Makes me wonder if I should just get an AppRadio3?

Wow!  This unit sounds like a nightmare.  I still have the X950BH and the only feature I like that they've added was the posted speed limit info on the NAV screen which I really wish I could add to the X950BH but the one feature which I use all the time which was removed was the AppMode display.  It was 2D/3D/AppMode.  I even asked good 'ol Harry at the Pioneer booth at CES about it and he had no idea why it was dropped (actually he didn't even realize (at the time) that the posted speed limits were going to be imposed).  The AppMode display gave a spit screen for the built in NAV and the AppRadio.

 

Now that I'm reading how buggy it is and that the bypass is an issue, I think I'll wait this one out.  Also, unrelated, the latest firmware for the Z150/X950/X850 has blown apart the bypass I believe.  You would think that after all the trouble we had gone through with the previoius model using AppRadio, this would be better.

I made a rather unexpected discovery regarding my Z150 today... it will work with two Bluetooth inputs. I've got it set for phone Bluetooth off of the Galaxy S4 and audio Bluetooth from the Nexus 7. What that means is that I can now use the Nexus 7 as my navigation (using either Waze or Google Maps) and as an audio player using Poweramp, which gives me far greater options than using the iPod Classic. Since I was not thinking, I didn't buy the LTE version of the Nexus, so I'll have to tether it off of the S4.

Where does the Pioneer fit in? I use it for it's amplifier, hands free calling and the backup camera. Not bad for $800.     

Just a few updates and corrections to my prior comments.

I found the animated wallpapers.  These are only functional on the A/V screens, not the home screen.  No animations on the home screen. 

You can't force the unit to stay on the home screen indefinitely.  The home screen is rather good looking (a bit of a Windows Metro feel to it), it places the current audio source album art among the icons.  A shame you can't leave it in this mode.  After about 30 seconds, it reverts to your prior mode, either map or the audio source.

Still no solution for inability to zoom the map.  A real head scratcher.

There's lot of settings on this unit.  You can select any setting as a "favorite", and the first item in the settings menu is the favorites menu.  This is handy for dropping commonly used (and sometimes hard to find) settings like "smart phone setup".   

There's a "private" button on the main telephone screen when you're talking.  This instantly sends your hands-free phone audio back to your handset.  Super useful, and it works well.  I continue to be impressed with the bluetooth hands-free setup on this unit.  Works great, pairs with my iPhone seamlessly, and sounds fantastic.  As I'm in a convertible, the ability to quickly send the conversation to my handset is most welcome, to overcome inevitable wind noise on the mic with the top down.

Map colors are atrocious and cannot be changed.  There's a setting to apply a "theme" to day and night mode, but only one choice is available on the menu (curiously labelled "dark").  As an example, for some reason most of my home town is overlaid with various flavors of grey and white "contour lines" for lack of a better word, except they're a solid fill.  Roads on this background are white.  Seriously.  (If I can remember, I'll get a pic to show this effect).   On a majority of my local roads, the road color becomes invisible against the white/grey background.   Overall, navigation is pretty much unusable on this unit, at least until some problems are fixed (zoom, colors, curious labeling, etc.).  I'll be placing a portable Garmin back in my vehicle for navigation use; the AVIC NEX units are that bad.

Screen glare and reflection are pretty bad as well.  In direct sunlight, the screen is completely washed out (unavoidable condition on a convertible).  My hope is the 8000NEX has a better screen in this regard; I will take a look at that unit when its finally released.

----------------

My overall grade for the 7000NEX is a C+  

Highlight negatives include: Appmode is worthless and buggy; navigation is unusable with fatal bugs; Siri eyes free doesn't work at all; digital media files are played alphabetically and not in album order, and the screen is terrible in direct light.

Positives are: very good audio quality; quick boot up and movement between menus; decent Sat radio, good album art integration from Sirius, SD cards, and USB connected iPhones; and outstanding hands free bluetooth connectivity, features, and sound quality.

As always, YMMV.  The quest for a decent aftermarket head unit with features on-par with current OEM offerings continues.

Diable2112....what convertible do you drive?

Mercedes SL550

 

Highlight negatives include: Appmode is worthless and buggy; navigation is unusable with fatal bugs; Siri eyes free doesn't work at all; digital media files are played alphabetically and not in album order, and the screen is terrible in direct light.

