Database Users

HU for mercedes W245

Hello,
Long time reader but here's first post
I plan to buy an android head unit for my car.
I need your help to choose a model that feet my needs.
My car is 2011 mercedes B class (W245). It's actually equiped with an Alpine INE S900R unit.
I'm sick of it because of it's poor fm reception, poor gps reception and interface and moreover the crapy quality of hands free bluetooth with no possibility to stream music.
I look for a head unit that fits in my car.
I read that i have not much to expect from fm reception and functions. In my alpine unit rds, af and ta doesn't work well.
I think i will go for 2Gb ram unit.
I have the choice between units with 7" screen, hard buttons and a look like an original command ntg. On the other hand i can have 9" units with soft buttons.
As i don't plan to watch videos and don't need a dvd or cd player in my car is a 9" screen a big improvement ?
Of course i want to have steering wheel control, gps, wifi, an entry for a reverse cam.
I'm in france so i think i don't really need dab+ as our radio stations don't seem to be in a hurry to use it.
I've read bad comments about mtcd_kgl, but it seems to be the most common platform to find units which fits in mercedes cars.
Thank you in advance for your advices.

I'm in the same boat as you, since I drive a Sprinter (W906), which uses the same unit as for the W245.
I had a MTCD KGL 7" unit for this car before. All I can say is stay away from KGL (like the 9" screen unit your referring to https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/HD-9...4.48010108.5.2.KL6ja5&&scm=1007.12783.72505.0). The quality of the finish was terrible and trying to contact KGL in order to solve things in a mature way was simply fruitless because they cut off the conversation. Apart from that, the unit your referring to is still a MTCD-unit. By now, the general consensus on XDA regarding this platform is to avoid it. Malasyk did great things in trying to improve the firmware, but in the end there where too many bugs and limitations on hardware level that couldn't be overcome.
So for now I think the only alternative seems to be the Ownice C500-version with the 7" screen and the hardware buttons. Despite several bugs, to me it seems to be quite good and think of ordering one in the coming days.
Interested to hear your opinions on any other options.

Thank you for your answer.
The C500 is not an option for me as it seems to have an awful FM section with no support of rds functions.
Having spent hours to read the forum and search on the net I think that there might be only one option: finding a mtcc_kld unit which fits in my dash.
Kld units seem to be sold by pumpkin. The problem is to be sure to have one kld.
Chinese sellers would tell you anything to sell their product.
It's a shame I'd rather have A big screen and 2Gb ram.

The Chinese sellers are awful indeed, they will try to scam you into anything. However, Aliexpress does seem to be more strict in enforcing the money-back policy in case you specifically asked about a feature up-front and were given a positive reply by the seller.
Just ask for a screenshot of the system specs and make it clear that you will not accept something else. Problem is however: what do you do if they send you something else anyway? Taxes and return shipping will be your loss anyway and the guy who has bad intentions knows that.
I don't know what specs the pumpkin model has you're talking about. I would never go for a 1gb model anymore, just too damn slow.

You are probably right. I'll wait till I find a suitable 2Gb model

If you really want to get a KLD unit... nothing easier than that.
Pumpkin is just a reseller for a lot of different manufacturers and you mostly don´t exactly know what you buy.
Go to the factory itself. Get in contact with them by chat and tell them your wishes,
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Vendor review / stable unit

I've been looking around to purchase my first head unit but the information is very overwhelming, everybody have their personal opinion on vendor or unit that in most cases contradict each other.
is there a vendor who stand out of the others? with really good support and product renown to be less buggy ?
I've seen joying being recommended more often then other but there some people who seem to believe you get a lot more for your money with PX5 or Ownice C500 unit.
I am really not looking for a super complex unit that can do super fancy stuff as long as the unit have those feature
2 din universal unit
stable and fast to boot (act like a normal car stereo doesnt take a minute to start)
that can pick the internet from my iphone for apps
work well with GPS apps like Waze or music like Spotify
have rear view camera that work well without taking 30 sec to display
support steering wheel control
Is there any basic unit that can do all of those without costing 400$ or have super fancy feature that make it complicated to setup or unreliable ?
any help would be very very appreciated.

