troth

Tired subject probably. but I just bought this car and made a stupid mistake. I didn't check to see if it had the phone modules... It doesn't, I then started reading up on audio upgrades and they seem like a nightmare but I was starting to dig in and noticed that my car seemingly does not have an amp. I've looked in the trunk driver side right? And do not see an amp unless its really well hidden. I do have a dvd nav unit in the trunk but nothing else is there.


I do see there is a possibility for an amp less version of the audio 20 unit I'm not sure if that was for this model of car or not. Would be really nice if the amp was integrated in the head unit since I then think an upgrade would be easy.
thanks for any feedback.

jbondox

The amp is between the the outer skin and the support above the driver rear tire in the trunk. It has antenna plugged into it.

navtv and mobridge both have a bluetooth interface for it and emulates the factory operation.

If you are happy with the system, then that would be what you need. Want more than you can replace the 12 year old radio with something new, then comes the choice of adding a 5 channel amp to the factory speakers or keeping the factory and using the opti1 optical interface.

troth

I wish I was still in my twenties I would have the energy to code my own raspberry pi with canbus solution its relatively easy, just takes time and patience which I don't have anymore. The darn thing is most of the work has been done in the raspberry community, it would just take some glue to finish.

something like this

steering wheel --> canbus/pi with bluetooth in both host/reciever mode --> bluetooth phone software --> pi audio out as toslink or even just 3.5 aux out or you can even do 5.1 via usb but I'm almost thinking about one of the new bluetooth amps.

just think how much faster my e55 would be without hauling all the factory stereo garbage around..

like I said I don't have the time, maybe I can bug some college/high school kid to do the work as a class project!

anyway thanks.

jbondox

Here is me... hold phone talk down for 2 seconds on steering wheel. "cortana que up some pink floyd" "cortana where is the nearest Thai restaurant" Cortana take me home... utilizing the ASWC1 steering wheel control, mhl to hdmi, Alpine 8". interface the alpine via the opti1 on the most bus. first round was a video conversion... now I miss that feature with the lumina 1080...

troth

funny I'm running wp10 on it... lol yes cortana will be my final destination.

but its kind of strange that nobody has solved the mb problem in a low cost reliable solution. Really this should cost no more then an amp plus a couple hundred bucks at this point.

Anyway thanks for all your contributions in the past you are honest, which on forums now days is a rarity.



tr