[jeffb335]

Originally Posted by bacardi198

@jeffb335, I searched this thread and the original N6 thread for 'siri' and you mentioned you would try using it via the steering wheel buttons. I was wondering if you'd had a chance to give it a shot?

The steering wheel controls dont interact with siri but you can do the normal "hold down the home button" to activate Siri, then on the dynavin it will automatically switch to bluetooth and you will hear Siri through the stereo and Siri will hear you through bluetooth. As Wongway mentioned, "OK Google" works similarly on android although it is voice activated via the phone and is a function specific to a couple of newer android phones.

How well this works is going to vary, the ambient noise level, your voice, mic placement, etc... are all going to affect its usefulness. Me personally....Ive never found that voice activated anything really works all that well....

Overall though Siri seemed to work fine in my car, with the car on, sitting still in the parking lot, haven't tried it yet at speed but based on previous experience with high ambient noise and voice recognition...Im not expecting much!



Also, before everyone asks, the iphone 6/iOS8 works fine with the dynavin. Nothing new there, works the same as the previous iphones.

[taibanl]

Originally Posted by jeffb335

The steering wheel controls dont interact with siri but you can do the normal "hold down the home button" to activate Siri, then on the dynavin it will automatically switch to bluetooth and you will hear Siri through the stereo and Siri will hear you through bluetooth. As Wongway mentioned, "OK Google" works similarly on android although it is voice activated via the phone and is a function specific to a couple of newer android phones.

How well this works is going to vary, the ambient noise level, your voice, mic placement, etc... are all going to affect its usefulness. Me personally....Ive never found that voice activated anything really works all that well....

Overall though Siri seemed to work fine in my car, with the car on, sitting still in the parking lot, haven't tried it yet at speed but based on previous experience with high ambient noise and voice recognition...Im not expecting much!



Also, before everyone asks, the iphone 6/iOS8 works fine with the dynavin. Nothing new there, works the same as the previous iphones.

I'm wondering if/how well the new "Hey Siri" would work in the car. It should be active as long as connected to power.

[jeffb335]

Originally Posted by taibanl

I'm wondering if/how well the new "Hey Siri" would work in the car. It should be active as long as connected to power.

Hmmmmm....I didnt know about "hey siri".....but yes, I just tried it in my car and it works.....ill still need to try it at 70mph though, I suspect that may yield different results.

EDIT: Tried it on the drive home, it worked surprisingly well....probably not something I will ever actually use but I could see someone using it to quickly find music or read an email or text while in traffic. interesting....

[vasman]

Has anyone updated the iGO primo maps? What's the process? Although activated in the alerts menu mine does not show any speed cameras alerts in UK

According to the Dynavin website you have 30days free updates after first use

Update: just found it "Naviextras Toolbox"

[RobRogers99]

Originally Posted by Wongway

I'm not trying to bash your opinion or anything. More, looking to clarify...

I took a quick peek at all of the top tier GPS navigation units from Pioneer...

Out of the 4, only 3 of them had Traffic included as part of the system.
Of those 3, they started at $950, and on up to $1400.

None that I saw, had a voice command built into them? (Unless it's labeled as something else that I'm unaware of) Though they do support Siri, however that's a phone specific function, less a head unit function as having a Moto X and saying "Ok Google Now" would accomplish the same thing via bluetooth, but again, that's more phone specific and less a head unit specific item.

Text message support is also an unknown since the description didn't specifically mention it.

Again, not trying to argue, just thinking your expectations might have been a bit unrealistic?

No problem, just saying that's why I prefaced my review with a "one man's opinion" type intro, etc.

As for voice command, the standard original head unit that was in the car used it. I don't mean to criticize the fact that it's not built into the OS as an "on standby" feature, but you would think that since the unit communicates with some of the steering wheel buttons (volume up/down, track +/-), it would communicate with all of them. Unfortunately for me (or us), the voice command button was strangely omitted from the plans...

