General Product review: 'Special' Stilo DVD/GPS stereo from China

[alexGS]

Firstly, apologies if this should be in the ICE section - I felt it was relevant only to the Stilo, so have placed it here.

See also the thread https://www.fiatforum.com/stilo/313...l-singing-all-dancing-chinese-head-units.html

You can find these units at iokone.com. My email contact was Phoebe Zheng. Her replies were prompt and quite helpful, although it turns out that the actual manufacturer is Hualingan ('HL' on the rear of the unit). Their website is http://en.hualingan.com/ and you will find many less-than-complimentary websites, such as http://www.hualingan.info/index.html. All-up cost was NZ$630 (roughly £320). Value declared on the shipping invoice was US$100 and I expect this price would apply if you ordered a hundred of them. We have an interesting situation when you order one piece of anything from a Chinese supplier, as they effectively become a retailer rather than a wholesaler, so you have to pay full retail price. I got a $10 discount, as I promised to write this review.

Clearly, you are taking a chance in buying one of these units, so my purpose here is to explain exactly what you actually get. To the best of my knowledge, there is no other review of this unit anywhere else on the Internet. 'iokone' say they have the capacity to supply 2800 units/month.

The box arrived by EMS (Chinese shipping company) after only a few days. The unit was well-packed and in good condition - it arrived with a TV antenna (I ordered the DVB+T tuner option), GPS antenna, wiring loom, card-style remote control, CAN bus decoder box, many additional RCA plugs for auxiliary audio and video inputs and outputs, USB lead, iPod (dock connector) lead, and some sort of removal keys that don't seem to serve any purpose Picture below.

 

[alexGS]

INSTALLATION

Removing the Connect Nav+ unit requires two fairly stout rods to poke around in the single holes each side of the CD slot - it should be a case of pressing inwards on the retaining tabs (mine were not really engaged properly). There are several antenna connectors (phone, GPS) that are not used by the replacement unit. These must be tucked out of the way.

I removed the upper glovebox, so that I could thread the iPod lead and USB lead into it, and perhaps mount the TV antenna nearby.

The GPS antenna is magnetic, but I couldn't find any steel to stick it to, so I used double-sided tape to attach it underneath the top of the dashboard.

There is a red mini-ISO socket provided with the unit, but the only wires in that connector did not align with anything on my car's plugs, so I didn't use it. I believe they are for the CD changer wiring (if you have one). Even then, they appear to be only the audio channels (L+R and ground), so I wouldn't expect them to actually operate the CD changer.

The two main ISO plugs (power and speakers) connect to the wiring loom. The wiring loom then attaches to a CAN bus decoder box. This is intended to provide steering wheel control functions, ignition power on/off, and reverse gear selection signal.

However, there are four problems to solve for the installation:

The first problem was the simple display 'No Signal' when powering-on the unit. To cut a long story short, I tried dismantling the front of the unit and re-seating all ribbon cables, etc., but discovered that all I needed to do to bring the unit to life was to start the engine. Yes, really. Once the engine had been started, then switched off, the unit would turn on and off as expected with the ignition key on. There were no other CAN-bus problems (no flashing mileage, etc.)

Second problem was seemingly a benefit - when selecting Reverse, 'Car Backsight Camera' appeared on a blank screen, with audio muted. This seemed a great thing - attach a camera and you would have a reversing camera! When I selected 1st gear and moved off forward, the normal display and sound resumed. BUT when selecting 2nd gear, 'Car Backsight camera'/blank screen/muted sound again. Display/sound comes back for 3rd gear, disappears again for 4th, comes back for 5th. Rapidly this became a great irritation - you would be surprised how little of the time you are in 1st, 3rd, and 5th gears when driving around town.

I thought this problem would be very difficult to solve without replacing the software in the CAN bus decoder (after all, the Chinese probably didn't have access to a Selespeed Stilo for testing), but it turns out there is a simple solution. One wire transmits a signal from the decoder to the head unit to enable the reversing camera. By disconnecting this purple wire, the reversing camera will not be enabled, and the problem is solved. If you do want to install a reversing camera, you would connect that purple wire to the reverse lights instead.

The third problem is that - as advised after I had ordered - the steering wheel controls do not work. I guess they just couldn't figure it out. The buttons in the Stilo place signals onto the CAN bus - not the wires in the mini-ISO connector on the Connect Nav+ even though those are labelled as remote controls - I imagine that was an older system shared with Blaupunkt head units. Anyway, these generic head units have a CAN bus learning capability - unfortunately, that learning capability is disabled on this version, probably because it was unable to 'listen' for the Stilo's control signals.

