I know I'm going to get flamed for this but admittedly I went the head unit route too, MAINLY for the reason that it was the way of the least modification and my car is a DD and I don't have alot of time I can spend with it down trying to get things to work so I'm going to see how the head unit goes. From what I know so far there is the delay in boot time because they're essentially computers. Tablets will do the same, however; I think you can put tablets into sleep mode, ect. I'm contemplating on installing some form of uninteruptable power supply that will keep the head unit powered on in sleep mode but at the same time not draw from the car's power supply until the key is on.

If the head unit fails then its under warranty so for me its a win/win, if its slower than the tablet, well.. it is what it is..I'm paying a fair bit less than I would for a tablet install. I'm happy though..

I am wondering, how much drilling / shaving is required to install the double din in a Camaro? I've heard it was required but everyone I've seen report this drove a Firebird.

There's some other things on my mind about it. It comes with a WiFi antenna, the 3G antenna has to be purchased separately. I'm wondering if its worth purchasing the Antenna which has a transfer rate of around 7 Mbps (which is ...fair - my home connection is around 70 Mbps Download but my cell phone is only around 3.5) - or if its better to get a MiFi device from my carrier that can use 4G signals and use strictly WiFi.

I am also wonder if I can plug a USB hub into the port designated for the 3G (or WiFi) to run a USB Flash Drive or other USB peripherals. One thing I would really like to do is mount a road cam and have the head unit control it with the Android OS.

 

what unit did you go with?

I would advise seeing how the boot time feels before going the dedicated route. I dont think its that bad, by the time I start my car back up and close the garage door. I have music when I get to the end of the driveway.

Mounting the unit wont be that bad, but regardless both camaro and firebird use a din and a half sixed radio so the bezel will have to be modified to fir any double din. Or purchase a new bezel from any of the guys that make them. Depending on unit measurements though even the standard din ones may not fit. My unit was a bit bigger than a standard din so the Metra adapter for my GTO had to be opened up a bit.

not sure about adding usb peripherals, but mine did come with some additional video inputs so you could run a front mount camera in addition to the backup cam. I considered doing this with mine since the camera it came with is a bit big and cant hide it to well on the rear of the car.

I see no reason you couldnt use your phone as a hotspot and connect the head unit to that network when its available. something I have been meaning to try just havnt been on a long road trip with it.

 

depending how old your phone is, you should have free wifi tethering with your phone, just use that when you "need" a hotspot while away from the house or other known wifi spots you can connect to, paying extra a month for the mifi thing makes no sense to me personally.

I also get wanting the simplicity of the Android headunit, I just look at using a tablet as a cheaper option when/if you decide to upgrade down the road, my tablet sits in the passenger seat and is fed to the same radio that is now in my Trail blazer which before that spent 3 years in my Firebird and another year in the accord I had before it, in which time I replaced my Galaxy Player 4.0 with a Galaxy Tab 2.0 7" and is ready at anytime to be replaced should I decide I want a more powerful android experience, it only gets complicated when you decide you want the tablet in the dash, by keeping it free I can take it inside to keep it from the extreme temperatures you find inside a car that is generally speaking bad for batteries, my Tab 2 is 2.5 years old and using it solely for music playback while in the car I still get well over a MONTH between needing to charge it. Plus I never have to wait for it to boot up because I never turn it off (unless an app issue forces a reboot).

 

Most major carriers disable tethering except for their customers who buy so-called "unlimited" data plans. AT&T is notorious for doing that. Of course you can always root your phone to get around their restrictions.

 

actually it's the other way around, the people with unlimited are prevented from tethering but as of a 2012 FCC ruling Verizon is no longer allowed to charge for tethering on the "new" data plans (this is 90% of the reason we switched to a family share plan) http://www.zdnet.com/article/let-my-...-fi-tethering/

they can still charge people the extra fee if they are on the old "grandfathered" unlimited plans that they no longer offer.

 

Man, I need to look into alternate providers. My AT&T personal account and the Sprint accounts at work all have limited data plans and tethering disabled by the provider. I rooted and loaded a custom ROM on my phone which eliminates that restriction but I wouldn't be doing that on company phones.

