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Garmin GPS bluetooth

3K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  rjhornsby 
#1 · (Edited)
I hate the nav system in my 2016 GT and haven't used it since about 2 months after I bought the car last August. It's the biggest disappointment because I really wanted a car with integrated GPS. As an alternative, I've been using Waze on my phone. That works okay, I guess. The Waze app is really nice, and has an awesome UI and some sweet features. But it's on my phone which means that Pandora wants to compete with it and demands "allow pandora?" every time. Also, mounting it to the vent every time I get in the car is putting some serious scratches in the vent's vanes.

There's nothing I can find as an in-dash replacement for the current unit (MY 2015 has a couple of options from Alibaba), so I've been looking at the portable Garmins. Almost all of them have bluetooth capabilities. Here's what I want though - I want bluetooth that will connect to the car's bluetooth to send the voice through the car's speakers like Waze does. Is that even possible?

I assume that the Bluetooth in the Garmin type units is primarily for hands-free phone use. One of the advantages of sending it through the car's speakers is that not only will it use the car's speakers so it is easier to hear, but it can automatically turn down the volume of other audio sources(?) temporarily. I have wondered if it would be able to figure out that the Garmin bluetooth audio should take priority over the Pandora bluetooth audio coming from my phone.

Which leads to another question - is it even possible to connect two bluetooth audio-sending devices to the car at once?
 
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#2 ·
In all honestly it depends on the quality of the dash unit you are using. Garmin nuvi products can be finicky when connecting via bluetooth to car "in-dash" units. For example in Nissan vehicles I have never gotten a Garmin nuvi device to connect via bluetooth, but in some Honda's I have. I have not tried to connect to my Mazda yet due to this inconsistency (I just turn the Garmin Nuvi volume up). I do not know how much money you are willing to spend and what Grand Touring dash 'sacrifices' you are willing to make, but you could look into installing a Kenwood In-dash Navigation unit. These particular nav units come installed with Garmin navigation, car play, android auto, etc. & fit within the double din space of our mazda's head unit.
 
#3 ·
Unfortunately, the 2016 models are not double-DIN[1], they're a proprietary Mazda design. As of the moment and AFAIK there are no available replacement headunits[2]. There are a small number of Android HUs that will mostly work in MY2014 cars.

Besides the physical form factor, there are other challenges a manufacturer must deal with - the center console controls (command knob etc) and communication on the CAN bus for various BCM and safety system settings.

There may be a point in the future where one of the Chinese mfg comes up with an Android HU that works for 2016, but until then replacing the HU doesn't look like an option.

[1] http://gas2.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/interior-mazda_6.jpg
[2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/2jmw4y339z8aj0i/Screenshot 2016-07-15 08.41.02.png?dl=0
 
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