Hi After hunting all over the web. I have decided to buy a Parrot 9200 with Display. Now I want the display to mount in a pod. I saw the pods for sale and the parrot for sale but it is all in foreign currency. Anyone know someone in the USA or UK that sells these or at least speaks english. Thanks. I want my bluetooth and handsfree to work in my mini. Have controls but phone does not work.

 

Skip the parrot. I sold them for several years and they are not reliable. The controllers are constantly failing and there are several, not well thought out, idiosyncrasies. I would highly suggest looking into the Bury 9060 music. It is 10 times the product for about the same money. And the Bury uses voice activated software far above anything offered by anyone else.

 

Does the Bury 9060 use the steering wheel controls. I like the parrot because it does and you can get a Pod to place the display in it. I see the Bury 9060 does it plug and play like the parrot. I want someone I can hook up and not have to worry about screwing my car up. I don't want to have to take it to the dealer after I install it. My nearest dealer is in the next state and over a hour and half away. So not right down the street. I got my mini after my wife purchased one. I was impressed with the power and gas mileage. I got a S with some good mods done on it. I was going to buy a car off ebay but this one came through my wife's dealership and was really dirty but in great shape. So I have been cleaning and I mean cleaning. I took all the seats out and I cleaned the carpets from one end to the next. I had buffed the outside with special polish and it looks new again. I even cleaned and polished the suspension. I cleaned the underside of the car as well. Got look good everywhere. I detailed the motor and looks new. I had the car serviced and check to see if it had any problems. Good News is the lady who purchased it had it leased first and then purchased it at the end of the lease. Then when she took it in they told her she needed brakes at 1000 dollar. She traded it and was mad since it was under a maintenance plan until she purchased it off lease. Pretty horrible for a dealer to do that. But it happens. I was able to get the car before the dealership did anything to it. So I was able to purchase at 150 bucks over what they gave the lady on trade. I had the windows tinted and did some improvements on the interior. But let me know on the stereo stuff. Sorry for raving on.

 

It's all good.

Any decent (decent may be hard to figure it out) car stereo shop can use the same hard wire kit made for the Parrot and modify it for use with any bluetooth kit. So no mods to the factory wiring if you don't want. The only thing that wont work are the steering wheel controls. That being said, the steering wheel controls are intermittent at best with the parrot. The CAN BUS system that BMW uses has not been 100% figured out by any of the aftermarket interface companies. The good news is that the voice activation of the Bury is so good you will not ever miss using the steering wheel controls. Ipod functions can be accessed via voice and as well as all phone functions.

 

Did you look on amazon?
I has a Parrot unit in my Gen 1 but not this unit. It worked fine, and I had no one complain about how I sound. I had an iphone and it worked with the steering buttons. It would trigger the voice dial on the phone. It did not sync the address book to the parrot device.

However, it is not plug and play. You will have to splice into the MINI stereo wiring to get this to work. OR you have to find a 3rd party wiring harness that is plug and play. The easiest one I found was from the UK. It is not cheap once you pay the exchange rate and shipping but it works. http://www.newministuff.com/new/index.php Mikey at newministuff is the bomb. He used to post on mini sites but not so much anymore.

Cant say anything bout the other brand. Never heard of it but I am not in the biz.


Now on my Gen 2 I was going to try to move the setup from my Gen 1 over but after taking the dash apart and pulling the stereo from the speedo (Crap design) I found there were pin out differences for the wire harness.

Instead I bought a Jawbone era unit and would never think of doing the stereo interface again. The battery life is great. The sound is fantastic and it is comfortable to wear. I have had it in my ear for 7+ hour long haul drives and it was fine.