Me Too....I also want a front camera with dvr. I will be interested to watch what others post. I am leaning toward the joying 2017 model. They can be had on ebay or Amazon in the 300 range. Bu then when I add my 2 cameras, and possibly an obd2 port I will end up at close to 400 or a few dollars more most likely.

Would also like to hear peoples opinions on the above, I'll be after a new head unit in the next few weeks.

Seems to me the ones with the best/most support from the manufacturer are Joying and Ownice. The best support in terms of modding seem to be Joying from what I've read here. Between Joying and Ownice I think it's just personal preference. The rest of those out there seem to be spotty support or hardware or software or all of those.

Hello
Sorry for my syntax, I am French and English is not my strong point.
I do not think OWNICE is recommended, the RADIO FM interface is disappointing, the RDS is not managed, the developers think it is enough to enter a label to replace the display of the frequency, which shows a very Poor knowledge of the subject.
Side audio adjustment, no equalizer, just Bass, Midle and Aspen, no adjustment of SUB etc ...
JOYING does not do much better.
By experience I prefer XTRONS or ERISIN, good manufacturing quality and the software is well managed, very stable.
That's just my point.

headunit advice

hi guys,
i own a 2012 subaru STI. i've got the stock headunit (double din, non-touch screen) and am looking to upgrade to an android auto HU. i've owned many android phones in the past and am very familiar with rooting, flashing roms, adb, fastboot etc.
in a previous car i had a pioneer appradio2 and used appradio unchained to mirror my phone onto the screen. i'd like to use AA now as in hindsight i feel having full access to the phone through my HU is quite distracting whilst driving.
i currently own a pixel xl.
there are so many options out there for AA HU's and i'm a little confused, so i'm hoping you guys can point me in the right direction:
what's the best AA HU (double din, preferably 7") money can buy? budget is not really a problem. i would like something with a fast touch screen and whatever the max resolution available on the market is. built in gps would be nice, but not a must. what's the benefit of going for a big brand versus a chinese made product? what does rooting and flashing roms on an AA HU achieve?
apologies if this is posted in the wrong forum, and thanks in advance.

kinetx said:
what's the best AA HU (double din, preferably 7") money can buy? budget is not really a problem. i would like something with a fast touch screen and whatever the max resolution available on the market is. built in gps would be nice, but not a must. what's the benefit of going for a big brand versus a chinese made product? what does rooting and flashing roms on an AA HU achieve?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will give you my opinion.
Probably the best head units are those from first brands (Pioneer, Kenwood, Sony...) but those units play in another league. The models I like are about 1,300$ what, for me, is out of my league. These brands also have some 'lower-cost' units, but they are usually too 'closed' or offer outdated technology (LCD screens, too old Android OS...)
I checked Parrot Asteroid Smart which I liked very much, but also, a 4 year old unit with 512MB RAM and Android 2.3 was too old for me. Community support disappeared at this point (I asked a couple of questions in some forums and haven´t got any answer yet...)
After an extensive research, my conclusion (discarding the tipical Pioneer/Kenwood/Sony/etc units) is:
Dynavin units are probably the best ones, specially when speaking about audio quality. If money is not an issue as you claim (not my case), I would fit one of these.
Avin: I was going to buy the Avin VWU8-PX5 which looked as a good product. AFAIK their product is a mix from Chinese electronics + USA details, at a premium of course, but their customers seemed satisfied and I liked what I read from Avin. Problem is that I live in Spain and buying from an European distributor was a must (to be able to claim warranty in case needed). Avin only sells in USA and doesn't have any distributor in EU, so discarded too.
Chinese brands with EU distributors: Finally there are chinese sellers that also sell in EU, so I ended up with these brands: pumpkin, XTRONS and Joying.
There are other Chinese brands that I discarded just for not having an EU distributor (Ownice, Dasaita, and so on), but if you don't have this problems you might also check them.
I finally decided to buy a Joying Unit 8" with Intel Sofia processor. Why? For these reasons:
They have an EU warehouse (Germany)
Community support is probable the best over XDA
Support seems to be one of the best among Chinese sellers
There are some easy hardware mods/hacks that will dramatically improve the units life/performance. Heat sink/fan mod. Sound chipset swap, Rooting, Viper4Android to improve audio, etc
As for your question "what does rooting and flashing roms on an AA HU achieve?" if you really "are very familiar with rooting, flashing roms, adb, fastboot" as you claim, you should know... tweaking here and there, uninstalling bloatware, installing better than original apps...
Hope you find the right head unit, tell us what you end up with.
Cheers!