The fourth problem was the two plastic mounting brackets (with metal clips released by the usual two-prong tools not provided with the unit). These brackets simply don't fit the Stilo's mounting cage. The best solution is to unscrew and remove the brackets, and rely on the head unit's tight fit to hold it in place. This is a particularly tight fit on the right-hand side (driver's side for me), since the front panel is symmetrical with respect to the mounting cage. FIAT unfortunately did not design their unit that way - theirs is offset, so when you mount this one, you get a 4mm gap on the left side, a tight fit on the right side, and the shape does not quite match the air vents at the top.

Possibly if you fitted an aftermarket double-DIN mounting cage, you might get different results. Instead I just eased the right side into place with the help of a screwdriver. I should also shave off the strange tab that sticks out just under the left air vent (for no apparent reason).

The picture below shows the unit not pushed fully-in, as I was trying to solve that 'No Signal' problem. I really didn't think to start the engine until I gave up and had to use the car a few hours later!

You can see that the fascia colour is a reasonable approximation of the diagonal-lines pattern that the Abarth's dash pieces have. I wonder if a vinyl wrap might be possible to get something a little closer

I realise this might all sound very negative so far, but be patient - don't be too quick to jump to conclusions - we're just about ready to use it

 

[alexGS]

USING IT!

I'm sorry that I don't have a methodical photo-by-photo guide to how to use it - just a few selected pictures of it in use.

Turning on produces a large modern red FIAT logo - turning off produces the same logo plus the time and date across the top. I expect this logo can probably be changed to the correct earlier blue style

The main menu is clear and simple, with large icons for all the functions as you see below. Here is a quick description:

- RADIO - gives a fairly simple interface (see later), 'Home' icon in top-left returns to the main menu (while continuing the radio) or return-arrow 'Undo' icon can stop the radio and return to the main menu.

- GPS - same as pressing the NAVI button - this starts up a separate computer, with the iGo software provided on an SD card in the right-side slot. The iGo software takes a few seconds (5 or so) to start. If you use 'wincepatch' (available online), you can make this boot the Windows CE desktop instead, and if you use an application launcher, you can have any apps you like. I imagine these are more useful as media players for SD card content or alternative navigation apps, as I wouldn't expect them to have access to the radio/DVD drive or Bluetooth.

Once the GPS board has control of the display, there are no Home or return icons. Fortunately, it is easy and quick to switch back - just press the NAVI button again. The sound from the other board, the volume, and the next/previous control are carried over. However, I haven't found the picture-in-picture capability (advertised for some other versions), so you do need to switch if you want to see what is playing (etc.) - more on that later.

BLUETOOTH - this provides a particularly large and clear interface where you set up pairing, use the phonebook (copied from the phone), or simply dial the phone on a large and clear keypad. Pretty straightforward and the audio quality in the car sounds great. The audio quality experienced by the other party is questionable. One person said it was normal, another person (who I didn't know) thought I was inside a hole in the ground, someone said I was underwater, and another person simply hung up on me because they couldn't hear anything. At least there seems to be no GSM-style interference ('ringing' tones during conversation).

AUX - this gives the whole screen over to an auxiliary video input. You might connect some other system, though you are limited to a composite video input as far as I can tell.

IPOD - this is the main function that I use. It connects to a dock-connector device (so, not my iPhone 5, though that might be usable through USB) and provides a list of tracks plus a nice iPod-style display of the track name, whether shuffle is on, and track time. There are a few small snags (mentioned later) and there is no album art display - so don't expect a visual feast, but you do get a nice font and appropriate colours. Most importantly, it resumes correctly when you switch off and start up

DVD - same as pressing the DVD button. This is a 'generic supermarket-type' DVD player with a rather ugly onscreen display (from memory, I think the Home/Return buttons even overlap the DVD's onscreen buttons). You don't get HD quality and this function is best thought of as a novelty only. It navigated a DVD menu fine and played the video well enough, with the sound in sync and at the correct level. It does not need the handbrake lever to be on and is therefore probably illegal in most countries. I expect that is another CAN-bus function that conveniently doesn't work :slayer:

SD - I haven't actually used this yet - sorry! Like the iPod button, it is greyed-out when no SD card is inserted in the left slot.