Text message support is something that can be tacked on to the above complaint as well. Most phones will read your text back when asking their "personal assistant" be it Siri, Google, or otherwise... Again, unfortunately that's not an option here without taking your phone out of your pocket... Yet.

[jeffb335]

Rob, as I said a few posts above, the "hey siri" DOES work, as does "OK google", yes the phone has to be able to hear you in order to initialize the whole thing but after that its via bluetooth....BUT..... it has to be a phone with the functionality. Maybe not exactly how you want it to work....but it does work.

[RobRogers99]

Originally Posted by jeffb335

Rob, as I said a few posts above, the "hey siri" DOES work, as does "OK google", yes the phone has to be able to hear you in order to initialize the whole thing but after that its via bluetooth....BUT..... it has to be a phone with the functionality. Maybe not exactly how you want it to work....but it does work.

Noted, just odd that they left out the voice command steering wheel button mapping is all I'm saying here.

Additionally, I'm a bit confused about the "TMC" traffic data that the unit advertises (see attached pic for reference.) This is the only time they mention it, and although it has an asterisk to denote further explanation there is none. Hell, even if it was a subscription issue I'd be happy to shell out a few bucks...

[Wongway]

I know the older Dynavins were able to accept a TMC receiver, which is basically a separate antenna for Traffic information. I'm guessing there will be a TMC receiver later on down the line available for this? (This is just conjecture)

Also, to jeffb335, What's the purpose of this accessory I saw on Dynavin's Website:
N6 - 6M - EXT
It looks like it connects/extends the factory USB fakra cable?

[burnerg81]

FAO Vasman.

Hey Vasman, can you answer a few questions please as I'm looking to buy the N6 and have it installed in the same place you got yours.

1. how many (if any) glitches have you found as others report things like radio presets resetting, etc
2. do the steering wheel controls work using any apps like internet radio or spotify
3. did you have Bluetooth in the car already and if so, did you re-use the mic or did you use the mic from the dynavin instead
4. what's the phone/mic quality like - any complaints about things like background noise from people you call

Thanks.

[1QuikWS6]

Originally Posted by RobRogers99

Noted, just odd that they left out the voice command steering wheel button mapping is all I'm saying here.

Additionally, I'm a bit confused about the "TMC" traffic data that the unit advertises (see attached pic for reference.) This is the only time they mention it, and although it has an asterisk to denote further explanation there is none. Hell, even if it was a subscription issue I'd be happy to shell out a few bucks...

All I can say is, you must have major gridlock wherever you live for this traffic data issue to be a main bitching point?

Where I live it really doesn't matter whether you know about traffic or not, once you're on the way there really is no other way to go that doesn't have traffic just as bad - so there's really no need for an electronic device to tell me when I'm gonna be stuck in traffic - it's a given

[vasman]

Yesterday I used the Naviextras Toolbox to update my iGO primo maps and also downloaded speed cameras that were not part of the initial installation according to the Navigation manual.

Following the upgrade and after connecting the Navi SD in the Dynavin unit it does not capture any satellites and hence cannot be used. Even while driving for 40minutes it remains in a screen saying looking for satellites and did not manage to pick any.

I selected the factory settings options from the menu but again no satellites. I will try today to restore the SD to the version before the upgrade to see if this fixes it. But does anyone experienced this issue or updated their maps using the specific toolbox?

Could you please share your sys.txt settings to see if anything was corrupted?

Any ideas?

Thanks again

[vasman]

Originally Posted by burnerg81

FAO Vasman.

Hey Vasman, can you answer a few questions please as I'm looking to buy the N6 and have it installed in the same place you got yours.

1. how many (if any) glitches have you found as others report things like radio presets resetting, etc
2. do the steering wheel controls work using any apps like internet radio or spotify
3. did you have Bluetooth in the car already and if so, did you re-use the mic or did you use the mic from the dynavin instead
4. what's the phone/mic quality like - any complaints about things like background noise from people you call

Thanks.

