[EastBayE90]

Originally Posted by Jeffcharger

The blackberry unit was really slick. I couldn't think of it being any slicker....the problem for me was the audio quality. I can't remember specifically, but I had seen this unit (the Giffen) and something turned me off of it.

In my mind, there's 2 key aspects that need to be handled. The first is the audio quality. I quite frankly found reports for the blackberry unit where people said the quality was great. I found this to be untrue when I bought 2 units. (which BB graciously refunded without issue). The second is the integration with the BMWs integral handsfree handling. The car does this wonderfully by itself. The belkin unit isn't as good as the BB unit. I don't have any info on the Griffen unit on either of these, but the write up seems to indicate that you have to hit a button to handle phone calls. The Belkin has this problem too, although its easily within reach depending on where it's mounted. This may not be as easy with the Giffen unit since it needs to plug into the cigarette lighter.

Agreed that phone calling would be an issue. But I already have Bluetooth in the car for calling from the factory. I would only be using this as an audio bridge for music. I am using an iPhone 5 currently, I just want to have the directions when using Apple maps to play through the car speakers. So I hope this does the trick.

[Jeffcharger]

Originally Posted by (-(ellblazer420

Agreed that phone calling would be an issue. But I already have Bluetooth in the car for calling from the factory. I would only be using this as an audio bridge for music. I am using an iPhone 5 currently, I just want to have the directions when using Apple maps to play through the car speakers. So I hope this does the trick.

I have the bluetooth in the car too. Tha'ts the part that I think is "slick" and that I like so much. The potential issue is how the 2 units integrate. In my case, the Belkin unit takes over the voice control from the car's integral setup. It doesn't do it as well... it's distorted and too loud. I think that the Giffen unit might be better for this since I don't believe that it has voice handsfree for the phone.

I think that you'll like the iphone 5 integration. I have the iphone 4s and it's great with the connection. You can show maps, get talking instructions (with IOS 6) and can do voice control of music and texting etc.

Let us know how the Giffen units works.

[DavidZ]

Originally Posted by (-(ellblazer420

Just wondering if any of you have tried this one out?
http://store.griffintechnology.com/iphone/bluetrip-aux

I read this thread and did not see it mentioned. It looks like it is exactly what we would need and looks much cleaner than the Blackberry Music Gateway and the Belkin unit.

My only concern is audio quality.

On the site it says that it auto pairs when the car is powered on. I think I may try out this one if no one else has any feedback.

I have this Griffin unit and the A2DP audio quality seems great. I've only used it to stream navigation directions and a movie soundtrack from my Android phone so far, not serious music listening which I do via USB flash drive. Once paired it automatically pairs every time the car and phone are on.

[EastBayE90]

Originally Posted by DavidZ

I have this Griffin unit and the A2DP audio quality seems great. I've only used it to stream navigation directions and a movie soundtrack from my Android phone so far, not serious music listening which I do via USB flash drive. Once paired it automatically pairs every time the car and phone are on.

So glad that you confirmed that it works well. I really want to be able to hear navigation directions from my iPhone 5 with it. I went ahead and ordered it yesterday and should be in next week. I will update you guys with how it works with the iPhone 5.

[Enza]

The Griffin works ok.

[18000rpm]

Originally Posted by Jeffcharger

In my mind, there's 2 key aspects that need to be handled. The first is the audio quality. I quite frankly found reports for the blackberry unit where people said the quality was great. I found this to be untrue when I bought 2 units.

I have an iPod connector that provides a line-level out which goes into my aux-in in the center console:



I find the sound quality to be far less than ideal. For anyone using the aux-in, try playing the same well-encoded MP3 through the CD player directly, and via aux-in.

I find the aux-in to sound slightly muffled and lacking in high frequencies. My aux-in volume is set to 1.

Is that the case for everyone?

[nydog]

Originally Posted by (-(ellblazer420

So glad that you confirmed that it works well. I really want to be able to hear navigation directions from my iPhone 5 with it. I went ahead and ordered it yesterday and should be in next week. I will update you guys with how it works with the iPhone 5.

Any update on the BlueTrip?

[Apple4life]

I got the Belkin one. The sound quality is pretty good. I like that I can activate siri with it.

[bryanz]

Does anyone know if it's possible and how much it would cost to DIY upgrade from the OEM Bluetooth+Assist package to OEM Bluetooth Enhanced so I can do A2DP streaming?