USB - as for SD. I will test these features shortly and provide an update.

DVB - I ordered the optional DVB-T tuner "for use in NZ", but unfortunately this is not compatible with the particular MPEG-4 and MHEG-5 standards used in NZ for UHF terrestrial TV. Like the DVD player, the tuner has its own onscreen display that clashes slightly with the Home/Return buttons and I expect it is easier to operate with the remote contro while you're camped out in the back seat. There is a list of European countries, Russia, and Australia (no one has a Stilo there, anyway) so I expect the TV feature works in most parts of the world. Two other TV systems are available for Asia and other European countries.

A2DP - this displays a simple music logo and no music information. It just plays whatever a paired device (such as my iPhone 5) is playing. Quality - like all A2DP devices I have experienced - is a mixed bag. One friend described it as 'coarse and knobbly'.

There is a second screen of the main menu, which can be displayed by swiping the screen or tapping the dots below the icons...

 

[alexGS]

...the second screen of the main menu (shown below) has yet more functions:

PHOTO - browse the contents of the SD card (seemingly the right-side - GPS storage card). I haven't actually tested this feature yet. As soon as I find a way to write music onto a micro SD card (i.e. as soon as I get an adaptor and a PC that has an SD slot), I will update this thread.

MUSIC - a media player, again for playing music files off the SD card. Again not tested - sorry - it wasn't until I started writing this that I realised I still have a few things left to test. I'm not sure what difference there is to the SD Card feature on the previous menu.

MOVIE - appears to be a similar media player. Said to support DivX.

E-BOOK - your guess, either as to how this works or why you would want it, is as good as mine.

SETTINGS - also accessible from the Gear icon in the top-left corner. There are not really that many settings - one is the Amplifier category, which gives access to equaliser and balance/fader controls, as you would expect. Another sets the time and time zone. Etc. etc.


Can I just say something about the general look and feel? I think it's really impressive, particularly at night, at how close to the original that they have got the illumination of the buttons and even the style of the text on the buttons. The two knobs have a pleasing tactile quality and a similar style to the original, though they are obviously smaller due to the size of the screen. The buttons have the correct rubbery feel, exactly as the originals have. And there are only four of them, so they are easy to find. I think if you press 'BAND', that switches to the radio - probably easier than using the menu if you're in the iPod mode.

The plastic-fronted touchscreen is not a capacitive type, so you don't have that smooth sheet-of-glass feeling that you might know from an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, but it is surprisingly reliable - maybe even more so than on an old TomTom device or a cheap Android tablet, which are the same touch-sensitive type.

The LCD has fine contrast and colour at night (a bit of backlight bleeding as you see below; movies while parked-up in the deep, dark countryside are going to be a little washed-out).

The LCD is poor during the day, especially compared to the Connect Nav+'s LCD, which is now over ten years old. Basically, the backlight of this new old-technology touchscreen is too dim to cope with ambient sunshine, and the LCD isn't the transflective type seen on smartphones for several years now.

 

[alexGS]

Here is the iGo software (probably illegit) being used to plan a route. It's really easy to use, thanks to the large buttons on the display - much easier than using TomTom software on the iPhone in the car.

The next screen (not shown) is where I enter the region and address. Letters disappear from the onscreen keyboard according to the available street names. E.g. after typing 'V', only 'I' and 'O' are possible, and after typing 'I', Vincent Street, Victoria Street, etc. appear, so there is rarely the need to enter the whole street name. This is the sort of thing you expect from modern navigation systems. I have never used the Connect Nav+ to enter an address, but I doubt it is as fast and easy as iGo

It would of course be nice to have some Internet integration - for example, to click a link in an email message and have the address navigated-to in the navigation software, but such features are very 2011 and often don't even work properly on my iPhone (TomTom Places, anyone?) so there really isn't much hope that you would achieve it on a WinCE system (how do you get your email anyway...)

The map display once underway is impressive. Very fast route calculation, very smooth map updating, nice perspective, surrounding street names are clear. It's quick to get a GPS fix, even though my antenna is inside the car, and the GPS is accurate. It's easily up to the standards of other modern GPS receivers.