thanks for the detailed response! i hadn't considered bloatware, better audio quality etc would be possible for a headunit but ofcourse, this IS android!
of the major brands, are there any specific models better than the others that you (or anyone else) could recommend?

One vote for ATOTO A6 Pro
I recently installed ATOTO A6 Pro into my 2011 Subaru WRX, which had the factory double-din Navigation. I purchased ATOTO A6 Pro which is much much better than the factory unit in every respect -- but especially display brightness, viewing angle and boot time. The audio is decent, although not in same league as higher-priced name brand stereos. The included bluetooth external microphone gives much better quality then the factory one. Having Android Auto as well as the ability to run applications (like Torque) natively on the ATOTO is great. I have a Pixel2 phone and didnt have any connectivity problems with the ATOTO over bluetooth, Wifi, or USB (for Android-Auto) . I think ATOTO has better components (MediaTek SoC, IPS display, etc.) than much of the competition for low-cost Chinese android head units. I also added a back up camera. Had some wiring difficulties due to ATOTO sub-par documentation, but at least their Technical support team was responsive and helpful. Overall, am happy with ATOTO A6 Pro.

Nice thread and the same name pop up..
In the market for a new unit and good to see I am on the right track..
Thanks for the posters input..a thread like this should be stickied so that as the years go on we can keep track of the good, bad, ugly..
What about Seicane.com
https://www.belsee.com
Anyone had experience?

Pros and cons of an Android headunit vs mainstream (Pioneer) Android Auto headunit?

I'm looking to upgrade the stock head unit in my 2007 Subaru Impreza Wagon. My budget is ~$600. I've been doing research between Pioneer, Sony, JVC and Kenwood models and happened to stumble upon a thread about the Teya CC3 device and other Android headunits. Didn't know Android headunits existed. Are there any major differences, pros, and cons of these Android headunits compared to more mainstream head units such as the Pioneer DMH-W4660NEX?
I'm looking for a device that is responsive, has good UI, not buggy, and that just works well. I will be using it primarily with Android Auto and listening to music, so seamless wireless Android Auto support, rearview cam support, and good audio quality are my top priorities. The car doesn't have steering wheel controls and besides audio, none of the car features are tied to the stock head unit.
So far I've found that the Android head units are typically cheaper, have much better screens and specs, and more features but how is the reliability and sound quality of these devices? Why arent these devices more mainstream, am I missing something?
Thanks

As I've just discovered, it's the wild west. Software issues, bluetooth issues, and in my case my Atoto S8 is causing any battery it touches to go flat on or off irrespective of wiring. It's a lottery. Some win it but plenty are losing it. I think if you're willing to take a risk do go ahead and chance it. Otherwise get a mainstream one with actual quality control (Sony, Pioneer, Kenwood, Alpine etc)
Also forget after sales support. Well, Atoto are trying but there's no way I can ship back to China because the Bluetooth is duff and it's drawing heaps of life from my battery when it's switched off.
I'd have so paid the extra 20% and gotten some peace of mind.
My 2 cents.

