Finally, an audio unit that’s (nearly) PERFECT for a Tesla
Oh happy day... driving my Roadster no longer involves terrible compromises with the audio and navigation controls that I’ve come to expect in other cars. Like many here, I found that the terrible JVC KD-NX5000 head unit was the sore spot in an otherwise wonderful driving experience: terrible UI, navigation that looks like it’s from 20 years ago, a bad screen, flaky Bluetooth integration, and an awful iPod/iPhone connector that’s flaky and can’t recharge the iPhone... not to mention the bad location of the iPhone where it’s too low to be useful, and blocked by the parking break.
I had considered several replacement units here, but ultimately, what really mattered to me was great iPhone integration – I use my iPhone for navigation, audio and communications. I eventually realized that considering the iPhone as a peripheral to the head unit is dumb - why not just do away with the traditional head unit, and use the iPhone instead? I found two choices in new head units that do exactly that, the Oxygen O-Car, and Jackson Electronics iRoc.
I ultimately chose the O-Car unit for two reasons:
If you have a Roaster 1.0 or 2.0 (single-Din audio chassis), I’d highly recommend this unit. It’s just fantastic to have your iPhone mounted at a GREAT location, and to use it to fully control your audio, navigation, and communication controls.
2011-09-04-IMG_0812 by jg001, on Flickr
The unit has an AM/FM tuner built in… which is controlled via their free “Radio” app, available in the app store. I don’t listen to much OTA radio other than baseball games and occasionally NPR, but it’s nice knowing that if I’m out on a more rural highway without data service, I’ll still have decent radio choices in addition to my ipod music.
The app isn’t wonderful… it has some issues where it’s hard to “spin” the dial or seek to the next station, but it’s usable, and I assume they’ll fix that with updates to the app sometime soon. It does have RDS, allows storing 18 FM and 6 AM stations, and you can even customize the color of the display to suit your preferences (or match your Tesla exterior!)
But of course you don’t buy this unit to receive radio, you buy it to have full access to all your ipod tunes, as well as any other apps you like (Pandora, MOG, Spotify, etc.). I’m a MOG fan and LOVE having access to Mog right at hand without the contortions and multiple screens/remotes I had to go through with the JVC unit. I also use the Sirius/XM app and it works great as well. (so long as you’re in an area with good cellular data service).
Your iPod app works great of course… and pretty much every app you should want will work too. The app doesn’t baby you… it tells you in the manual not to be dumb: don’t try to use email, text, or watch movies on your unit. Nothing in the unit prevents you from doing so… but you’d be pretty foolish to do it.
The ergonomics are quite good, especially in the Tesla. The iPhone holder in the unit sits flush and sturdy in the head unit, but with a gentle push, it pops out about 2.5”, coming closer to you, and once it’s out it permits you to tilt it towards you, rotate it to portrait orientation, tilt it to the passenger… whatever you like. In addition to letting you use apps however you like, the extension makes it easier to reach and tap, and the tilting solves a MAJOR problem in a roadster/convertible: Glare. With the articulating arm extended, you can tilt the unit to an angle that reduces or eliminates glare, even with the top off. It’s great.
Bluetooth integration is quite nice – the head unit pairs with the iPhone via Bluetooth as well as the dock connector, so phone calls will pause your audio and your phone call takes over, coming over the speakers and your voice is picked up by a small microphone. It’s great when your top is on, when you’re driving without the top, the other party can’t hear you well if you’re at highway speeds, but at lower speeds it is fine for short calls.
Smart things you’ll appreciate:
I bought my unit at Abt Electronics online (http://www.abt.com/mobile/product_details.php?product_id=55396), and it shipped fast and installed easily (let me know if you want to know my bay-area, CA installer who swapped it for the JVC unit in about 60 minutes for under $100!)
If anyone has questions, let me know.
A few more photos are below, and more are in the Flickr Collection if anyone wants to see more or view in higher resolution.
--josh
2011-09-04-IMG_0811 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0819 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0818 by jg001, on Flickr
The iphone as a nav or radio display looks awesome at night! ("simulated" night here in a closed garage with the headlights on). Navigon app switches into Night mode automatically...