On the motorway, exit signs are shown above the map - they are so large they do impede the visibility of the route - plus, it's not clear which exit to actually take (the one not to take is slightly dimmed). As you will see, the whole display is on the dim side, so the distinction between bright and dim is difficult. The voice instructions are modern and clear, with more detail and verbosity than TomTom instructions. For example, where TomTom would say "go right on the roundabout, third exit", iGo says "in 180 metres turn right at the roundabout, taking the exit for A War Tree Avenue". (Awatere Ave). If you go the wrong way, it tells you off: "Recalculating..." - something the TomTom never does One of the less-useful statements is "In one kilometre, prepare to enter the motorway" or the usual "in 185 metres, stay in the right lane, then turn left"

Maps are quite out of date for NZ but probably up-to-date overseas. I'm impressed with how easy-to-use the navigation feature is. If there is music playing, it will stop when iGo makes an announcement (though, the music isn't paused). Music comes back a few seconds later. The iGo volume can be easily adjusted or turned off, to keep the music uninterrupted.

 

[alexGS]

As you can hopefully see in the photo below, the map screen has the usual distance/time to destination, current speed... oh yes, that's another nice feature! - with the voice on, the female voice intones "you are over the *speed* limit" - with the stress on the word "speed", it's really quite funny and chilling at the same time

This is the display on maximum brightness.

As you can see, the traffic lights are shown as a roundabout because that's what was there three years ago. Just as well I'm not watching the screen while driving onto the roundabout

Let's move on...

 

[alexGS]

Here I am listening to Simple Minds - Don't You Forget About Me, from my iPod while driving on a deserted motorway late at night - and averaging 7.2L/100km over the whole trip, which is excellent for the Abarth - I have taken this photo to show how the orange and white of the unit's display, with blue buttons underneath, is nicely in-tune with the other colours inside the Stilo. Outside the Stilo, the headlights and streetlights can be seen.

This is the display on minimum brightness - I haven't found a way to blank the screen (even turning it off will display the large FIAT logo) - so I suspect for some people this will be too bright.

 

[alexGS]

Here is a closer view of the iPod-mode display.

I'm using a playlist (the orange list on the right) because the track list is very slow to navigate (I have over 4700 tracks). Even with a short list, the touch navigation is not quite what you would expect. Near the top of the list, touching a track name will play that track, but as you get further down the list, touching a track name plays the track that is one, three, five, or seven below.

Just like an iPod, you can browse by songs, artists, albums, playlists, or genres. At the top of the list, the two dots take you back out to the parent menu (DOS days are back! )

When I listen to songs in the whole list, I usually turn on shuffle - so the list is irrelevant, except that I do sometimes think "oh yes, let's listen to track 3158 - The Land of Make Believe" - tap it, and listen to track 4153 - West End Girls instead. The alternative is to turn off shuffle (with one of the blue onscreen buttons), then choose next-track a few times to get down to 3158 from 3154. Easy

Twisting the right-hand knob clockwise goes to the next track. This is particularly useful when using the navigation software (let's say, some particularly horrible rap begins - a quick twist, and it's gone.) You can skip back too - either to the start of the track, or with two notches, the previous track. However - there's always a 'however' - the switch input isn't de-bounced, so sometimes you'll skip two or three tracks and might end up with Celine Dion when you thought you were getting Coldplay.

The sound quality? Fine. I can't fault it at all. The standard speakers pump out a good sound level - my rear left speaker tends to rattle a bit, but I know from past experience that upgrading all the speakers is likely to be a waste of time and money, as there will be less mid-range volume level and more 'brassiness' from the tweeters.

 

[alexGS]

Here's another view - much the same as the previous one, though the focus is a little better. It's very hard taking clear and composed pictures with an iPhone (or any cheap camera) in these conditions, particularly when not looking at the 'viewfinder' (screen).

 

[alexGS]

Here's a look at the radio display. As you can see, it provides preset buttons that you set in the usual way - by holding the button down. Tuning is simple because there are both 'fast forward'/'rewind' buttons (frequency up/down) and 'next track'/'previous track' buttons (auto seek tuning up/down).

This station (ZM 89.8) is an RDS station (rare in NZ), so the radio text scrolls the artist and track title while music plays (very nice). Unfortunately the radio text display is very small in the centre of the screen (just after the letters 'PS') It might have been nice to have had the name of each station on the preset button, too.

Still, at least it actually does RDS - about half of the aftermarket head units in NZ, particularly the cheaper ones, don't do RDS at all. The Connect Nav+ was particularly good at RDS as it also broadcast the radio text to the instrument panel. Naturally, this Chinese unit can't do that, again because I doubt the development engineers had a 'reconfigurable LCD' (Abarth instrument cluster) to play with.

