Crocket
Member
Well I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my factory Entune head unit to have wireless CarPlay/Android Auto. I got tired of all the speed trap cameras popping up in my area not to mention having an out of date NAV system that doesn't help with traffic congestion or voice to text messages etc.... (and didn't like having to use my phone for these things). Thought I'd share my experience with this particular unit in case anybody else is in the same boat as I was.
My criteria was pretty simple:
- I did not want to spend a tonne of time and money on an aftermarket Android head unit. Yes they would of been better in many ways (larger screen, better resolution, more options/functions....), but I liked the look of the factory deck and didn't want to get sucked into the slippery slope game of ICE upgrades at this point in time.
- Didn't want to sacrifice the audio and video quality of the factory system.
Available Options:
There's probably half a dozen different add on decoders available. But many are copies of the CarABC unit. They are simpler to install and are the most affordable, but reviews on them were mixed with the biggest complaint being degraded screen resolution and touch sensitivity. The Beatsonic unit looked very impressive visually and functionally, but at it's price point I might as well change the whole head unit. Note I think the unit from Hamilton Motor Company is the same as the Beatsonic unit (or at least very similar), but given it's high price didn't really look at it seriously either. Lastly there was the CarSyncTech unit, the one I went with. It arguably has the best screen resolution (they claim no degradation so you're getting the full 800x480 resolution lol). Runs on Linux and requires you to open up the head unit and connect to the internals via ribbon cables (hence the reason there's no degradation in audio or video quality). Also, price wise it was in between the above two, so not bad (I ended up getting it at Amazon during their Prime Day sales).
Conclusion:
I've had it running for a few weeks now and can say I am very happy with it overall. Screen resolution and touch sensitivity are great (barely no delay). Only exception is when I downloaded a radio app (TuneIn Radio) which involves a lot of processing power to decompress the signal I guess, so there was a noticeable delay in this case. But since all factory features remain active, when I want to listen to the radio I can just use the factory head unit instead while still using Android Auto at the same time (don't know how I ever got by without using Waz either! It's awesome. Warns me of all the speed cameras and hiding highway police now :laugh
.
I won't say it's perfect though. On occasion it doesn't auto connect. And if you're a perfectionist, you'll probably spend a little extra time improving the plug and play install (I didn't like the ribbon cables running over metal edges etc..., so fixed it). Also the install wants us to remove the factory XM satellite decoder. Not a big deal for some as you can just download the XM app instead. But I wanted to keep the factory unit intact so the install became a lot trickier as the ribbon cable lengths become barely long enough now. But overall, for an affordable add on decoder that completely rejuvenates the use of the factory head unit, I am extremely happy with this purchase. :thumb3:
Hope this helps some who may be on the fence. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
P.S. Below images don't quite do the resolution justice as this forum forces us to downgrade them to 136kb max when posting.
My criteria was pretty simple:
- I did not want to spend a tonne of time and money on an aftermarket Android head unit. Yes they would of been better in many ways (larger screen, better resolution, more options/functions....), but I liked the look of the factory deck and didn't want to get sucked into the slippery slope game of ICE upgrades at this point in time.
- Didn't want to sacrifice the audio and video quality of the factory system.
Available Options:
There's probably half a dozen different add on decoders available. But many are copies of the CarABC unit. They are simpler to install and are the most affordable, but reviews on them were mixed with the biggest complaint being degraded screen resolution and touch sensitivity. The Beatsonic unit looked very impressive visually and functionally, but at it's price point I might as well change the whole head unit. Note I think the unit from Hamilton Motor Company is the same as the Beatsonic unit (or at least very similar), but given it's high price didn't really look at it seriously either. Lastly there was the CarSyncTech unit, the one I went with. It arguably has the best screen resolution (they claim no degradation so you're getting the full 800x480 resolution lol). Runs on Linux and requires you to open up the head unit and connect to the internals via ribbon cables (hence the reason there's no degradation in audio or video quality). Also, price wise it was in between the above two, so not bad (I ended up getting it at Amazon during their Prime Day sales).
Conclusion:
I've had it running for a few weeks now and can say I am very happy with it overall. Screen resolution and touch sensitivity are great (barely no delay). Only exception is when I downloaded a radio app (TuneIn Radio) which involves a lot of processing power to decompress the signal I guess, so there was a noticeable delay in this case. But since all factory features remain active, when I want to listen to the radio I can just use the factory head unit instead while still using Android Auto at the same time (don't know how I ever got by without using Waz either! It's awesome. Warns me of all the speed cameras and hiding highway police now :laugh
.I won't say it's perfect though. On occasion it doesn't auto connect. And if you're a perfectionist, you'll probably spend a little extra time improving the plug and play install (I didn't like the ribbon cables running over metal edges etc..., so fixed it). Also the install wants us to remove the factory XM satellite decoder. Not a big deal for some as you can just download the XM app instead. But I wanted to keep the factory unit intact so the install became a lot trickier as the ribbon cable lengths become barely long enough now. But overall, for an affordable add on decoder that completely rejuvenates the use of the factory head unit, I am extremely happy with this purchase. :thumb3:
Hope this helps some who may be on the fence. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
P.S. Below images don't quite do the resolution justice as this forum forces us to downgrade them to 136kb max when posting.
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