I recently did a small addition to the music system which has opened up a lot of new possibilities with the Pioneer 8590BT head unit. I thought it might benefit a lot of folks who are running the Pioneer systems with AppRadio features and hence sharing whatever I've learnt so far. Pardon me for the long post!
It's been almost a year since we installed the HU but never got to experience the Appradio functionality since we didn't buy the required cable at the time of first install. It was going to cost me about 5-6K additional, so I decided to defer that decision until I was convinced about which one to buy. Now, the unit needs different set of connection kits if you have the iphone 4 (IU201S) vs iphone 5 (IH202) vs android (AH-200) and all of them cost around $50-60 with the exception of IH202 which needs additional Lightning to digital AV adapter which is about $50 more. Once connected, it's not an easy affair to swap the cables since they're connected at the back of the HU, so you need to make a choice on which one you're going to install.
IU201S for iPhone 4/4s - uses RGB connection + USB for power
IH202 for iPhone 5/5s - Need to purchase the Lightning to DV adapter separately + Lightning to USB cable
AH-200 for Android phones with MHL - includes everything you'd need
My wife uses the iPhone5 and I'm using the N7100 (we're so alike you see!), so the big question was which one to get. Somehow, I didn't feel like spending $60-$100 on a cable kit but the AppRadio was one of the top reasons why I had bought the 8590BT unit apart from the 3 RCA (4V) pre-outs which was #1 reason. I wanted to be able to use the navigation feature on the HU with Google Maps rather than the conventional systems that have navigation modules with MMI.
I tried exploring cheaper alternatives but there weren't any readily available, until the day I really studied what that damn kit was supposed to do. And what I found was quite surprising! All that the connection kit does, is connect your phone to an external display device which could be your TV or a touchscreen interface and provide power the phone so it can be charged when connected. The existing documentation tries to confuse you with all sorts of jargons, but essentially there is one HDMI/RGB cable that communicates bi-directionally for the screen information, and another one that connects to a USB power source so that the phone doesn't get drained when connected. The audio streaming is via BlueTooth and the cables have no role to play here. The mirrorlink is achieved via the AppRadio app that allows the HU to make some of the compatible applications interactive on the screen like maps, or phone book etc.
The iPhone5 connection kit was turning out to be quite an expensive affair with more than $100 of hardware, plus it needed some firmware upgrade etc on the HU to make it work. The main purpose of enabling connectivity was getting the navigation app to work, and that would be mostly needed when we're traveling out. So even if we got it done for the android phone, it was still a good deal. The decision had been made, android it was going to be!
Connection diagrams for iPhone and Android (from the manual)
The connection kit for android basically has a HDMI-HDMI cable, a HDMI to micro HDMI connection, a USB to USB cable and another USB to micro-USB connector and a MHL adapter that basically takes the HDMI and the USB input and combines them both into a single micro-USB connection that goes into the phone. The phone can now output on the HDMI and receive power from the USB connection. Now, I figured that all of this can be done with the help of just one single cable - MHL Micro USB to HDMI Adapter cable sold on ebay.in for about 400-450 INR (one of the several wonders from China!). It was time to put my theory to test.
The cable was ordered and was promptly delivered, it said it was specific to the Samsung S4 or Note2, but I'm sure it will work with most Samsung phones that support MHL. It comes with a HDMI + USB port on one end and a micro-USB port on the other side. I connected the HDMI and USB into the TV and plugged in the micro-USB into the phone in anticipation of a miracle, but nothing happened! Several tries resulted in absolute blankness, the HDMI output was not being recognized by the TV at all. What a waste I thought, but it was an experiment, so my chances were anyway 50-50. The idea was put to rest and the decision to buy the AH-200 was being reviewed again.
A few days later it struck me that maybe it was my phone that was a problem and not the cable. I run a custom OS and not every functionality works with these "home-cooked" ROMs. So I summoned a friend who also has the N7100 to check the connection with the stock ROM, and voila, it worked with his phone! The HDMI out was able to display the phone's screen on the TV, the cable was worth the money afterall.
So now the issue was that my phone which wasn't compatible with MHL, a new hunt had begun to get a custom ROM that allowed MHL connections. Apparently, Samsung has not released the drivers for MHL and so the developer community can't get it to work on their custom ROMs. A new plan was devised to install the official Samsung KitKat ROM that was released for the N7100 and then root it and customize it to the way I want it, rather than installing a custom ROM directly. This way, I would have the drivers for MHL that come with the custom ROM and I'll still be able to get rid of all the bloatware etc and modify the device as per my needs. It wasn't an easy decision since I was pretty much in love with the ROM I had, but somewhere a sacrifice had to be made.
I installed the official Samsung ROM and tested the connectivity with the TV and it worked, then slowly and steadily I kept checking the functionality at every step as I rooted the phone and deleted most of the bloatware etc that comes with Samsung, and it still worked!
So now, I had a phone that I could use with the HU. Next step was to get the cable installed which was done promptly in under 20 mins by my dear friends at AutoShop (Koramangala). Checked for functionality and it worked just fine. Felt pretty happy that I was able to get it running at about 1/10th the cost even if I would have gotten the cables from the US.
Will put up a detailed review on the Appradio functionality and AR Unchained once I get some time to play around with it. With the AR Unchained app, I should be able to use almost all the apps without any restrictions unlike the Pioneer AppRadio application. Hopefully, now I'll be able to enjoy the HU to its full potential without burning a hole in the pocket.
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