[gpb]

Originally Posted by bryanz

Does anyone know if it's possible and how much it would cost to DIY upgrade from the OEM Bluetooth+Assist package to OEM Bluetooth Enhanced so I can do A2DP streaming?

Search "combox retrofit"

[starbai]

Originally Posted by Jeffcharger

I have the bluetooth in the car too. Tha'ts the part that I think is "slick" and that I like so much. The potential issue is how the 2 units integrate. In my case, the Belkin unit takes over the voice control from the car's integral setup. It doesn't do it as well... it's distorted and too loud. I think that the Giffen unit might be better for this since I don't believe that it has voice handsfree for the phone.

I think that you'll like the iphone 5 integration. I have the iphone 4s and it's great with the connection. You can show maps, get talking instructions (with IOS 6) and can do voice control of music and texting etc.

Let us know how the Giffen units works.

Sorry so just to be clear... the Belkin will always attempt to take over voice calls from the car? That sucks... I like the way the blackberry one supposedly leaves calls to the car and only does audio.

I like that the Belkin provides an extra USB port though so that I can sometimes charge the phone too while it streams via bluetooth.

Perhaps I can just use one of these... one port to charge the blackberry bluetooth adapter and leave a normal iphone USB cable plugged in also to charge the phone once in a while...

http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Univer...SB+car+charger

I'm considering the Griffin unit folks have been discussing, I like its compact form. However reading through the comments on this thread seem to contradict each other regarding audio quality being good...

Originally Posted by DavidZ

I have this Griffin unit and the A2DP audio quality seems great. I've only used it to stream navigation directions and a movie soundtrack from my Android phone so far, not serious music listening which I do via USB flash drive. Once paired it automatically pairs every time the car and phone are on.

A month later, have you tried music now and is it good quality??

[alexwhittemore]

So all-in-all, my goals are:

-steering wheel track control (This one's especially tricky since the protocol used by the BMW Y cable doesn't necessarily play nice with third party apps like rdio - the skip forward/back buttons just... don't work).
-handsfree calling
-(maybe) a2dp music streaming.
-everything AS OEM AS POSSIBLE.

In my car, I was finally able to retrofit bluetooth handsfree, some parts are still on the way to finish it, but we'll assume that's in. That leaves the music side.

I actually got one of these guys, the iskin curelean
hoping that, because it does iPod Accessory Protocol (serial port control) to AVRCP translation, I could get steering wheel control by just plugging it in.

Unfortunately, I think that because it doesn't respond to some control messages, it doesn't fully emulate an iPod and thus the car never detects an iPod plugged in and never issues serial commands from the console and wheel controls. So basically, it's only useful for streaming, and unfortunately the quality even at that isn't the best (as soon as there's lots going on, or high frequency sounds, you get a bit of a bubbling from whatever codec is being used for transmission).

The only real options I see after this are a Parrot system (which doesn't offer great integration - a little dongle to do wheel controls, which offers more control, but less integration, and no stereo integration for things like the phone book, which is the real bummer) or a Kufatec Fiscon.

Basically, I think the Fiscon is perfect, but I don't want to spend $450 without having tested one personally first.

I think the end result of all this is that I'm just going to straight up build my own. Plan is to plug in the normal Y cable and sniff the serial commands going between the phone and cable, then make a dongle which fully implements AVRCP, A2DP, and also uses those protocols to fully emulate an iPod plugged into the car when a phone is paired. It'll probably be a while before I actually get around to making it, so I guess I'll keep you guys updated. I'll probably blog it and start a new thread if/when I actually get to it.

[gopatgeaux]

Where on earth can I buy the newest Blackberry Gateway from? This seems perfect for what I want.

[starbai]

Those with the belkin adapter.... How do you feel about the output of bass using it in your car?

I just got it (the belkin unit) and have been using it the last few days and to me there is a NOTICIBLE difference in the amount of bass that comes through my speakers when using it.

I have an 'MP3 CD' that I played the same exact file through the CD player and compared it to the same exact file that was transfered to my phone and there was a noticeable difference in lows.

I thought, perhaps I've got some kind of loss through the iphone and so I tried playing pandora and iheartradio apps to see how they work... and still had the same loss of bass.

To confirm it I used a standard auxillary cable and 'hardwired it' to the audio in port on my e90 and noticed better quality with the lows doing it this way too.

