I am wondering if there is any reason I should refrain from buying an Aftermarket Navigation Head Unit to replace my horrible stock Toyota NAV Unit. I bought my Prius IV before the iPod integration came out so I was going to update to that, but the NAV is so horrible alongside Toyota's botch job with the iPod integration that I figure I will happier with something new. Does the stock NAV unit have capabilities that an aftermarket unit cannot have? (maintenance scheduling, phone pairing, car info, etc...) Are there top picks for an aftermarket unit, or anything on the horizon that looks promising? Thanks.
My friends' NUVI bought last year seems to have more features than the NAV. I was disappointed that speed limits are missing. I suspect a higher end Bluetooth enabled GPS unit will outperform & underprice the factory NAV.
What features are you looking to replace? If it's only GPS, I suggest just buying a Garmin Nuvi and installing it near the driver's "wing window." If you want to replace the whole unit, the thing to be sure of is whether the pins for the backup camera and Bluetooth mic can be routed to your new unit. As for which unit, I bought a Kenwood, because of it's Garmin GPS. The other popular brand is Pioneer.
Well It's the whole package really. I want a good NAV that at least rivals google maps on my iPhone. I want a radio that gets better reception. I want to be able to see past 16 character lengths on my screen for song info. I want a decent iPod interface. I want all the features that are on the stock NAV (sat / bluetooth / voice commands / maintenance schedules / etc..) It's a lot to ask for maybe, but that is the list. Mainly I am concerned about wether I will have to sacrifice any functionality from the stock unit. For those of you with an aftermarket unit, are you missing anything?? Do you have the maintenance schedules? Do you have access to your phone/voice commands through the steering wheel buttons?
The pioneer units and new kenwood units allow for the use of steering wheel buttons for phone and voice. Many things in nav are better than google maps, but there are a few kinks to it. Traffic is given by a service that will end in 2 years, and I have found that to not be accurate. I had fine radio reception before so I can't talk to that. It has a very good ipod and bluetooth interface. Voice commands work for nav, phone, and ipod. I get maintenance on the screen with hsi, there is not maintenance information on the 110bt. Pioneer, JVC, and Kenwood just released new units. You may want to wait if you want some features that aren't available. One cool thing is you can show the back up camera while driving. I had a couple of people following me last weekend, and had the camera and ipod information displayed. You also get sub out connections if you want to add a subwoofer, etc. I don't really miss anything but things like nav and voice recognition will get better in the future. The just released unit from pioneer includes eco information on trips and some new ipod navigation.
I just received my Kenwood DNX6960, and I will install it in phases in my 2010 Prius II. My Prius has fewer steering wheel controls than yours. I seriously doubt that any of these units are perfect. They integrate a lot of very different technologies together. Different people have different expectations about different things. For me, Garmin navigation and the high quality Parrot Bluetooth features of the Kenwood appear to be winners. I'll let you know how it goes.
I'd like to share the link to instructions on how I installed aftermarket navigation to my Toyota Sienna 2011 http://alexapps.net/Articles/ToyotaSiennaAftermarketNavigation/index.xhtml
I see no reason to use anything other than my Iphone and the Waze app. It's free, it works, and it's real time traffic is pretty good. You also get features like notifications for cameras and police. I've been surprised how well this works but it's probably best if you are in a big city with a lot of people using the app.
