Although the Big Sony press event is long over, there is still some great stuff to see that is to come out of the major Japanese manufacturer. There has been lots of focus on things like Wearables and Car Integration at CES this year, as we’ve seen things like the Razer Nabu fitness band, and companies like NVIDIA showcasing their plans to integrate their upcoming Tegra K1 Super CPU into vehicles in the future. Even Sony had a Wearable to show off called the SmartWear, a fitness band of their own to compete with the likes of fitbit and others. It looks like Sony also has some Car-integration plans of their own, although theirs is a bit different than the way Google plans to put Android into cars in the future. Sony wants to help you integrate your smartphone with your vehicle, by way of their new Dock/Cradle called the Smart Cradle Receiver(model XSP-N1BT). The image of this dock comes courtesy of @evleaks G+ page, and the information on the dock can also be found at Sony’s blog under the news and announcements section.
This in car mounted system allows you to dock your phone right into it, giving you full control over various smartphone features in an easy to use and accessible setup. Dock your phone into cradle and you’ll be able to control your music, which is accessed from your devices onboard storage. You can also use your device to control playback of music from other in-car sources. You can control all the music from the phone itself, and manage things like volume from the cradle, but Sony was kind enough to add in the capability to use an IR remote so that the cradle and the music functionality could be controlled from the back seat if need be, or if you just wanted to use the remote yourself you could.
Since playing music on your device can be a heavy drain on the battery, once docked in the cradle you can plug your device in to charge it with a micro USB cable that comes included. If you use the Sony Xperia Z1 or Z1S you will have no need for the micro USB as the pogo pins will connect to your device and charge it that way. The dock communicates to your phone via the USB cable or through bluetooth, so if you have a full charge you have no need for any sort of cables at all. The dock is expected to go on sale sometime in May, and comes along with a $250 pricetag for those that might be interested in picking one of these up.