VAIS SLI Installation Notes

Here are some notes from my experience installing and using a recently-purchased VAIS SoundLinQ SLI adapter in a 2006 Prius with navigation system. I've used the SLI with several iPods: a 4GB iPod Nano, a 40GB iPod Photo and a 4GB iPod mini. I've installed SLI units in my blue Prius and in a friend's 2006 silver Prius. The SLI is set up as a CD MP3 player, per the instructions.

What always works:

• The SLI shows the title of the currently playing song and allows on-screen folder-to-folder and on-steering-wheel song-to-song navigation.
• The iPod pauses and subsequently turns off when I change audio sources or turn off the ignition.
• The iPod plays perfectly through the Prius sound system.
• The SLI clicks the "I Agree" button in the Map dialog

What sometimes works:

• I can see a list of songs in the current folder
• I can see Artist and Album info for the current song.

I'm very happy with the "always works" features. Before I got the VAIS unit, I was constantly turning the iPod on and off in sync with my use of the car. It's wonderful to have that happen automatically, and the on-screen folder and on-steering-wheel file navigation are very nice.

I've struggled to move the "sometimes" features into "always" features. I've limited the iPods to fewer than 10 playlists and limited each playlist to fewer than 100 songs. I've added songs to the auto-generated "On-the-go" playlists to eliminate empty playlists (this is a pain in the rear to remember after every iPod sync). These steps result in what I think of as a squeaky-clean iPod. I've changed the baud rate on the VAIS unit and reset the iPod.

The only technique that seems to work is to reset the SLI using its DIP switches (both switches up, start car, wait for beeps, turn car off, left switch down, right switch up, wait 10 seconds, start car, connect squeaky-clean iPod, select CD MP3 audio source). I believe, though, that an empty playlist in the iPod (such as that nasty "On-the-go" playlist) can make the SLI intermittent once again, and the steps in the previous paragraph will not effect a reliable cure. You gottta do an SLI reset.

Things I've learned that aren't documented in the manual:

- Activating the "Scan" button tells the Prius computer to leave the Audio screen on: it won't time out and jump back to the "Info" screen.

- The SLI appears to keep a pointer to the current playlist and file track in its memory. If I sync the iPod and change the order of songs in the playlist, the SLI resumes play at the same file index point (the 14th song, for instance), even if the track has changed since the last session. And if I reset the iPod, the SLI still resumes play at the last index point, so it's not dependent on iPod memory.

I'd appreciate corrections or additions to what I've found. I'm not an iPod scientist and I suspect that some of my conclusions could be bad guesses.

-- Pete

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(BobR @ Jul 11 2006, 07:25 PM) [snapback]284740[/snapback]</div>

Sure. Here is the top screen:

[attachmentid=4123]

If you click the Folder List button, this is what you see (you can use the up and down arrows to scroll to more folders if you got 'em):

[attachmentid=4125]

If you click the File button, here's what you see:

[attachmentid=4127]

And now if you click the Detail button, this appears:

[attachmentid=4128]

That is, if it's all working OK. Often the Folder List button does not appear at the top level. When it appears, you can navigate to the more detailed levels.

--Pete

 

From reading a post from VAIS tech support, I just realized something that was not obvious to me: the Prius software prevents the Folder button from working while the car is in motion. Duh. So my secret theories about baud rate mismatches, empty playlists and other glitches are baloney. The VAIS unit is constrained in similar ways to some of the Phone and Nav functions. From re-reading the VAIS documentation, it seems that there's a way to set Artist as the primary display element. I'll have to experiment with this...