1. No glitches with Radio presets AS LONG AS the unit is correctly wired in a fuse slot that does not sleep, or directly to the battery
2. I believe the steering wheel controls do not manage the Phone Applications but will try later for you and let you know
3. The car did not have a Bluetooth connection so I am using the mic from Dynavin and is placed in the same location as Jeff proposed, from the little use so far no issues
4. So far no major issues

The issues that I have noticed with my unit are:
1. There is no Rewind button when watching movies or video clips, only Next/Previous and FF
2. There is no “More” option as shown in the manual when watching movies (or video clips) and hence no option to enable subtitles even though there is an associated .srt file with the clip
3. Not all movies/clips are playing (unsupported video comes up or skips to the next) even though a file of the same format (mkv, avi etc.) can play. This was resolved by transcoding everything to mp4 and now everything works
4. Even though the USB media and SD card are always present in the unit, when I try to open the Artists or Albums view the unit always take time to read the card like trying to read it from scratch. This seems to take place every time the device is activated after the car has been parked/stopped for some time. But it does remember the last video and song that was playing and this comes up straight away as soon as I enter the key in slot. Very fast and impressive
5. I now have issues with my Navigation. Also clock timestamp as the unit cannot pick up satellites. I “think” this appeared after upgrading the iGO Primo maps but even now that I restored the Navi SD to the previous version I still have no Satellites picked up. THAT’S SOMETHING I NEED TO SORT OUT ASAP

So for anyone else out there could it be that the GPS antenna is faulty or not connecting to the unit? Would I receive that message looking for satellites or should I expect a different message like GPS antenna not connected?

[1QuikWS6]

Originally Posted by vasman

Yesterday I used the Naviextras Toolbox to update my iGO primo maps and also downloaded speed cameras that were not part of the initial installation according to the Navigation manual.

Following the upgrade and after connecting the Navi SD in the Dynavin unit it does not capture any satellites and hence cannot be used. Even while driving for 40minutes it remains in a screen saying looking for satellites and did not manage to pick any.

I selected the factory settings options from the menu but again no satellites. I will try today to restore the SD to the version before the upgrade to see if this fixes it. But does anyone experienced this issue or updated their maps using the specific toolbox?

Could you please share your sys.txt settings to see if anything was corrupted?

Any ideas?

Thanks again

I upgraded the Nav software using NaviExtras shortly after installing the N6 - as they only give you 30 days Free updates after initial install, then after that you will have to pay...

I didn't notice that the Nav update had any detrimental effect on the GPS satellites, however, I DID have exactly the same problem you are seeing at a time after the update.

After initial install, the unit would find the satellites & the GPS time that is displayed on screen shortly after unit powered up. Then it started to be where it took longer to find them, then eventually got to the point where it never found them, nor did it display the GPS time, no matter how long you drove.

On Nav screen, when you click on orbiting satellites icon in upper right corner it would state it was searching for satellites, but no signal strength on any of them & said 0 satellites found.

• 1st I tried moving the GPS antenna from under the dash location as Jeff has his to on top of the dash to see if that had anything to do with it - didn't think it would as it worked under dash previously, but just wanted to cover all bases.
  
• Talked to Jeff, he sent me a new GPS antenna. I swapped them out & tried both locations again, still no GPS signal/clock.
  
• Then we tried resetting all the Nav settings back to Defaults in iGo - still no signal/clock.
  
• Then Jeff sent me an entire new N6 HU, I swapped them out, & now the GPS picks up the signal/clock immediately (even quicker than other unit) with the antenna under the dash.

Jeff surmised it may have been loose/bad antenna connection on circuit board, or mebbe a bad solder joint on the initial unit.

I don't think that the Nav update had anything to do with it, because I put the very same SD card back IN the new unit (with the update already installed) & it finds the signal right away. Pretty sure all the Nav update does is change software on Nav SD card, doesn't mess with any of the N6 unit software.

At any rate, the new replacement unit solved the problem - so I would get with Jeff & see what he wants to do & have him run thru whatever diagnostics he deems necessary. It may be that all the circuit boards in a particular run have the same problem, but that's just me guessing at this point.



