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Navigation & AudioAudio upgrades, bluetooth, and navigation discussions surrounding the Clubman (R55), Cooper and Cooper S (R56), and Cabrio (R57) MINIs.
1. It does not come with a separate "stereo" part like most of the other ones so it seems like you just leave your factory head unit in the car, disconnected
2. There is no volume ****, so you'll either need to use the touchscreen to change the volume or the steering wheel controls which is a pretty big thumbs down if you ask me.
3. There is no micro SD card slot
4. It comes with a SIM card tray and a 4g antenna, so it could work without me having to hotspot my phone potentially.
I'll post more once I get it installed.
Last edited by jiggersplat; Mar 21, 2023 at 06:45 AM.
Got it mostly installed, looks pretty good. Screen is much better quality than the unit I am replacing, as is the sound quality. It came with a camera, gps antenna, 4g antenna, a sim card reader, two USB cables, a microphone and a CAN door chime/turn signal hockey puck speaker. The plastic bezel fits well enough. Not perfect, but better than I expected.
It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on with the wiring, as they provide two harnesses that plug into the same port. One had the remote amp turn on wire connected, and one did not. That was the only splice I had to make.
I'm working on 3d printing a little storage cubby for the opening left by the factory head unit. I'll post photos and the STL once I get it done.
You'll need to go into the factory settings and select the correct car type for the steering wheel controls to work. Their menu is stupid. You select a random CAN protocol, then scroll down the list of car manufactures to see if MINI is in there or not. Eventually I found one that had MINI and under model it has "Older" and 2015 - selecting "Older" seemed to work.
If you have the HiFi or Harmon-Kardon system, you will need to enable the "Amplifier" in the settings before it puts 12v on the blue remote wire. You will also want a line level converter to drop the signal level coming out. The previous unit I had did not require this.
Here it is, mostly installed but not totally buttoned up yet and a picture of the line out converter I spliced in.
Last edited by jiggersplat; Mar 23, 2023 at 07:52 AM.
By using the line-out converter, is your car HK equipped? Also, are you able to set the vehicle system time? My two hold-ups for digging deeper into these head units involve the vehicle system clock in the tach display, and my car has the HK sound system.
Yes, my car is HK. If you don't use the line out converter it will still work, but even very low volume settings on the android unit will be very loud.
No, I can't set the vehicle time and BMW loves their warning lights so you will get the stupid little ! on the center screen. I suspect there may be a way to do it via CANbus so maybe one of the BMW specific android apps could do it?
- The external microphone is not required. It looks like there is a pinhole mic on the bezel on the driver's side possibly, or it is using the car's built in microphone.
- The backup camera triggers off of CANbus so you do not need to hook up the trigger wire. It also is reading steering angle off CANbus so you get the nice curved lines on the display when you turn the wheel.
Here is the model for the storage pocket I am working on. The opening will be flush with the bezel. There is an opening in the back to feed USB cables through.
Last edited by jiggersplat; Mar 29, 2023 at 12:29 PM.
Finished up the install. Probably should have spent a few extra minutes sanding/painting/priming the 3d printed tray. Also, I take back what I said about the bezel fitting better than I expected. It fits about how I expected, which is to say, not perfect. There is a bit of a gap along the side where it meets the dash. Might be able to close that up if tried harder, but I'm not going to try harder.
I'm the chap who makes (well, made) that USB Volume **** - you mentioned that a more fully featured version could be useful, would you mind explaining? I'm thinking about another version.
I'm the chap who makes (well, made) that USB Volume **** - you mentioned that a more fully featured version could be useful, would you mind explaining? I'm thinking about another version.
Atmega32 and rotary encoder plus 4-way rocker plus push button - volume on the encoder, next/back left and right, press for back, long press for home. Haven't decided what I wanted to map up/down to. I'm probably never actually going to get around to it, but I'd be happy to help if you want to take a crack at it. Think something similar to a BMW iDrive ****.
Oh, that Alpine thing looks awesome - I have enough spare GPIOs to read the extra directions. It would be nice I think if there was an app so the user could specify what keys were sent for each action.
Oh, that Alpine thing looks awesome - I have enough spare GPIOs to read the extra directions. It would be nice I think if there was an app so the user could specify what keys were sent for each action.
I thought about an app for configuration as well but it'd be just as easy (for me at least) to plug it into the computer and reflash it. If you are planning on selling them, a config app would be a great idea.
