB seems to be the optimum size for my current stereo but wondered if I can go bigger with the Blue & Me system.

I also have a 160GB ipod which fires up very quickly which I'm hoping will still be the case in the 500

 

[scout]

I'm surprised no one has an answer for this question. I'll post up my findings when my car arrives.

 

[Mkala]

Hi !

First, which version of B&M do you have ? Vers 5.x is first generation, vers 6.x is second generation (different hardware).

I have the 2nd generation and I use a 16GB SanDisk Cruzer Fit drive. Works well. But it is not full....

"parsing time" depend on the speed of USB key (reading, MB/s), the number of files do you have, and I think how complexe is your folders tree.

 

[scout]

thanks for that.
I haven't got it yet but it's going to be the latest version as the car will be new. I'll make sure I keep the folder tree simple.
I will mainly use the iPod but I tend to use sticks for xmas etc.

 

[Mkala]

You're welcome.

You can check the manual for blue & me for your future car here :
http://aftersales.fiat.com/elum/

As I remember Fiat recomand max 32GB to avoid long time delay before playing.
I mainly use the 16GB USB key and start playing music dont take too long.
With the iPhone it does not take long as it send the order to play, I think blue and me does not parse the iDevice.

Hope you enjoy it like me on your new car; of you have long delay playing music post here

 

[Tony123]

i bought a 32gb card, and im not sure if its the way im copying the files, but one day i can search through the folders and it will be ok, then the next it will play all the songs, but when i try to search the folders it says no media found :/

 

[Mkala]

Which card make / type ? Not USB drive ?

32 Go is the max recommended by Fiat, not tried but my 16 works fine.

No special thing to copy files, perhaps avoid special chars, and too long folders names and paths.

 

[scout]

I use anything from 4-32 Gb with no problems, the only time I've had problems is when I've put WMA and MP3 on the same stick and then it only played the MP3 songs.

 

[good clean runner]

My 6-year-old 500 is happy with full 32GB usb sticks, but not 64GB or bigger - it looks like it can't build its index, presumably because it hasn't enough memory. Duff software that should have been fixed of course - there's no excuse for not checking for thsi & putting out an error message. That's 32GB of "normal" MP3 files with full song & album titles in the tags. I haven't experimented with whether shorter tags, for instance, would mean it would support more tracks & more GB.