2011-09-04-IMG_0830 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0839 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0838 by jg001, on Flickr
Here it is in landscape mode, flush in the head unit...
2011-09-04-IMG_0852 by jg001, on Flickr
and here it is extended and tilted towards the driver for better viewing and ergonomics. Tapping on the GUI does not rattle or retract the phone... it's held quite firmly, even when extended.
2011-09-04-IMG_0849 by jg001, on Flickr
--josh
Oh happy day... driving my Roadster no longer involves terrible compromises with the audio and navigation controls that I’ve come to expect in other cars. Like many here, I found that the terrible JVC KD-NX5000 head unit was the sore spot in an otherwise wonderful driving experience: terrible UI, navigation that looks like it’s from 20 years ago, a bad screen, flaky Bluetooth integration, and an awful iPod/iPhone connector that’s flaky and can’t recharge the iPhone... not to mention the bad location of the iPhone where it’s too low to be useful, and blocked by the parking break.
I had considered several replacement units here, but ultimately, what really mattered to me was great iPhone integration – I use my iPhone for navigation, audio and communications. I eventually realized that considering the iPhone as a peripheral to the head unit is dumb - why not just do away with the traditional head unit, and use the iPhone instead? I found two choices in new head units that do exactly that, the Oxygen O-Car, and Jackson Electronics iRoc.
I ultimately chose the O-Car unit for two reasons:
- the articulating/rotating iPhone holder on the O-Car, allowing it to be used in any orientation and to extend and tilt for better ergonomics (the iRoc holds your iphone flat against the head unit and only in landscape mode).
and... - the fact that only the O-Car unit has a built-in AM/FM tuner in the head unit itself. (The iRoc has no way to receive traditional OTA AM/FM… it only supports internet audio sources.)
If you have a Roaster 1.0 or 2.0 (single-Din audio chassis), I’d highly recommend this unit. It’s just fantastic to have your iPhone mounted at a GREAT location, and to use it to fully control your audio, navigation, and communication controls.
2011-09-04-IMG_0812 by jg001, on Flickr
The unit has an AM/FM tuner built in… which is controlled via their free “Radio” app, available in the app store. I don’t listen to much OTA radio other than baseball games and occasionally NPR, but it’s nice knowing that if I’m out on a more rural highway without data service, I’ll still have decent radio choices in addition to my ipod music.
The app isn’t wonderful… it has some issues where it’s hard to “spin” the dial or seek to the next station, but it’s usable, and I assume they’ll fix that with updates to the app sometime soon. It does have RDS, allows storing 18 FM and 6 AM stations, and you can even customize the color of the display to suit your preferences (or match your Tesla exterior!)
But of course you don’t buy this unit to receive radio, you buy it to have full access to all your ipod tunes, as well as any other apps you like (Pandora, MOG, Spotify, etc.). I’m a MOG fan and LOVE having access to Mog right at hand without the contortions and multiple screens/remotes I had to go through with the JVC unit. I also use the Sirius/XM app and it works great as well. (so long as you’re in an area with good cellular data service).
Your iPod app works great of course… and pretty much every app you should want will work too. The app doesn’t baby you… it tells you in the manual not to be dumb: don’t try to use email, text, or watch movies on your unit. Nothing in the unit prevents you from doing so… but you’d be pretty foolish to do it.
The ergonomics are quite good, especially in the Tesla. The iPhone holder in the unit sits flush and sturdy in the head unit, but with a gentle push, it pops out about 2.5”, coming closer to you, and once it’s out it permits you to tilt it towards you, rotate it to portrait orientation, tilt it to the passenger… whatever you like. In addition to letting you use apps however you like, the extension makes it easier to reach and tap, and the tilting solves a MAJOR problem in a roadster/convertible: Glare. With the articulating arm extended, you can tilt the unit to an angle that reduces or eliminates glare, even with the top off. It’s great.