I would love to go mainstream but my car (CRV) - similarly to many other post-2000 cars - simply don't accept 2DIN stereos. Seems that car manufacturers purposefully make non-standard sized radio fascias to prevent people from fitting universal units and therefore upsell sales of their own sat nav units, which on the other hand never get upgrades.
With Chinese android head units, you can buy a head unit specifically designed to be fitted in any make/model, if changing car panels is required then no problem - you can buy an unit with the panels for your model.
Please correct me if im wrong here, but those are my impressions and to be honest im very frustrated by that.

Enphenate said:
I'm looking to upgrade the stock head unit in my 2007 Subaru Impreza Wagon. My budget is ~$600. I've been doing research between Pioneer, Sony, JVC and Kenwood models and happened to stumble upon a thread about the Teya CC3 device and other Android headunits. Didn't know Android headunits existed. Are there any major differences, pros, and cons of these Android headunits compared to more mainstream head units such as the Pioneer DMH-W4660NEX?
I'm looking for a device that is responsive, has good UI, not buggy, and that just works well. I will be using it primarily with Android Auto and listening to music, so seamless wireless Android Auto support, rearview cam support, and good audio quality are my top priorities. The car doesn't have steering wheel controls and besides audio, none of the car features are tied to the stock head unit.
So far I've found that the Android head units are typically cheaper, have much better screens and specs, and more features but how is the reliability and sound quality of these devices? Why arent these devices more mainstream, am I missing something?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have currently an Teyes CC3 on a testbench before i install it in my car, that thing blows my mind, with a fantastic bright crisp QLED screen, great sound due the 2 dsp's who are installed. I'm testing it with a powered 7 port USB hub and i connected a DAB+ dongle to it, a usb stick, a TPMS dongle and all functioning fine thanks to the USB 2.0. The big surprise for me was that this head unit, sees the European Galileo satellites. There are 2 points of critisism, after a update everithing go's back to Russian, it can be that i downloaded it from the wrong site, Russian instead of English. And the look of the FM radio screen is terribel, tiny names of the radio stations and RDS is way to small and to short for such a big screen of 9 inch, the plus is that you can download the images of the radio stations. And every radio that runs on software can be buggy, also the Alpines and Kenwoods. A lot of people forget that it's still a computer which can have software hiccups.

Enphenate said:
I'm looking to upgrade the stock head unit in my 2007 Subaru Impreza Wagon. My budget is ~$600. I've been doing research between Pioneer, Sony, JVC and Kenwood models and happened to stumble upon a thread about the Teya CC3 device and other Android headunits. Didn't know Android headunits existed. Are there any major differences, pros, and cons of these Android headunits compared to more mainstream head units such as the Pioneer DMH-W4660NEX?
I'm looking for a device that is responsive, has good UI, not buggy, and that just works well. I will be using it primarily with Android Auto and listening to music, so seamless wireless Android Auto support, rearview cam support, and good audio quality are my top priorities. The car doesn't have steering wheel controls and besides audio, none of the car features are tied to the stock head unit.
So far I've found that the Android head units are typically cheaper, have much better screens and specs, and more features but how is the reliability and sound quality of these devices? Why arent these devices more mainstream, am I missing something?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have pioneer (4200nex) sitting in the closet right now. MUCH better sound quality than ANY of these Chinese units BY FAR and much less buggy.... Smaller screens though.
The android units however are far more customizable and don't just serve as simple 'stereo systems'. You can do a lot more with them as a result. Pretty much anything you can do with an android tablet (or ipad comparatively speaking) you can do with these.
I would say that if you want simple no-fuss clean sound you are better off with pioneer. If on the other hand, you like a challenge and like to tinker then you will have more fun with android.
Ohhh and easy, no-fuss AA/carplay with android.... forget it! Sometimes it works sometime not. Unlike Pioneer, they are not even officially supported on these machines.