 

Positives are: very good audio quality; quick boot up and movement between menus; decent Sat radio, good album art integration from Sirius, SD cards, and USB connected iPhones; and outstanding hands free bluetooth connectivity, features, and sound quality.

 

As always, YMMV.  The quest for a decent aftermarket head unit with features on-par with current OEM offerings continues.

This is pretty much spot on.  Sound quality is quite good.  It sounds much warmer than my Kenwood X997 did, but requires a bit of EQ'ing yet at my BitTen D.  The pre-outs are also running at 3.8V, compared to the 3.4 my Kenwood put out.  I'm still not convinced that the head unit's sound processing is turned off completely.  The UI is a bit confusing in that regard.  It also doesn't look like there is a way to turn off the internal amplifier, which I don't like.  It seems like they spent all their time on UI development, and everything else got rushed out the door.  It's a great idea, mediocre execution.

Hopefully the replacement that ABT.com sends me doesn't have the USB/SD card problem I experienced.

Diablo2112, i drive an AudiTT convertible, as my signature advises.  

I'm thinking about putting the mic right below the air conditioning knobs, as that seems like the least likely place that wind noise would come in.

As a convertible owner, I never did understand something....what exactly is the purpose of a wind screen?  I have a button for this mesh screen that comes up, and I never understood the point of it.  Is it to minimize wind noise????

The wind screen is supposed to minimize wind noise yes

....

 

As a convertible owner, I never did understand something....what exactly is the purpose of a wind screen?  I have a button for this mesh screen that comes up, and I never understood the point of it.  Is it to minimize wind noise????

 Mostly to guide the wind over your head, to prevent wind blowing into the back of your neck....

Final update:

I contacted my dealer regarding the problems with the 7000NEX and was informed that Pioneer is recalling all of these units.  I was told to bring it back in for an exchange.  I just did the uninstall, packed it up, and brought back a non-Pioneer unit.  Clearly, Pioneer has some bugs to fix before this unit is ready for public release.

Final update:

 

I contacted my dealer regarding the problems with the 7000NEX and was informed that Pioneer is recalling all of these units.  I was told to bring it back in for an exchange.  I just did the uninstall, packed it up, and brought back a non-Pioneer unit.  Clearly, Pioneer has some bugs to fix before this unit is ready for public release.

Thank you for your service to our country as an early adopter! 

Final update:

 

I contacted my dealer regarding the problems with the 7000NEX and was informed that Pioneer is recalling all of these units.  I was told to bring it back in for an exchange.  I just did the uninstall, packed it up, and brought back a non-Pioneer unit.  Clearly, Pioneer has some bugs to fix before this unit is ready for public release.

Dang.  Just the 7000 models, or all NAV models?

No idea if other models have been recalled.  My dealer said that my unit (7000NEX) had been recalled.  I didn't ask about other models.

Guys, this is reminiscent of 2008 when the First gen F series was released. It was a brand new unit and horribly buggy to the point that it practically didn't work at all. Pioneer denied, denied, denied for about 30 days that there weren't any problems until this forum brought them out to such a point that they had to issue a recall on the units. And it took them another 45 or so days to come up with the first update to get the unit to a half way functional state and even then it was piss poor. Not until 1.08 was the unit even close to satisfactory and then not even. It was 6 months before 2.0 was released that you finally had a unit that you could feel comfortable using. I was there and was part of the massive hacking community that brought these units to usability while we were waiting on Pioneer. It was a disaster and it sounds as if it is being repeated here. Be warned it may be a while if you are an early adopter to see a fix.

Makes me wonder if I should just get an AppRadio3?

I seem to remember telling you this might happen.

Well lets be glad we can't listen to everyone else, as mad as I am with Pioneer over the idatalink situation, I've been playing with my 7000 for over an hour now with no issues.  You had me worried, but Im thinking you're making it way worse then it is...recall? Really?

Great, I'm thrilled to here others haven't seen the issues I had.  I gave a very specific list of problems (Siri doesn't work, map won't zoom, etc.).  Does your 7000NEX have these issues?  If not, then that's an important data point.  Perhaps my specific unit had some issue.

Everything seems to be fine, I've been through most the options except the appradio stuff, but yeah, my map zoom is working.