 

Well I don't know where you are but around here Verizon has the best coverage, At&t a close second (but I still find places where my Verizon works when my bosses AT&T doesn't) and Sprint is a freaking joke, if you leave the city limits you lose 3g and the nearest 4g sprint is like 30-40 miles south on the highway.

 

I do want to say the kee is great if your looking for just a stock speaker replacement. However if your going to run a aftermarket amp and speakers you have a lot more to choose from. Especially since you want to upgrade your hu.

Just an idea but have you looked into something like a ms8 or similar?

 

Wouldn't it be easier to use the bluetooth media streaming and just run Pandora or other music app on your phone? What's the benefit of using Pandora on the headunit itself?

 

probably having the actual pandora interface on the radio.

 

Hmm I could see that. I guess for me if it allows me to see artist and song title along with pause play and skip, I am good lol.

 

Its done and Kee Audio provided all 6 speakers and did my install and I have to say I am absolutely blown away - I'll explain after I go over the quotes though.

The boot time is "acceptable" - about 10 - 15 secondsish.. However it plays music through the FM as soon as I turn the key to the ACC / On position meaning I dont have to wait till it boots up to hear music.. it's already playing as soon as I turn the key.

I have used Sprint and had unlimited data and they had a seperate plan of which you had to purchase to allow data tethering and even then it was metered at around 5GB's a month. I got around it with an APP but I switched to AT&T and as much as I was expecting, there was no prompt or charge to use the mobile hotspot - my phone as WiFi. I am wondering if thats because AT&T is on a GSM network with sim cards instead of a CDMA network like Sprint and Verizon. I dont know..but basically I can turn my mobile hotspot on my phone and tether up to 5 devices without incurring any additional fee's asside from eating away at my metered data. I have a 30 GB plan though and I have yet to ever use half of that, plus I also have rollover data so at any given month I have 50 GB's at my disposal so I dont think I will be threatening my data limit anytime soon.

I didnt really look deep into customizing the entire sound system as my goal was to "get by with as little as possible while still getting decent sound / fun head unit" but I think I exceeded my goal by quite alot after going with Kee Audio. He really found the hidden potential in the stock monsoon system.

I basically wanted a head unit that would handle GPS on its own without my phone, and also capable of running Google Maps and Waze.. ..oh and I might add.. Using Waze while listening to the radio is amazing. Also I can watch Netflix and other media and most importantly the entire interface is on my head unit
---------

Now for what happened:

First I would like to say - I've only had a sound system installed one other time in my life and that as about 10 years ago so I am not the expert on these matters but these speakers are far better than any stock system that I have ever encountered.

Second I should note what my goal was for this project. My goal wasn't to blow everyone away with a kickass sound system or purchase state of the art audio equipment capable of filling everything within 20 miles with audio.. .. my goal was to remediate my deteriorated sound system with something slightly better than stock so I could listen to music again and also to implement an Android Head Unit or tablet in the most economical fashion that wouldn't sacrifice quality and usability.

Ian @ Kee Audio first installed what I believe was his $300 speaker package (he stated he was out of his base level speakers so I might have gotten more than I thought). My old stock front speakers were decintegrated with only the tweeters making any kind of sound. My passenger side rear subwoofer was also dead. He started with the rear coaxials and then did the front door speakers and even without touching the subwoofers it already sounded 10X better than stock on the stock monsoon head unit. After installing the sub's we went onto installing the actual head unit itself. Unfortunately this was slightly more in-depth than was I was prepared for as blackbyrd also noted, the unit IS slightly larger than a double din, not by a noticeable amount to the eye, but enough to require shaving and trimming around the Metra Bezel piece. It took Ian a few attempts to shave it to the proper fittings but he did a REALLY good job. It looks completely factory and when he installed it the fun began.