 

[alexGS]

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

It's easy to find fault with any feature of this unit - but then, let's just remind ourselves of a few problems I have with the Connect Nav+:
- no maps in NZ (there never were), so no navigation, even though Connect Nav+ was standard-fit on NZ-market Abarths
- slow to start up, tends to keep turning itself on
- goes back to Track 1 all the time
- can't seem to browse MP3 CDs in any useful way (i.e. very difficult to find a particular song)
- won't work on UMTS (3G) 850MHz mobile phone network
- no auxiliary input
- many useless buttons, including concierge and SOS buttons
- looks like Windows 3.1...


So what are the benefits of this Chinese unit?

- large, clear touchscreen
- knobs and buttons feel very good quality
- everything looks great at night, colour choices are appropriate and tasteful (no swimming dolphins on blue dot-matrix LCDs here)
- Bluetooth for phone and for music from other passenger's phones
- iPod interface for full access to music library (by song, artist, album, playlist)
- navigation software easy to use, fast, and effective
- can PROBABLY be hacked to run other Win CE apps
- turns on and off reliably with ignition (leaves DVD slot illuminated at all times)
- a FIAT specialist, after driving my car to check wheel alignment, asked me "how did you get the navigation working?" He thought the unit was the standard Connect Nav+ and that I had installed maps - and he's seen Connect Nav+ many times. The average person will probably see this unit as original-fit.

And the problems?

- expensive (cost more than four Pirelli tyres, about 15% of the car's value)
- no steering wheel controls
- no external microphone for telephone, erratic quality
- dim display during the daytime (max brightness) and too bright at night (min brightness, dims automatically with headlights on)
- erratic selection of iPod tracks from touchscreen list
- erratic DVD and TV controls
- navigation software years out of date, at least for New Zealand
- video-in composite only
- LCD only 800x480 so no HD content, no Dolby decoder either
- doesn't quite fit in the hole properly

Considering that the development engineers probably didn't have access to a Stilo (they weren't sold in China), I think they did very well. I don't think I could make a stereo that works in a Chery J2.

For a few days after purchase, I thought that for the same price I could have purchased a double-DIN mounting kit and the latest Sony headunit that offers iPhone 'app shadowing' - apparently the screen can show whatever the iPhone is doing. You could use different navigation apps, though you'd have to switch back to the music app to control it. That's the theory anyway - I have yet to see it demonstrated (no-one in the shop could get it to work apart from usual radio/CD/music player functions), and bizarrely there is no Bluetooth capability (it seems it can't make phone calls).

The real clincher though was when I saw the Sony double-DIN unit and realised how small and 'flat' it looks compared to the much-larger screen of the Chinese-made unit. And it's good to have a few physical knobs and buttons, in addition to the touchscreen.

The curved shape of the bespoke design fits the fascia so much better than a standard double-DIN unit - so, you have to decide whether you want something 'generic' that probably works reliably, or something 'specific' that has many quirks.

It's rather like choosing to drive a Stilo, really.


*end of review*

-Alex

 

[Steve148]

Excellent review, Alex - they've had value from their 10% discount.

 

[Zenithtb]

Yeah, good review. Thank you

 

[alexGS]

Excellent review, Alex - they've had value from their 10% discount.

Thank you Actually it was a $10 discount, which amounted to about 2%

Just in case it wasn't clear - overall, I am happy with my purchase, since there is nothing else available that has an 'original' appearance while also making a reasonable stab at providing modern features (navigation, iPod, Bluetooth). It is quite pleasant to use. Even reputable name-brand products often have oversights in their interface design that make them annoying to use.

Chinese products (of their own design) have progressed a long way in just the last few years. The Hualingan units from a year or two ago have many sound quality and usability problems (e.g. hissing and interference, a loud key beep that can't be turned off) which I don't have with this one.

Improvements are continuous. The rear panel of my unit didn't match the photos on the website, due to the adoption of new connector types that I had seen on another recent unit. Therefore I get the impression that at the time of ordering, the Stilo screen/fascia/controls are simply attached to whichever is the latest available main unit. The unit you buy this month might have other improvements in the software or specification.

