Tom,

Is this still the case? I have hesitated to pull the trigger on the DICE because having to remember to turn the iPod on each time before I start the car is a deal breaker for me as I want to put the iPod in the boot and forget it there until I want to update it with new tunes.

Remind me again what happens if you don't turn the iPod on before you start the car. And is there any way to prevent the iPod from going into deep sleep after the 10 hours or so you suggested?

Thanks,

Rich

 

My iPod touch (1st gen) does not go into deep sleep. I can leave it in the MINI for 3 days, and it picks up right where it left off.

 

Great news. I have a 2005 radio for Artoo (Sept 2002 build) that I want to put in and really wanted the DICE but was gun shy because of this. I wonder if it is the same with the Video iPod I have as well. Is there any way to tell if an iPod goes into deep sleep?

Thanks for the quick response.

Rich

 

Looks like deep sleep mainly affects older iPods:

From Apple's web site

Perhaps this clears a few things up.

 

Yes. But the newer one go into something called hibernation. From the Apple Website.

Some iPod models support a feature called hibernation. This allows the iPod to go into a power conservation mode after 14 hours of inactivity but resume operation in the same state as when it was last used. The following iPod models support hibernation:

iPod nano
Fifth Generation iPod
When the iPod wakes from hibernation, you will see the Apple logo displayed for a moment before the menu appears.

It looks like the touch will work fine buried in the trunk connected to the DICE but my Video iPod (5thG) will not if left alone for 14 hours.

Apple never makes things easy when you want to hook their devices to other manufacturers.

Rich

 

Ok, I have a Dice silverline kit installed in a 2004 MINI (with a 2005 head unit) and aside from the occaisional glitches (similar to what Packattack is posting about in this post: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-post1036.html I have really enjoyed it.

I just updated my iPhone to 3.0. When I went for a ride after, I noticed that I had some funky issues, especially on Artist and ALbum mode. It was liek it was losing its place. When I try to move up multiple artists (say click teh button 8 or 10 times) it would stop on one artist name, then another would appear and another. Then it would begin playing songs from a diffferent artist than what was displayed. It was like it had lost its place. From then on, it was out of sync until I cycled around, but it would do this every time. It actually would get out of wack even going one at a time, but it just took a little longer. Either way, it eventually locked on one song and would not come off that song no matter what. Moving up or down resulted in starting the song over. Album mode was worse and would do almost nothing at all before getting borked.

Play all and Playlist modes seemed to work OK.

Basically, I am trying to find out if this is just another of the normal glitches with the system or if 3.0 has done something to cause an issue with this thing. Anyone else having a problem?

 

Tom:

My Dice has worked great for months now. All of a sudden today it stoped playing and showed "STOPPED" on my HU. When I tried to restart using the HU controls I got nothing, so I disconnected the Ipod to try to restart it. However, it is locked on the "DICE" screen. I have reconnected and disconnected my Ipod several times but the DICE screen remains on and I am locked out of my Ipod controls. I thought maybe hooking it up to my computer to sync it, or trying to restore it would help, but I am told that my Ipod is "corrupted" and when I try to restore it my computer can't read or connect to the Ipod. Meanwhile, it is still locked on the Dice screen, and I can't even get it to reboot. Help!

Thanks,

Dave

 

Tom: This problem fixed itself. The Dice screen on the ipod would not shutoff (in other words it never went into sleep mode) and it wound up draining the Ipod battery. This apparantly acted like a reboot and everything appears to be fine now.

Dave

 

Go figure! thanks for the update.

Anyone else have any experiences, good or bad, with iPhone OS 3.0?

 

I just got the DICE for a 05 MCS and the iPhone 3GS and it worked perfectly for about 30 minutes. I then think I pushed the worong button on the HU and it now does not work. Not music, only TR01 or whatever I turn it to. Tried resetting my phone, and can't get anything. I've put CDs in and they still work, and the radio works. Do I need to disconnect the battery again? What advice do you have?
Anyone else having issues?
Thanks!
MK

 

i'm worried about the same thing. installed DICE this weekend, worked like a charm that day. the next day when i started the car, all it would say is ATTACHED and then scroll through TR01, 02, etc. no sound, no titles. tried pressing buttons on the ipod and then disconnecting, rebooting and reconnecting it. no luck, so i disconnected the battery cables sunday and that got it going. worked sunday, when i started the car this morning and several times through today of stopping and going. worked flawlessly all day.

then i left the car parked for dinner (<3hrs) and when i got in afterward, just ATTACHED and no ipod. have tried disconnecting the ipod and rebooting it, but no luck. the ipod shows the DICE screen (and when i initially started the car when it wouldn't play, it still showed a song title on the ipod).

the ipod is a 3G nano, and all my dip switches are set to off (i wanted to only control it from the HU). am i just doing something wrong here?

i love the DICE when it works, but i simply can't deal with having to disconnect the battery cables once a day to keep it working. what's the trick here?

thanks in advance for any help.

 

Every once in a while I get that. I find that when I get no sound / display, I'll just flip it to FM, and then hit the mode button to get back to the DICE. Fixes it everytime for me. My iPod is a 1st Gen Touch.

 

I found that a lot of people are having issues with DICE and OS 3.0 on the BWM forums.

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=684130

Ferroequine:
What do you have the DIP switches set to? Mine is UP UP DOWN DOWN "iPod" mode. I've heard that ALL UP or "locked" mode may work, but you lose some funtionality.

I can't get anything to work at this point. Options?