I am now able to perform bluetooth calling. I can now use Waze as my navigation in my head unit while listening to the radio and the radio will briefly fade to let the navigation commands speak, although that can get alittle annoying if you're listening to a favorite song and it gets interrupted because some guy parked on the shoulder of the highway (exclusively to Waze) .. I can use google maps aswell. The navigation is dead on. But the speakers plus the head unit is leaving me in awe. It sounds like a surround sound system. I can watch Netflix in my car and it literally not exaggerating sounds 10X better than my 52" flatscreen and sound bar (Vizio) in my house. The audio has so much depth, everything that happens make you feel like you're apart of that event.

I can also remote desktop to my PC at home, sync music between my PC and my headunit, listen to Pandora, the options are unbelievable.

As far as data is concerned. I once again have a 30 GB plan from AT&T and AT&T also has rollover data (whatever I dont use is added to my next month) meaning every month I usually have about 50 GB's to use. I kinda would like a more dedicated way of accessing the internet than tethering to my phone so I may end up going for the 3G card but not sure yet.. I am alittle leery about adding another line to my account so.. I'll cross that bridge another day.

Unless you want to blow the glass out of your interior I believe the stock monsoon with these speakers is quite an amazing upgrade especially for something that doesn't require you to completely tear down the interior to rewire the whole car.

I don't get alot of time off, so I really didn't have time to re-invent the wheel to install speakers / head unit then run into issues ect. I work 10 hour shifts 5 days a week and often times I am forced to work overtime every day of the week netting me nearly 80 hours of work a week (not biweekly, I have seen 20 hour days quite frequently lately plus have worked up to 48 hours without leaving the building) so I really don't have much time to mess around with stuff so lately I've been having more quality work done on my car to keep it as reliable as possible as my commute is also 50 miles one way. So far it's been holding up fairly well (trans cooler, aluminum radiator, turn one power steering pump / pulley, gator belt, brand new fuel pump and the entire evap system has been replaced.) What I am getting at is for those with more time and know how, this system is pretty feasible.

I paid $255 for the Head Unit shipped to my house and shipping was pretty fast coming from Hong Kong. They use DHL. $55 for the metra adapter and wiring harness adapter kit then $300 for the speakers. Thats $610 in parts, then an additional $200 to install it.. so for about $810 total I have a system that on first glance looks and sounds like it is well into the $1k marker...keep in mind I didn't do the install so if you do your own work then for $610 its a pretty reasonable upgrade and keep in mind not everyone needs new speakers like I do so the price can come down quite a bit with that taken into consideration.

 

I'm glad it went well for you and sounds like the unit is gonna get used more than I get a chance to, how did your installer like it?

Got any pics??

 

Ian seemed to like it up till the point where we found out it was slightly larger than a double din and some issues that caused things to take alittle longer than he intended to. He still did a great job at modifying th bezel to fit tho.ugh, cant tell it was ever adusted. Looks factory. and yeah I do have photos which I'll be posting soon. Im also trying to decide on a decent theme. I am currently using my HTC phone theme but I kinda want a 4th Gen Camaro theme and a Camaro bootup screen but the only things I can find are for 5th gens..

 

If you download images and save them it adds them to the available images for boot screen.

just be careful if you save an image thats big you want get what you want on the boot screen, kind of like when you choose a background image for a phone and you have to select the area of the photo you want to show up. I just havnt figured out how to adjust that. Im rocking the GM logo at the moment though I would love to find a good pontiac one

On it being a little bigger than a standard double din, atleast you were aware pre purchase. I didnt realise it until i got the metra bezel, and for whatever reason something clicked and I pulled the specs back up on the HU as it hadnt shown up yet.

Look forward to seeing some pics, and hearing about your experience with the unit in the long run as it seems you will get to use it a bit more with your longer commute than I do.

 

I was doing reviews and this pumpkin head unit is astonishing with the torque app. But my question is will it power all the speakers in the car. Will someone take a look and let me know before i buy it? Im not radio efficient it will be given to a shop for installation.

http://www.autopumpkin.com/pumpkin-n...2-wifi-3g.html

 

It has four channels (front left and right, rear left and right) just like any other head unit so it will connect and work with any factory system (base or Monsoon). It also has RCA pre-amp output so it will also work if you have replaced the factory system with an aftermarket amp and speakers.

 

Sweet so it will work. Thanks man! Gonna get this bad boy with a obdll bluetooth system.