Looking to buy a headunit

Hi
I'm looking into buying an android head unit for the first time
My main option is to buy from Aliexpress, so i looked for options there and I would love some recommendations.
I don't have many requirements, i think that I can assemble it myself, but a few things I care about:
1. Waze, Spotify, Google Maps, and general android apps (I know every android head unit supports it, that's why I want one )
2. phone calls quality (road noise reduction and clear voice capture)
3. radio reception. my car currently has a head unit by jvc and the reception isn't great.
The main unit that caught my eye is TEYES CC3 (new unit to my understanding), it seems good but a bit pricey than others.
Another unit that have high sals is Junsun V1 pro, but I saw some bad reviews here.
other models i've seen are: Youmecity TS10, Aycenty PX6, AutoTop PX5, and LEHX (no model name)
I would love to hear recommendations / warnings / heads up
thank you!
EDIT: I don't have external amplifiers or subwoofer, just the regular OEM speaker array.

Ghsucre said:
Hi
I'm looking into buying an android head unit for the first time
My main option is to buy from Aliexpress, so i looked for options there and I would love some recommendations.
I don't have many requirements, i think that I can assemble it myself, but a few things I care about:
1. Waze, Spotify, Google Maps, and general android apps (I know every android head unit supports it, that's why I want one )
2. phone calls quality (road noise reduction and clear voice capture)
3. radio reception. my car currently has a head unit by jvc and the reception isn't great.
The main unit that caught my eye is TEYES CC3 (new unit to my understanding), it seems good but a bit pricey than others.
Another unit that have high sals is Junsun V1 pro, but I saw some bad reviews here.
other models i've seen are: Youmecity TS10, Aycenty PX6, AutoTop PX5, and LEHX (no model name)
I would love to hear recommendations / warnings / heads up
thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Suggest avoid all of the obscure types and look to an MTCD/E type, Dasaita sell these.
If you're not comfortable with quirks and bugs, problems, avoid these completely and look for a suitable genuine/branded Android Auto unit. You won't find Android Auto on on Aliexpress however - regardless of the wild claims.

marchnz said:
Suggest avoid all of the obscure types and look to an MTCD/E type, Dasaita sell these.
If you're not comfortable with quirks and bugs, problems, avoid these completely and look for a suitable genuine/branded Android Auto unit. You won't find Android Auto on on Aliexpress however - regardless of the wild claims.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not afraid of bugs and quirks, i'm pretty capable of researching for solutions, but that means that I need a "popular" model, so I could find help within communities like this.
I will read more about what you suggested. to my understanding the TEYES ones aren't in this category, is that right?
what do you think of them anyway?
from the little I have read it seems to me that they are developing their own firmware, rom, and apps to work with these units, so I would like to think that they are doing a good job (are they?). furthermore I saw that they are releasing updates from time to time to fix bugs.
I'm not looking for a lot of customizability or frequent updates, after the installation and hopefully short debugging my intention is to enjoy it for several years without changes.
thank you very much!

Hello, what did you end up buying bud? 6 months later I am in the same boat as you, not sure what to buy in sept 2021

Hi !
I ended up buying:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32720737378.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.5a874c4dy5QaWA
I didn't want to wait for PX6, and didn't see much choices for PX5.
Initially my favorite was the TEYES, but my gf rolled it out (based on aesthetics and higher price)
My next choice was PX6 but I didn't find a good seller.
the product I ended up buying was from "Youmecity Car Multimedia Store", the seller was very nice and responsive, and has a lot of good reviews.
downsides for my unit: it isn't much configurable, the internal mic isn't working (and you can't connect external one), I didn't find (although I didn't spend a lot of time searching) different roms.
Overall I'm pleased with my unit (except the mic), its very responsive and works well, worked out-of-the-box, no cable soldering. even compatible with the rear cam I have installed.
Note - don't buy the OBD from them, it's huge, and it uses WiFi (can't connect in the same time with phone hotspot).
Note 2 - If you buy from his, ask for the new software version, they update it once in a few months.
If you have more questions feel free to ask here