Android head unit to replace RNS510

[GeoffT]

I was so frustrated with the limitations of the RNS510 especially the navigation part that I have sold mine and my Kufatec BT module and installed a chinese android headunit Eway842p. I have had it a few weeks now and have spent a lot of time playing with settings and apps etc but have now got to a point where it is very usable and is happily running Copilot Premium as the satnav. The unit cost £250 and Copilot £20. Compared to VW navigation, Copilot is light years ahead. You can customize speed and priority for all types of road and I now have settings that give accurate travel time estimates and sensible routes avoiding the narrow Devon lanes the RNS was addicted to. It comes with a speed camera database and customisable warnings. The media player can play from SD card/USB/internal memory and displays album art if you have it. Radio reception at the moment is poor because I didn't have the correct diversity adaptor but one is on the way. The BT phone system works fine and downloaded the phonebook from my Galaxy S3 no problem. That part has a less than perfect interface and I will look at downloading another dailer app at some point, but it works fine. The fascia buttons can be programmed to do what you like as can the steering wheel buttons which work well even with add-on apps. All the CAN interfaces work fine - reversing sensors/heating controls display as you would expect. I have set my phone up to turn on wifi hotspot when connected to the car, so I can use that for traffic data, google search etc etc. There are some downsides - it takes maybe a minute to boot, during which time reversing sensors don't work, so if you park somewhere you need to reverse out of when you start off this could be a problem. The info the system sends to the DIS about radio/media/nav is very basic (ie track number or radio frequency rather than name) but I just recoded my car to remove radio/nav altogether so that nothing from the unit displays in the DIS which I never used even with the RNS510 and prefer to leave on the trip info screen anyway.

So, overall I am very happy with it so far. It looks very close to factory look the slightly longer control knobs being the only real physical difference. You do probably need a reasonable knowledge of Android to get the best out of it, but I think this type of device is going to have a big future. If anyone is thinking of getting one and has any questions, I will be pleased to help. I will try to take and post some pictures later.

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[GeoffT]

A few photos. Not great quality but gives an idea of what it can do. The photos remind me of another very minor issue. Because the USB button is just a cover for a front USB port it doesn't illuminate like the others. Pity really as I've got no need for the front USB anyway as I've run the rear one to a 4 way USB hub in cubby under the drivers side of the dash, where the Wifi dongle and USB stick for music plug in.

https://plus.google.com/photos/11722687 ... MOZ3tv9uQE

[/////AMG]

I'm glad someone has tried it out!

I was looking in to it a while ago (http://www.sciroccocentral.co.uk/forum/ ... 50#p136050) but decided to wait a while...£££!

Can this unit do other things like screen mirroring, etc? a bit like from the link above?

[norco]

Looks so much better than that slow, dimwitted unit VW charge a lot of money for It guess it will work with the Dynaudio amp and speakers? I'd be happy to plug my Android phone into that once I'd found a suitable firewall Be interesting to hear your long term experience.

[GeoffT]

It has a connector for line outs sub etc so I guess you should be able to connect it to anything. I've added another app today. I was already using the pocketgpsworld speed camera data within copilot but discovered that they do their own android app for camera warning. I've loaded it and it's brilliant! Runs in background so whatever other app is running a window pops up and/or audio warning with an additional warning if you are inadvertently over the limit. I've also got mysms running in a homepage widget so I can read texts (when stationary obviously). I reckon its 90% there now. Need to find a better dialer which allows shortcuts on the homepage to make it up to nearer 100. But that's the beauty of an android unit, always a way to customize and improve.

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[Jason81]

Nice, where did you buy the Eway842p from? Also how are you finding the Copilot sat nav?

[GeoffT]

I bought it from Ebay. I've yet to really test Copilot in earnest but on trial navigations to places I know the RNS510 took me on really weird routes it is way better. You can tweek the average speed and the priority given to every different type of route motorway/dual carriageway/major roads/minor roads/local roads and I have adjusted them so that it won't go on the smaller roads unless totally unavoidable which is what I want. Seems very good generally with clear junction guidance including a realistic junction representation that pops up on motorway junctions etc. On the Copilot forums some people say the traffic information is a bit inaccurate, but I haven't had personal experience of that yet.

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[BMR]

I assume you need GPS on your car before getting this head unit otherwise it wont work? only just got my Scirocco and finding the RNS510 a tad erm boring

[Paralla]

Looks so much better than that slow, dimwitted unit VW charge a lot of money for It guess it will work with the Dynaudio amp and speakers? I'd be happy to plug my Android phone into that once I'd found a suitable firewall Be interesting to hear your long term experience.

Maybe it would work with Dynaudio but probably not. When Dynaudio is fited the factory head units are coded to send a much lower power output suiatable for use as the input to the Dynaudio amplifier rather than power the speakers. I suspect the speaker level output of any aftermarket head unit would be too high to be sucessfully used to drive the dynaudio amp.

[GeoffT]

BMR no need for anything pre-installed. The unit comes with its own GPS aerial for which there is an ideal little recess above the radio opening and behind the vents in the dash so its completely hidden. My RNS GPS aerial used the same location and I've never had a problem with reception.

Re the Dynaudio. I have no experience of it but it sounds like the line level outputs from this unit might be suitable to input into the Dynaudio. If the standard system drops the speaker output to a lower level fif Dynaudio this may well be equivalent to line level?