Good to know.  To be clear, here was my issue: you can zoom the map in the non-moving (select destination) screen.  However, when you return to the normal map which follows you as you drive, this screen does NOT retain the zoom setting.  If you're playing with your unit under static conditions (not driving), it will work fine.   Once you're in the moving car, the zoom won't hold for the normal scrolling map.

Also, do you have an iPhone?  Does Siri work?  I got literally 3 seconds of hissing as a response to any Siri query.

I just spoke with a senior administrative person for Pioneer and he says that the reports of a recall are absolutely untrue.  We have not had issues with the ones that we have used so far, in fact, they have been pretty darn cool, and I am looking forward to using them once a bypass is figured out.

Good to know.  To be clear, here was my issue: you can zoom the map in the non-moving (select destination) screen.  However, when you return to the normal map which follows you as you drive, this screen does NOT retain the zoom setting.  If you're playing with your unit under static conditions (not driving), it will work fine.   Once you're in the moving car, the zoom won't hold for the normal scrolling map.

 

Also, do you have an iPhone?  Does Siri work?  I got literally 3 seconds of hissing as a response to any Siri query.

I don't know if it's the same on the NEX units, but on the Z150 you have to "register" the zoom setting you want to keep. I think you can do it if you hit the 2D/3D button.

Just got a 7000NEX and trying to install.  Couple of quick questions if you would. 

1. The orange/white lighting switch wire, did you connect that to a 12volt lead off the lighting switch? 

I am thinking of connecting to a panel light that comes on only when the lights are on but it is 12volt and don't want to fry the unit if that will not work.  Manual is pretty weak in this area.

2. And the light green parking brake lead, was that to 12volts? 

If so why not connect to 12volts hot.  Yea would love to bypass the parking brake deal altogether but read the unit will sense movement and still fail to enable all features and apparently other bypass tricks have not worked.  (Would love to have dvd and backup camera ability while driving forward).

3. As for the reverse gear signal input (violet/white wire), again, is that 12volt, was going to try to connect to the shifter light that illuminates "R" when the shifter is in reverse but believe it is 12volt also, afraid of connecting 12volts to any lead that does not say it should be a 12volt connection.

Going slowly here to try to accomplish correctly in the SLK.

Did you install any type of SWC unit (steering wheel control) to enable the steering wheel buttons.  Looked at the iDatalink site but they do not make a unit for Mercedes, so going to try the ASWC-1 Metra Universal Steering Wheel Control Interface Module (but again not sure of where one connection for it goes and no reply from them yet).  Email support poor.

Thanks

I recently got the avic-8000nex upgraded from the avh-4000nex. The bypass posted by installereric works.  The nav section is nice for the most part but i to like to figure out how to make zoom adjustment stay. Here is a video of the unit along  with using appradio unchained.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlvPVmqzvKA

Unit will be nice in your SLK.  Here's a few quick answers for you:

parking brake bypass: this is expecting a signal that goes between and open circuit (parking brake off) and ground (parking brake on).  There's a bunch of info on google and elsewhere about how to wire a bypass.  At its simplest, you can just ground this wire.  This works on some brands (like Kenwood).  Other brands like Pionees are a bit more complex and looking for this circuit to turn on/off at some point.  For this, some wire in a relay into the circuit.  See Google for details.  You can also purchase parking brake bypass circuits from Amazon or ebay.  They do the same thing as the relay.  UPDATE: see other threads here on a means to disable the bypass via software.  Awesome this was found.  They way to go here.

Illumination:  Yes, you wire the orange/white wire to a 12V source which turns on when illuminated.  The wire you found will work fine.

Reverse Sense: The NEX series has a menu setting so that this line can be wired to either a switched ground (like the parking brake) or a switched 12V (like illumination).  Usually, folks tie this to the reverse lights (12V).  In my car, I just wired up a simple switch that provided 12V to this line when pressed.  That way, I can turn on the camera when I hit the switch.

Mercedes steering wheel controls: I used the Metra AWSC-1 in my SL550.   Worked great, very easy hook up. Only challenge was finding the appropriate CAN-B hi and low lines. The Metra instructions will guide you to the right place.

Hope that helps, good luck!

nav section is nice for the most part but i to like to figure out how to make zoom adjustment stay. 

 this was a deal-killer for me.  Inability of the Nav to hold a zoom setting in normal driving mode was just stupid.  This was the majority of the reason I removed my 7000NEX and swapped it for a Kenwood.   Does Siri work on your unit?  It didn't on mine, that was another killer.