I then thought perhaps its how the iphone transmits over bluetooth... but even that didnt' pan out beacuse my parents have a Jaguar that i connect bluetooth audio all the time with and it sounds just fine, as it did with the stock bluetooth audio streaming in my last car, a Mustang with the Shaker 500 and factory bluetooth streaming.

Doing all this I've narrowed it down I THINK to this unit just not being as good as I expected with the bass levels.

Anyone that also have one can give it a shot comparing side by side and see if you have the same results??? Any comments on this anyone? Would the Blackberry one presumably have better results?

[Jeffcharger]

I found the Belkin unit to be fine for bass and treble - far better than the Blackberry unit I bought first (and returned). I don't think that the Belkin is as good as original quality CDs. I think that I'd have a hard time distinquishing the difference between the belkin over bluetooth or wired.... but I can believe that wired is a touch better. From my listening, I don't think that the bass suffers at all though.

The Blackberry wasn't nearly as good. It was noticeably poorer quality over bluetooth (although I liked the unit itself - and how it integrated with the VR in the car.)

[hems77]

On a slightly different note (sorry to hijack this thread) -

I added another post - http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=774722 asking how you can activate Siri over bluetooth in our cars?

I have BMW bluetooth in the car which I use for calls and a BB gateway for streaming music. I've heard people say they can activate and use Siri and it talks over the car speakers - when I try this it doesn't.

Any ideas??? Could it be the BB gateway stopping it some how? I doubt it though.

Any one else using Siri over bluetooth with no problems? How do you activate it and does it work with the bluetooth in the car - mute stereo and play over car speakers?

I have an iPhone 5 and iOS6 BTW

Thanks!!

[starbai]

Originally Posted by Jeffcharger

I found the Belkin unit to be fine for bass and treble - far better than the Blackberry unit I bought first (and returned). I don't think that the Belkin is as good as original quality CDs. I think that I'd have a hard time distinquishing the difference between the belkin over bluetooth or wired.... but I can believe that wired is a touch better. From my listening, I don't think that the bass suffers at all though.

The Blackberry wasn't nearly as good. It was noticeably poorer quality over bluetooth (although I liked the unit itself - and how it integrated with the VR in the car.)

Well this is disappointing. I'm wondering if I may have a defective unit, or if it could be the sound settings on my phone or something. The lack of bass in my application is so notably different I've already stopped using it and gone back to hard wiring it through the aux input. I was hoping that the blackberry would have BETTER not worse performance

[joelc73]

Can you use this and still have your iPod hooked up in the center console? I wouldn't want to lose that. Bluetooth audio from my iPhone would be great though.

[ArcticRik]

I have the blackberry and i think it sounds amazing with the logic 7

[_ink]

I'm not sure about the OP's Griffin product, but i was using a BT gateway to A2DP and i had to manually connect to it all the time.

This product is the only one that i know that will allow your phone to connect to the BMW BT phone kit and this device automatically:

http://www.newpotatotech.com/TUNELIN...link_auto.html

They have an app for iphone and android to download to modify your settings and play your music through.. pretty neat!

[geko29]

Originally Posted by _ink

I'm not sure about the OP's Griffin product, but i was using a BT gateway to A2DP and i had to manually connect to it all the time.

This product is the only one that i know that will allow your phone to connect to the BMW BT phone kit and this device automatically:

http://www.newpotatotech.com/TUNELIN...link_auto.html

They have an app for iphone and android to download to modify your settings and play your music through.. pretty neat!

Blackberry gateway does this perfectly, no app required. Your device is connected to it as an A2DP streamer, and to your head unit as a headset. So you stream your content, when the phone rings the head unit automatically takes over and lets you answer the call. When you hang up, streaming continues where it left off (unless live content, obviously, it'll pick up where you are instead of where you were). It's completely seamless and doesn't require you to EVER touch your device except to begin playing when you first get in the car.

[ArcticRik]

Originally Posted by _ink

I'm not sure about the OP's Griffin product, but i was using a BT gateway to A2DP and i had to manually connect to it all the time.

This product is the only one that i know that will allow your phone to connect to the BMW BT phone kit and this device automatically:

http://www.newpotatotech.com/TUNELIN...link_auto.html

They have an app for iphone and android to download to modify your settings and play your music through.. pretty neat!

I have the BT gateway and if you keep the bluetooth on your phone on before you turn on the gateway it will connect automatically