 

To be honest, I don't clearly recall, as it's been a year and a bit. I think I've got them set in the default UP UP UP Down position (having the head unit control the iPod). Make sure you turn off the ignition and wait at least a minute before switching back on between configuration changes.

 

Need some help... I have a 2005 Cooper (manuf: 05/05) and I bought the latest DICE iPod kit. I just got the new iPhone 3GS and it seems to play fine (although it freezes and lags sometimes...). However, once I plug it in, my iPhone screen says "Accessory Connected" and I'm not able to access anything from the iPod. The other features of my iPhone are okay...I can access those. But when I bring up the iPod mode, I can't scroll through my songs, artists, playlists, etc. I thought we were able to still control the functions through the iPod and not just the radio or steering wheel. Am I wrong? What's the issue? Thanks for the help!

 

you guys really ought to just put in a aftermarket HU that is ipod compatible... sounds so much better and if you get Alpine it has red backlighting to match the dash; and of course doesn't have all the bugs like the dice unit.

 

Not an option in the Gen1 MINIs that have H/K headunits - without spending a small fortune to rip out and replace the entire "system"

 

Looks like my iPhone 3GS plays fine, but like other devices made for iPods before the Touch and iPhone, the Dice unit will not charge the iPhone. No big deal for me. I have two other iPod speaker/docks that have the same issue in that they'll play tracks stored on the iPhone but will not charge it.

 

A few questions (which I think have been answered, but are still a bit unclear to me..)

1) It *does* charge new iPhone 3G / 3G S devices properly, correct?

2) Does SMART mode work with the iPhone and does it let me control the phone from BOTH the head unit and the phone's display without having to reset DIP switches?

3) If I do a trunk install, can the DICE unit be placed in the rear hatch (where the cd changer would go) and then just run an ipod cable up to the front of the car (in my case, i'd like to put it inside my armrest)? Or would I be better off with the radio install kit instead?

4) Are there still reliability issues with the new SILVERLINE PRO version? I've heard a lot of mixed reviews.. (slow, buggy, randomly stops working, etc...) *

*specifically with OS 3.0 for iPhone (which is what I have - on a 1st gen iphone)

I'm trying to decide between this kit and the simpler Kensington LiquidAUX which would work with my existing aux port, be simpler to install, and cheaper.

Thanks!

 

If you buy a unit now, it will have it. Some time around the end of 2008, they changed over to a unit that will charge the newer devices. (look around in this thread for more info). You can get a replacement interface cable for older DICE units that will also charge the 5v stuff. Mine from late last year charges my iPhone 3g fine.
I am not 100% sure, but I do not think you can use the iPod controls as well as have full control and display on the Head Unit. Though I might be wrong. Mine will not do it though. You can access all the rest of the phone, but I get "Interface Connected" on the phoine screen when I try to use iPod mode.

The trunk kit actually comes with a 10 or 12 foot cable that runs from the trunk connection area to the front of the car. This plugs into the DICE box and then the iPod cable plugs into the DICE box. The iPod connection cables are only 3 or so feet long, so the DICE box will need to be installed up front regardless. I put mine behind the piece right under the console. I took a crap load of pictures and will try to do a write up at some point. See below for one showing it before I put the pice back and after, including the way I let the wire run under the center console.

I have some of these issues on occaision, but it is fixed with a cycle through the inputs. I have had more problems with the Album and Artist modes since 3.0, which I posted about earlier, but I have not played with it enough lately to know for sure if it is the normal glitchiness with these units or something new.

 

So I was just thinking to myself the other day as I was driving along and enjoying some tunes "You know, I've had this DICE thing in here for over half a year now, and I've never really had any of the problems people described - Or any real problems at all for that matter". And wouldn't you know, literally the next day the unit stopped working. Talk about irony.

Here's where I'm at: I generally leave my iPod (current gen Nano) in the car hooked up, as I've never experienced any difficulties with sleep mode messing anything up. The other day, I decided to take it out of the car so I could use it while I was running. I didn't sync it or anything, just took it out, used it like a normal old MP3 player, then put it back in - something I've done many a time in the past without issue. However, upon use of the MINI the following day, I was not able to get the unit to play. The iPod is reckognizing that it's attached to something as it is charging, but it never goes into "DICE" mode. The HU displays "ATTACHED", but does not read out track or artist info, and of course nothing plays. I tried cycling through modes / imputs, taking the iPod off the hookup, powering it and the HU on and off (all things that have resolved issues in the past), but nothing has worked. Today, I disconnected the battery from the car for 15 or 20 minutes to allow the DICE to reboot, but that has failed also.

*EDIT* My iPod froze up while I was attempting to restore it to factory settings, thus necessitating a manual reset. Just for laughs, I tried it in the MINI again before trying the full restore a second time, and it worked. In other words, problem solved.

 

man, it just seems like the DICE kit is not worth all the headache. All i want is to get clean sound from my iphone to my stereo, and a bonus would be able to hit "next track" from my steering wheel. Maybe I should just get the OEM kit as that doesn't seem to have any problems??

 

i have dice and you can hit "next track" with your steering wheel, i have had problems but nothing that turning of the radio and turning it back on can't solve xD, never had a big issue with it or anything works great and sound is awesome.

 

thanks for the vote of confidence. it seems like something that you spend $150+ on should work every time. my $30 belkin adapter always works 100% of the time, but the sound quality could be better (not a true line out) and it doesn't charge 3G iphones.

 

remember that to this thread most of the people that post or haven't buy it or are having trouble with DICE there's many more people that have bought it.