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[BMR]

oh so its pretty much a plug and play operation then? has any of you had any experience with the dynavin?

[GeoffT]

I've just come back from the first proper trip using the new unit, so I thought I'd do a bit of an update. The Copilot Premium navigation software is brilliant. Sensible routing, easy to use, clear information and worked faultlessly on a 380 mile round trip involving 4 different destinations. Clear "photo-realistic" motorway junction guidance are really helpful. Another thing I really like is the "drag and drop" route feature. This does what is says and if you want to tweak the route it suggests you just touch the part of the route on the map and drag it to the road you prefer. I used it for the route from Devon to Warwick. All satnavs I've tried choose the M5/M42/M40 route (it is longer but may just be slightly quicker) but I prefer to leave the M5 at J9 and take the A46 from there. So I just dragged the route to somewhere nearer the A46 and it quickly switched route. It normally don't have voice instructions on, but I tried the Text to Speech option just to see what it was like. It gives pretty detailed information which would be really helpful at tricky junctions where you didn't want to look at the screen too much. Typical guidance "At the Sandygate island, take the first exit onto the A three-seventy six to Sidmouth". My only criticism is that to turn voice commands on or off involves about a fair bit of navigation through the menus to achieve. A simple mute/unmute button on the map page of main menu would make things a lot easier.

The PocketGPSWorld Speed Camera App worked perfectly too. I went past, fixed, mobile & average speed cams on the trip and it alerted me to all of them. The only thing is the sheer amount of potential mobile speed camera locations got a bit tedious. It seems every bridge across the M5 is a possible spot! You can turn off alerts for specific types of camera, but that kind of defeats the object.

The media player worked fine. I have a USB stick loaded with all my music and an SD Card loaded with just current favourites. I can just flick between the 2 at the touch of one button and leave to system in shuffle mode. All satnav instructions & Speed Cam warnings play over the music.

I have fitted the correct aerial adaptor now and FM reception is back to how it was with the RNS. AM is worse but I have downloaded an internet radio app that I am going to test if I need Radio5 which is the only station I ever listen to on AM.

I have found an app that loads any app I choose automatically at boot, so that the Speedcam app now runs all the time without me doing anything.

Overall, I would thoroughly recommend the unit. For a total outlay of £270 (£250 for the unit, £20 for Copilot and I already paid the £20 per annum for the PocketGPSWorld camera database access) I have a proper, modern navigation system with free map upgrades, a flexible speed cam warning system, a media player, radio, bluetooth phone, and the ability to add any app I like from Google Store. I certainly wouldn't swap it back for my old RNS510.

[norco]

Sounds excellent. Thanks for taking the time to review.

[Paralla]

You have been very detailed but you haven't once mentioned how it sounds (beside the radio reception quality). Seems like you are more interested in the unit as a navigation device and not a stereo and thats fine but it would be interesting to hear thoughts on the actual sound.

Is it noticeably better, the same or worse than the factory head unit?

[GeoffT]

Fair point. I have concentrated on the features as my main driver for doing this swap was to get a decent navigation system but to my ears it sounds just as good, if not better, than the RNS510 it replaces. I have adjusted the equalizer facility to get the sound exactly to my taste (fairly flat but with a slight bass boost and treble cut) and I can play music as loud as I want without any distortion or it feeling like it is running out of power in any way. I am not an audiophile but I certainly dont think the sound quality is in any way lacking. With the inclusion of line outs (including seperate sub output and adjustment in the equaliser) you are always free to install a seperate amp/amps if you wanted more power, but I don't think it is necessary.

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[GeoffT]

Just a quick update. I'm on holiday this week and have had a couple of problems with the unit. Firstly, it went a day or so giving "unfortunately xxxx has stopped running" for music, disc & radio so basically all the built-in functions. My own apps carried on working and then for no apparant reason the built in ones started up again. Then today the unit wouldn't boot at all. I ended up having to pull out the radio fuse for a short while and then it rebooted fine. I suspect on all these occasions I have problems has been when I start the engine with the unit already booted up. If I simply start the car and then let it boot it is fine. But if I just turn on the ignition first and program the satnav, then start the engine that is when problems can happen. I guess it is like just turning of power to a running PC if the voltage drops enough when starting the engine.

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[Darrenmc168]

Anyone having massive problems with the radio reception on their android head unit? I have fitted a xtrons unit and is great, but the radio reception is horrendous, so much so I'm thinking of sending it back, I've tried a double fakra connector and is made no difference is their an adaptor or booster u can fit, otherwise it looks like its going back.?
Thanks

[GeoffT]

I have a double fakra adaptor on mine and FM reception is OK. Its not quite as good as with the OEM unit but is certainly usable. I don't listen to the radio much anyway but if I do I use an internet radio app I have installed (can't remembered its name, I'll check it later) . I have created a Tasker routine that puts my phone automatically into wifi tether mode when it is connected to the car bluetooth and then the car headunit connects to the phone wifi hotspot. The internet radio then gives excellent quality radio reception, providing the phone signal is ok, and a much bigger range of stations.

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[gunnermatt]

quite tempted by a Parrott asteroid smart " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[caldyer2]

GeoffT, what double fakra adaptor did you get and where did you get it from? I've been having trouble with mine!