-Alex

 

[alexGS]

I have now tested the USB and SD card features. These are for playing music, videos, and photos from the USB port (on external cable) or from the SD card in the left slot. However, both these features rely on the DVD player interface to function, so my advice would be to ignore them

It does play music this way - but see photo below. All the onscreen display elements overlap, making it practically unusable, and it really harks back to the old days of Chinese DVD stereos. 8-character file names, capital letters only, etc.

This mode also has the picture-in-picture capability (as in, you can have the jumbled display positioned over the top of the menu screen), but that is no practical use.

Just forget the SD and USB icons are there and you'll be Ok. Fortunately, there are three better alternatives - see the next post.

 

[alexGS]

To make up for the hopeless USB/SD features shown in the last post, a pleasant surprise is the Music, Movie, and Photo features found on the second screen of the menu.

These actually work quite well - they work with the SD card in the right-hand slot (the one that contains the GPS software and maps).

The music player is shown below. You can browse for a folder, select all songs, and then navigate through the songs using the onscreen buttons. Personally I would use the iPod interface, because browsing thousands of tracks by folders is going to be clumsy. But if for some reason you don't have an iPod and happen to have music organised into folders on a micro-SD card instead, well, here you are.

The movie player works, too. It coped with a couple of typical AVI and MPEG files, and full-screen mode was available.

The photo browser works as you'd expect, and could be quite nifty if there are a certain series of photos that you'd like to show a variety of different passengers.

Again, all of this content needs to be on a micro-SD card in the right-hand slot. It can't be on a USB device and can't be on an iPod/dock-connected iPhone.

 

[alexGS]

I even tried plugging my iPhone 5 into the USB port, but predictably, nothing happened.

Once the iPhone 5 (or other phone) is paired by Bluetooth, it can play music via A2DP (controlled by either simple next/prev buttons on the unit, or from the iPhone itself). The audio streaming screen doesn't display what is playing, which seems an opportunity missed, but you see that on the iPhone or Android phone itself. This is a nice way to listen to music provided by your passengers. The sound quality problem I mentioned in post #3 seems to apply only to the iPhone 4 - iPhone 5 sounds good, and I remember having problems with my iPhone 4 and a Sony headunit last year.

A paired phone can, of course, also make phone calls.

It was nice to discover just now that if there is only one paired device, it is connected automatically when the unit starts up. This is really good news, as it means there is no need to touch the phone or any settings - when a phone call comes in, the sound stops as you'd want it to, and the phone screen appears with the caller ID. There's a call log, too.

You can initiate a call from either the phone or from the unit. The phonebook works OK and the dial keypad (see photo) is large and easy to use while driving. The call is handed back to the phone if the unit is switched off.

Therefore, the Bluetooth feature works just as I'd want it to, and is in some ways better than FIAT's Blue&Me system, as that doesn't support A2DP audio streaming. Not that Blue&Me is an option for a 2003 Stilo, but it does put into perspective the functionality of this aftermarket unit.

One final thing: I found how to blank the display for night driving - it's the 'Power' icon in the top-left of the main menu.

-Alex

 

[alexGS]

Davren asked whether the Stilo's instrument cluster menu (displayed by pressing the Mode button) now includes all the functions previously available on the Connect Nav+'s setup menu.

The answer was that it didn't, but now that I have used FIATECUSCAN to carry out a proxy alignment, it does. All the functions (including clock set, distance units, independent boot unlocking, service reminder (of distance and days to service), agenda reminders, etc.) are there.

The proxy alignment feature is available once you have connected to the body computer. It needs to be done if anything is removed or added to the CAN bus, even though there might be no symptoms that anything is missing. In this case, telling the body computer that the Navigator node is removed enables the other items in that menu (I think it's known as the 'myCar' menu).

-Alex

 

[Entonox]

Good review! Would be interesting to see what hardware is inside the CANbus decoder box... maybe it is programmable? i know much of the CAN bus protocol of the stilo can be found on the internet, so maybe there is a way to make the decoder box work with the steering wheel and other functions?

 

[alexGS]

You're right, but I think it would be easier to start from scratch (making a new decoder box), as the pinout for the head unit is provided. There are two wires going into the head unit for 'steering wheel controls'. I suppose that's still a problem (working out how they work) and without the learning capability enabled in the head unit software, it could all be like pushing a rope uphill.

I was wondering if perhaps something could be made up to interface the CAN bus to the IR sensor (i.e. generate IR signals to mimic the remote control that's provided).

-Alex