Hi all, I'm sorry to be such a noob, but I just got a 2017 Mini Cooper S (F55) with a 6.5" screen. I can connect via USB cable and play music thru the car speakers, but that's about it. There is no Carplay or AA, it is not touchscreen and I do not have a backup camera. I thought I had an NBT system, but then I see some Minis from 2014 have a tiny digital screen with 2 ***** that are also called NBT.

I wanted to order an upgrade from Ali Express that has the screen/head-unit/bezel, it would be a complete swap of m my original screen and head unit and would be touchscreen with wireless Carplay & AA. However, when looking thru the specs it says it will work with NBT (showing a picture of the small digital screen) but won't work in EVO (shows a picture of what looks like mine). I messaged the seller, they also seem to think it will not work with my Mini.

So do I have NBT, or EVO? Or is there such thing as NBT2 or NBT EVO? I just need to know what I have so I can find legit options to upgrade to AA, touchscreen, add backup camera etc. Also curious if my current unit has the ability to plug in a backup camera.

Can anyone help? Pls see photos.

 

Hello,

We have all the info here for our Bremmen Carplay units. Don't know about those full screen retrofits, they seem to be all over the place with misinformation.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...men-parts.html

 

That's the same as mine - I have a 2017 F54 JCW.
It's an NBT - you have the small dial with the orange dot in the center console, right?

I have the Bremman with AA, and it's pretty OK. The output levels are pretty low when you are using Android Auto and there's no way to raise them so that they are in line with the radio or other audio output. That would be nice to be able to do, so you don't have to crank the volume just to reach audible levels when driving.

There's also one HUGE miss on the user interface for our cars-
The screen is divided into basically two areas:
The upper area where your apps run (or "app" if you have to full-screen one of them - which on the Bremman unit, you HAVE to).
The lower, I don't know what to call it - menu bar.
With the Bremman unit on our cars, there's NO way to move the cursor from the menu bar to the app area, or from the app area to the menu bar, if you do end up with an app that's active.

So let's say you are driving some distance - you are using navigation, and listening to Spotify. When you start the car, you get that nice split-view - spotify on the left, 1/3 of the upper screen. Google maps on the left, 2/3 of the upper screen. Menu bar below that, and your cursor is there - so you could scroll back and forth to your most recently used apps to start one of those instead.

But as soon as you do, (or if you use the "menu" button to bring Android Auto to the app drawer view, and launch an app), that app is now full-screen, and your cursor is trapped within that app. There's no way to move your cursor back to the menu bar - which would allow you to restore the split view, if you could move the cursor there. From that point on in your drive, if you want to move between your maps and your audio, you have to press "menu" and select that app from the app drawer - which in the case of Spotify, takes quite a bit of scrolling. Disappointing.

If you could actually move the cursor between the apps and menu bar, then it would be SO MUCH better.

There's competitors, I'm almost tempted to try them just to see if they have the same problem, but I'm actually leaning towards one of the units like you are looking at - having a touchscreen would instantly solve this problem - and I'm not a touchscreen guy by nature, but having to do physical control gymnastics is also not great.

The real downside of the units like you are looking at - they ALL seem to somehow not be compatible with the factory backup camera. They'll say that on their product listing. Haven't seen one yet that says it will work with the factory backup camera.
Normally, on any other car, I'd say "no big deal!" and swap it out for an aftermarket camera.
But on my F54 - MAN, that backup camera view that ALSO shows the sensors around the car -I personally love it.
And with the Bremman unit, when you shift to reverse - the unit flips to the factory screen for the backup camera. That is nice.

Realistically though, if I'm backing up to something, and can hear the sensors - probably "good enough". It would be extremely rare that I really truly don't know what sensor is near something, where by contrast, I'm actually using this Android Auto every single day, so having this odd missing fundamental ability - I'm starting to see it outweigh having that nice factory backup camera screen.