I have a '14 m6 touring. I use it almost exclusively for commuting to work and nothing more. I unfortunately have a long commute (~40 mins to work, ~45-1 hour return). Since I spend so much time in my car I couldn't stand the stock infotainment system. Garbage screen, garbage nav, garbage voice control. I have non-bose so audio quality is shite too.
In my quest to improve my requirements were to use waze for nav, a feature-rich music player, maintain stock SWC, maintain stock backup cam. Choices are android auto HUs (pioneer, kenwood & some others make some), or a pure android HU. The android auto HUs seem to come with too many compromises for the price, so I was determined to make a pure android HU work. Long story short, I bought a universal double-din android HU, and while it was good the look and certain deal-breaking features made me ditch it (very poor BT call quality). I finally ended up with this one -
11.11 HD 1024*600 Quad Core 1.6GHz Android 4.4 Car PC Audio Video For Mazda 6 Atenza 2013 2014 2015 Auto Radio Navi DVD Stereo-in Car DVD from Automobiles & Motorcycles on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group
and couldn't be happier.
Here are some pics of the unboxed unit.
You can see I got an OBDII module to go with it. It works via bluetooth.
Comes with everything else you need here. Tons of harnesses. Every single stock harness can be connected to this unit without modification. However, to connect the stock backup cam, you MUST get a 12V to 6V step-down transformer, as the cam runs on 6V. This did not come with the unit, but I had one already from my previous android HU. CANBUS works out of the box. SWC works without any PAC or other external device. Despite claims from the seller, I CANNOT get the commander knob to work. I am working with the seller to rectify this, as they insist it should be working. However I am not confident it will work. I connected everything correctly as far as I can see.
Anyway, here is a comparison of old unit vs new unit, side by side.
You can see that although it nearly looks stock, the screen is a full 2" larger. The difference is very noticable. Screen quality is excellent. It is "HD" resolution, 1024x600. Even the top of the line pioneer units are only 800x480. Unit takes about 20 seconds to boot up. This may bother some people, but I find that by the time I turn my car on and back out of my parking spot, the unit is fully booted. Also, you can set the unit to stay powered for up to 1 hour after shutdown. So if I turn my car on <1 hr after last shutdown, it will turn on instantly.
Performance is buttery smooth. It has a quad core CPU with 1GB of RAM. The latest specs you can get with one of these as far as android goes. I am almost certain this will run android apps smoother than any of the pioneer/kenwood/etc android auto HUs.
Here it is installed.
Here is poweramp, which is what I use for music
stock backup cam works
example of canbus working. detects when a door is open. it even knows what door it is
torque via BT OBDII
waze
Finally, here is a video of me demonstrating the features I have talked about. It's quick and dirty.
https://youtu.be/LipKLSLY5sc
I hope I have dispelled the myth that pure android HUs are slow, buggy pieces of junk. To me this is better than any other aftermarket HU you can buy for this car. Hopefully I can get the commander knob working soon.
By the way, I've already upgraded the stock speakers to 8" focal IS200s in the front. I have an amp and sub on the way, so I'll see how well it handles premium audio. So far the verdict is still out, but it already sounds better than the stock HU since this puts out 45W per channel.
In my quest to improve my requirements were to use waze for nav, a feature-rich music player, maintain stock SWC, maintain stock backup cam. Choices are android auto HUs (pioneer, kenwood & some others make some), or a pure android HU. The android auto HUs seem to come with too many compromises for the price, so I was determined to make a pure android HU work. Long story short, I bought a universal double-din android HU, and while it was good the look and certain deal-breaking features made me ditch it (very poor BT call quality). I finally ended up with this one -
11.11 HD 1024*600 Quad Core 1.6GHz Android 4.4 Car PC Audio Video For Mazda 6 Atenza 2013 2014 2015 Auto Radio Navi DVD Stereo-in Car DVD from Automobiles & Motorcycles on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group
and couldn't be happier.
Here are some pics of the unboxed unit.
You can see I got an OBDII module to go with it. It works via bluetooth.
Comes with everything else you need here. Tons of harnesses. Every single stock harness can be connected to this unit without modification. However, to connect the stock backup cam, you MUST get a 12V to 6V step-down transformer, as the cam runs on 6V. This did not come with the unit, but I had one already from my previous android HU. CANBUS works out of the box. SWC works without any PAC or other external device. Despite claims from the seller, I CANNOT get the commander knob to work. I am working with the seller to rectify this, as they insist it should be working. However I am not confident it will work. I connected everything correctly as far as I can see.
Anyway, here is a comparison of old unit vs new unit, side by side.
You can see that although it nearly looks stock, the screen is a full 2" larger. The difference is very noticable. Screen quality is excellent. It is "HD" resolution, 1024x600. Even the top of the line pioneer units are only 800x480. Unit takes about 20 seconds to boot up. This may bother some people, but I find that by the time I turn my car on and back out of my parking spot, the unit is fully booted. Also, you can set the unit to stay powered for up to 1 hour after shutdown. So if I turn my car on <1 hr after last shutdown, it will turn on instantly.
Performance is buttery smooth. It has a quad core CPU with 1GB of RAM. The latest specs you can get with one of these as far as android goes. I am almost certain this will run android apps smoother than any of the pioneer/kenwood/etc android auto HUs.
Here it is installed.
Here is poweramp, which is what I use for music
stock backup cam works
example of canbus working. detects when a door is open. it even knows what door it is
torque via BT OBDII
waze
Finally, here is a video of me demonstrating the features I have talked about. It's quick and dirty.
https://youtu.be/LipKLSLY5sc
I hope I have dispelled the myth that pure android HUs are slow, buggy pieces of junk. To me this is better than any other aftermarket HU you can buy for this car. Hopefully I can get the commander knob working soon.
By the way, I've already upgraded the stock speakers to 8" focal IS200s in the front. I have an amp and sub on the way, so I'll see how well it handles premium audio. So far the verdict is still out, but it already sounds better than the stock HU since this puts out 45W per channel.