Bluetooth integration is quite nice – the head unit pairs with the iPhone via Bluetooth as well as the dock connector, so phone calls will pause your audio and your phone call takes over, coming over the speakers and your voice is picked up by a small microphone. It’s great when your top is on, when you’re driving without the top, the other party can’t hear you well if you’re at highway speeds, but at lower speeds it is fine for short calls.
Smart things you’ll appreciate:
- Oxygen was very smart to put a hard-dial volume control right on the face of the unit. Without taking your eyes off the road, you can adjust the volume of audio or your phone call.
- You can change the color of the radio app and “sound” app for your preference or to match your car interior/exterior.
- Articulating arm is adjustable for tilt/orientation, and the resistance/firmness of the movement is adjustable with an included tool. My phone is held very solid, but still can be easily tilted/rotated.
- The iPhone is now in a fantastic location – visually, and ergonomically. It’s where it should be., rather than down near your lap, behind the parking brake where it was before!
- The unit comes with a special case for the iPhone 4 and another for the iPhone 3GS. This helps hold it in place, with special tabs on the back that the head unit uses to help its “grip” on your phone. Those cases are ok, but not great… a bit flimsy. But, it turns out the encase shell that I already have and love works GREAT with the O-car. It holds the phone fine, and is quite sturdy.
- If you DON’T dock your iPhone, the head unit will switch to Radio mode, playing whatever station you last tuned it to. You’ll have no way to change the station, but you can turn it off and adjust the volume thanks to the built-in volume control.
- The radio tuner itself isn’t an app, it’s a separate audio component/source in the head unit… it’s just CONTROLLED by an app. When listening to the radio, you can NOT mix in audio from an iPhone app… this means you’re welcome to use navigation apps, but you won’t hear the spoken instructions like you do when you’re listening to other iPhone apps. This is ONLY a problem when you’re listening to AM/FM radio… not iPhone audio apps. If you’re listening to your ipod music, or Sirius app, or Pandora, then the iPhone properly mixes in navigation instructions (depending on the capabilities of your chosen navigation app). But, when you’re in radio mode, the head unit can’t generate overlay audio… so anything your iPhone is trying to tell you is muted. (With the exception of phone calls…. Those work fine due to Bluetooth “interruption” capabilities in the head unit). I suppose there might be a navigation app that could send its voice instructions over Bluetooth, instead of via the audio-out in the dock connector, and that could solve this problem. But it doesn’t work that way for most navigation apps today. Those apps assume you’re able to hear audio coming over the dock connector, and you can’t on the O-car if you’re using the radio.
- AM/FM reception is NOT great. Signals seem weaker than in the JVC unit. Not a biggie for me, it gets KNBR 680 AM for me, which is what I really care about for Giants games. But it doesn’t lock on to weaker stations as well as other units do. If you want great AM/FM performance, this probably isn’t the best unit for you.
- It remains to be seen if the articulating/rotating iphone holder will remain sturdy or if it will eventually break or have problems. So far, it seems well made, but these are mostly plastic parts and it may have problems in the future.
I bought my unit at Abt Electronics online (http://www.abt.com/mobile/product_details.php?product_id=55396), and it shipped fast and installed easily (let me know if you want to know my bay-area, CA installer who swapped it for the JVC unit in about 60 minutes for under $100!)
If anyone has questions, let me know.
A few more photos are below, and more are in the Flickr Collection if anyone wants to see more or view in higher resolution.
--josh
2011-09-04-IMG_0811 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0819 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0818 by jg001, on Flickr
The iphone as a nav or radio display looks awesome at night! ("simulated" night here in a closed garage with the headlights on). Navigon app switches into Night mode automatically...
2011-09-04-IMG_0830 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0839 by jg001, on Flickr
2011-09-04-IMG_0838 by jg001, on Flickr
Here it is in landscape mode, flush in the head unit...
2011-09-04-IMG_0852 by jg001, on Flickr
and here it is extended and tilted towards the driver for better viewing and ergonomics. Tapping on the GUI does not rattle or retract the phone... it's held quite firmly, even when extended.
2011-09-04-IMG_0849 by jg001, on Flickr
--josh
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