 

I really want to keep my steering wheel controls for several reasons. In some states it is illegal to drive and talk on your phone without bluetooth. In other words holding the phone to your ear. Also being military it is against the rules to drive and talk. It is even against the rules to walk and talk for that matter. You must have a bluetooth device period. Now my iphone has siri so I can text with speech so if I have speech recognition active it will help as well. I saw the wiring harness you can buy for the parrot and I also like the pod to hold the display. Pretty cool they put the Mini Logo on the screen for you also. I have never heard of Bury also. I know there are a lot of companies selling bluetooth devices. In fact I have the Mini bluetooth device that goes on the visor but I want more. I hope someone can give me a name or number of a shop I can get a parrot from that has the adapter harness and pod for display. Don't want to go overseas for items. USA needs the business to stay here. Tried of sending money overseas.

 

I will have to disagree with you on that. My MFSW controls never failed once with Parrot. But as I said, I had a custom 3rd party wiring kit made for Parrot by Newministuff.com especially for MINI. It was not an adaption of a generic wire kit from a stereo shop. Not that they don't know what they are doing.

 

Well, Parrot is a euro company so that may be hard to get all you want from USA. But Amazon has the 9200 unit unless it is different than the one you were talking bout.

Given your requirements, why not try the Jawbone? It is handsfree, sounds great and meets the requirements you stated except for music. And it can go with you when your car cannot. You can pick up one at Bestbuy and try it out and return it if you don't like it.

To answer a call just tap the unit 2 times with your finger. No button to press. To use voice dialing, press and hold the button until Siri wakes up. Couldn't be easier.

 

I want my steering wheel control to work. I think it adds value to the vehicle. I have heard good things about the Parrot wireless system. I went on Youtube and saw a unit installed with the pod for the display and it was awesome. I think there is a mini company making the wiring harness for mini to make this a plug and play unit. I heard nightmares about people trying to make their mini original with retrofit kit that cost about 1000 dollars. I think I can do the same thing they are trying to do and get more for my money with a parrot 9200. I just sold my Dice Mediabridge out of my BMW and I wished it would have worked in my new mini. But it did not work. So it is gone. So now it is time for a parrot. Just trying to find a company that sells the parrot and the mini pod for the display. I see some companies that are in the UK that sell the pods but got to be someone here in the USA selling them also. Rather keep my money in the good ole USA. Thanks for the inputs and I think I have made up my mind. I will let everyone know how the install goes.

 

Ok you win This is why I hate internet advice You had one that worked. I have sold probably about 250-300 over the years with about a 75% failure rate. But you are the expert. Happy motoring. I have nothing to gain by coming in here but trying to give some advice. I have over 18 years in 12v electronics and a solid rep in the industry. Parrot spends more $'s on advertising than the entire rest of the bluetooth industry combined. Yes some work. But the product is not very well designed and has terrible reliability. If the op choose that route, due to the cool factor, more power to him, but my advice stands. Good luck OP

 

Hi Everyone. Thanks for the help first off. I found the Parrot MKI9200 on Amazon last night for 119.00 with Free shipping from Great Lake Electronics. Now this is a BRAND NEW unit and not a open box or returned unit. Not refurbished either. So I am really happy. Now I am looking for the SOT wiring harness for the SW controls. I know they sell them.

 

Hi I purchased my parrot off of amazon and I purchased the wiring harness from Mike the Wildman in the UK. I also purchased the no holes mount for the display. The harness and no holes mount cost me around 170 with shipping. Once I received my harness it was a snap to install. Just a lot of screws and a couple of snap plates to remove. The harness was a direct plug and play fitment. I did have to reset my Dip Switches with 5 and 7 in the up position. After that the parrot turned on and off with car and I able to pair my iphone and my steering wheel controls worked everything. The harness was super quality and I am so glad I spent the money for it. The parrot talks to you and displays song titles and album covers. Has built in EQ and it's own amplifier which works OK. The factory amp does a much better job. You can switch between them also. But a good investment and can not wait to show my Mini Dealer that you can add Bluetooth and Satellite radio for well under 1500.00 they quoted. Who cares what the system looks like when you can not see it in the first place. Also if it works as good as a factory handsfree who cares. Not me. Thanks. Mike.