josche

You sir, are awesome. Thank you.

I have a 2005 S4 (same dash as any B6 A4 or S4) with the Bose package. I've done a number of head unit installations in the past, but I think I'm in a bit over my head with this one.

Here are the issues/questions I have:

1. What's the best way to get switched power to the unit? I'm using a wire tapped into the fuse box for the windshield wipers, which works, but I'm wondering if there's a Can-bus adapter somewhere that would be better?

2. How can I get the illumination functionality to work? My understanding is that this is also tied to can-bus with the factory stereo, but I have no idea what to try to tap into to get this working.

3. What do I do to get the radio antenna to work? I've got an adapter which fits, but I barely get any radio reception. I've heard that these cars use some sort of powered antenna, but I have no idea where to even start with this.

4. Where do I route the GPS antenna? I'd love to either tie into the sharkfin in the roof or replace the factory GPS that's in the sharkfin. Tying into the sharkfin seems difficult because I'd need an adapter to plug into the back of the avic (proprietary Pioneer adapter) as well as an adapter to plug into the factory GPS harness, which is some sort of odd adapter as well (fakra?). Suggestions?

Once I've finished the install I'll try to write up a guide as there isn't a ton of detailed information out there all in one place.

Thanks in advance.

So as long as I keep the iPod connected, it wont have to catalog each time I turn on my truck... it will retain the VR catalog...

 

Is that correct?

I think the original post was pretty clear in stating that you will have to catalog each time you turn on your truck or else you will not have VR control of your iPod.

I was looking for more folks to confirm this, but mostly this thread has been people discussing off-topic issues.

Although I'm disappointed that the functionality doesn't appear to be what I was led to believe, I'm glad that my unit isn't the only one that works this way.

If other posters are to be believed, it appears that some of Pioneer's customer support people have been mistakenly advising people that they can turn off the VR Catalog function and still retain VR functionality as long as their iPods keep the same content on them.

This is not the case, but it should be. Whoever originally posted the issues/problems sticky for this line of units should be organizing all of the known/confirmed problems in the original post to make it easier for Pioneer to sift through everything and work on fixes.

I've gotten the impression from reading other posts that if you let your iPod VR Catalog synch once, then you can turn off this feature and retain voice recognition as long as you don't update the songs on your iPod.

This doesn't seem to be the case for my F700bt and I want to see if anybody else can confirm.

Here's what I did:

1. Started the system with VR Catalog turned on.

2. Verified that VR works with the iPod ("play the album ...")

3. Turned off VR Catalog option in the menu

4. Verified that VR still works

5. Turned off system

6. Turned system back on

7. Attempted to use VR, wouldn't recognize my input.

I'm using a 4GB iPod Nano with a couple hundred songs on it. What this leads me to believe is that the index file that is created when it catalogs your iPod is only saved in temporary memory (like the system cache or something) and that index file is lost when the system is rebooted.

Has anybody had a different experience where the option for VR Catalog is turned off but voice recognition still works after you reboot the system?

In my opinion it should do what people expect it to do and save the index file even if the option is turned off. It might cause bugs if you change the content of your iPod, but so what? The boot time with VR Catalog on is ridiculous (at least the time it takes for the "iPod may not be fully functional" message to go away) and I don't have that many songs on my iPod.