I must say, Jeff has been nothing short of excellent as far as customer service goes. He's always available by phone or email, works to get any problems solved, & ships out any replacement parts immediately with 2 day shipping normally

[vasman]

Originally Posted by 1QuikWS6

I upgraded the Nav software using NaviExtras shortly after installing the N6 - as they only give you 30 days Free updates after initial install, then after that you will have to pay...

I didn't notice that the Nav update had any detrimental effect on the GPS satellites, however, I DID have exactly the same problem you are seeing at a time after the update.

After initial install, the unit would find the satellites & the GPS time that is displayed on screen shortly after unit powered up. Then it started to be where it took longer to find them, then eventually got to the point where it never found them, nor did it display the GPS time, no matter how long you drove.

On Nav screen, when you click on orbiting satellites icon in upper right corner it would state it was searching for satellites, but no signal strength on any of them & said 0 satellites found.

• 1st I tried moving the GPS antenna from under the dash location as Jeff has his to on top of the dash to see if that had anything to do with it - didn't think it would as it worked under dash previously, but just wanted to cover all bases.
  
• Talked to Jeff, he sent me a new GPS antenna. I swapped them out & tried both locations again, still no GPS signal.
  
• Then we tried resetting all the Nav settings back to Defaults - still no signal.
  
• Then Jeff sent me an entire new N6 HU, I swapped them out, & now the GPS picks up the signal immediately (even quicker than other unit) with the antenna under the dash.

Jeff surmised it may have been loose/bad antenna connection on circuit board, or mebbe a bad solder joint on the initial unit.

I don't think that the Nav update had anything to do with it, because I put the very same SD card back IN the new unit (with the update already installed) & it finds the signal right away. Pretty sure all the Nav update does is change software on Nav SD card, doesn't mess with any of the N6 unit software.

At any rate, the new replacement unit solved the problem - so I would get with Jeff & see what he wants to do & have him run thru whatever diagnostics he deems necessary. It may be that all the circuit boards in a particular run have the same problem, but that's just me guessing at this point.



I must say, Jeff has been nothing short of excellent as far as customer service goes. He's always available by phone or email, works to get any problems solved, & ships out any replacement parts immediately with 2 day shipping normally

Thanks for the thorough response, much appreciated.

However, I am based in UK. And I would be very very disappointed If I find out that a unit that cost me £600, 5h drive to install, and not used for even 5 days has such a problem, and would mean I need a replacement. So how do I know the next one will not be faulty? I did not purchase a cheap Chinese unit to avoid these issues

If two of us have this issue so far then this is not coincidence...

[1QuikWS6]

Well, i figure - these are made by humans, not all is going to always be perfect & trouble free. I've had items waaaaay more expensive from very reputable brand names that had problems, so amount paid does not always have anything to do with it.

I installed my own N6, so it's just my time I'm out and install is free

My 1st unit lasted weeks before it had the problem. The new unit solved the problem so far, only had it installed since Monday.

I realize it was an inconvenience, but Jeff was quick to jump on the problem & had no qualms about sending out a replacement.

I returned the old unit to him Tuesday, so as soon as he get's it I'm sure he will send back to Dynavin for credit & they will check it out to see what the problem was...


Again, I'm not saying that you will need to do the same, just relating what was needed to fix the same problem with my unit.

[Yngve]

Hi again,

The radio is now working perfectly (thanks a lot Jeff!), and I really love this HU. It has unfortunately resurrected my hobby for car stereo, so I just ordered a MS-8 and a centre speaker cover for my E92.
It has been 15 years since I was building car stereos, so I would appreciate some advice from you guys.

The MOST connection in my original HU, made me believe I had logic7.
But I actually only have base system, with 4 upgraded BSW door speakers, incl front tweeters with housing.

I am looking for advice on the two options I can see:
- use N6 RCA outputs (front and back for PDC?) towards the MS-8, and wire each speaker myself.
- or try to get the Technic wiring harness that I read so much about.

Finally, I would also appreciate recommendations for which centre speaker to go for.
I believe the MS-8 is a great start, where I can add amps and subwoofer later, if the "disease" continues.

Thanks

[jeffb335]

Vasman, in the iGo navigation menu go to the part where you can "reset to defaults." If that doesn't do it then there is some kind of problem with the hardware and you will need to contact your seller

[vasman]

Originally Posted by jeffb335

Vasman, in the iGo navigation menu go to the part where you can "reset to defaults." If that doesn't do it then there is some kind of problem with the hardware and you will need to contact your seller

Thanks Jeff, this was the first thing I did before even restoring the SW in the SD card but no luck. I have already contacted the seller that said will speak with Dynavin

What I really cannot understand is how, while stationary stopped working. Yesterday evening I come back driving and works fine, and then after few hours I take the car and it does not. If it is a a PCB or other HW issue I would expect some vibration to be causing it to fall apart, how can in 4 days with no heavy use it has stopped working?

You seem to have a faulty unit in your hands (if not already forwarded to Dynavin) so I would be very curious what Dynavin say about this issue and how two units one in US and one in UK have stopped capturing satellites in less than 5 days of use

[jeffb335]

Not that hard to understand.....Could be defective from the start and it took a few heat cycles to show up, could be shipping damage, could be the GPS antenna wire was damaged during installation and took a little use to completely fail. I've seen it all. I realize it's inconvenient for you but things happen. Your dealer will take care of you.

Also I forgot to ask you a basic troubleshooting question ....does the clock on the radio work because it's also connected to the GPS hardware..... if the clock works then we know the hardware is okay and it's a software problem with the navigation program

[1QuikWS6]

Another tip for N6 owners -

The N6 comes packaged with a matte plastic screen protector installed - try leaving it on.

I originally left mine on so as to keep the screen from scratches, but found out it had an added benefit - during the day in bright sunlight the screen did not wash out as much, nor did it reflect interior items.

Now my interior is Black, so not as reflective as, say, a beige interior, but I noticed the difference none the less

[jeffb335]

Originally Posted by Yngve

Hi again,

The radio is now working perfectly (thanks a lot Jeff!), and I really love this HU. It has unfortunately resurrected my hobby for car stereo, so I just ordered a MS-8 and a centre speaker cover for my E92.
It has been 15 years since I was building car stereos, so I would appreciate some advice from you guys.

The MOST connection in my original HU, made me believe I had logic7.
But I actually only have base system, with 4 upgraded BSW door speakers, incl front tweeters with housing.

I am looking for advice on the two options I can see:
- use N6 RCA outputs (front and back for PDC?) towards the MS-8, and wire each speaker myself.
- or try to get the Technic wiring harness that I read so much about.

Finally, I would also appreciate recommendations for which centre speaker to go for.
I believe the MS-8 is a great start, where I can add amps and subwoofer later, if the "disease" continues.

Thanks

Yes, you should run the front and rear RCAs to the MS-8 (or whatever processor you want to use) so that the processor sums them and you get the PDC beeps and all the rest of the bluetooth/nav sounds as needed.

Get the technic harness, you wont regret it.

[vasman]

Originally Posted by jeffb335

Not that hard to understand.....Could be defective from the start and it took a few heat cycles to show up, could be shipping damage, could be the GPS antenna wire was damaged during installation and took a little use to completely fail. I've seen it all. I realize it's inconvenient for you but things happen. Your dealer will take care of you.

Also I forgot to ask you a basic troubleshooting question ....does the clock on the radio work because it's also connected to the GPS hardware..... if the clock works then we know the hardware is okay and it's a software problem with the navigation program

Unfortunately for me clock does not work. This was the first thing I checked to make sure if it is iGO SW related or GPS overall related. I also tried using a blank .sys file but nope, the iGO SW did boot up fine and re-created the contents but no Sats, not even 1

So as far as I can understand is definitely not SW, the seller contacted Dynavin and we are expecting their response. But if I am honest I do not think they will say anything valuable (unless many people have reported same problem) and in the end I will have to start replacing antennas and then HUs...not nice :-(