ipod2car AND XM together?

If you find out, let me know! I have the same question...

 

I agree with you that they should daisy-chain electronically, but they don't physically. The XM unit has a dedicated harness ending with the mating connector to the head unit's aux connector., that's it. The ipod2car kit has a similar harness ending in the same mating cable. So, the only way of doing this would be if the ipod2car unit had an aux input connector to form the daisy chain, or if there's some form of Y-cable that will join the two. The XM unit doesn't have an aux input.

 

I talked to my local Toyota parts guy and discussed this with him. First, the Toyota cable adapter, part # 08695-00370, can be ordered in 1 day and retails for $21, so that's no big deal. Toyota doesn't make a Y-cable adapter since they never anticpated having that many add-on stereo components. You also can't buy just the plastic connector pieces seperately, so the only theoretical solution we could come up with is to buy 2 of the Toyota cable adapters (cost $42), cut the head unit connector off one of them, and splice each wire from that end into the corresponding wire in the other cable's head unit connector, which would create your own Y-cable. The XM unit draws the majority of the current through this connection, so the additional draw from the iPod when powered on should be negligible.

I have no idea how the software would handle this. I have no way of knowing if the multi-drop communications bus would simply detect the additional device and add it to the available selectable Modes, or if it would crash with the XM. Since we do know that each unit independently is recognized, the additional need may be to add an A/B switch box to route one whole wire set or the other.

 

The answer is YES!

Okay guys, I've volunteered to be the guinea pig on this one. I found a vendor that has a kit made for the 2004 Prius that allows BOTH the iPod and the XM unit to be connected at the same time AND seemlessly integrates both into the MFD and wheel controls... It consists of the 'black box', a cable from the box to the iPod, and a T-cable that extends the head unit's aux audio connection and branches off with a connection to their black box.

It almost sounds too good to be true, but I worked my way up the food chain until I was talking to the design engineers who say they've done this and it checks out. Just in case, they agreed to refund me in full if it's not what they claim it to be.

They were quite excited when I told them I was part of this forum and thought that a successful integration would probably result in more purchases from other forum members. If that ends up being the case, they can work out some sort of discount.

I should have the kit by Tuesday at the latest, and will get the thing installed ASAP. With respect to Danny's commercial sales policy, I'll hold off on the vendor specifics until I know it actually works.

Keep your fingers crossed....

Mark

 

Thanks for being the guinea pig! I would also be very interested in this solution if it works.

Geoff

 

Danny and I have spoken about this. He's going to do the due diligence and check them out for all of us. Meanwhile, I'll verify that the equipment actually works, so by the time we regroup, we'll know whether or not this is worth endorsing or organizing a group buy.

 

how much did you pay for yours?

thanks,
drew

 

Mark -- What results did you get?

I was just contemplating today that I don't really want to give up my CD changer, but I really enjoyed having my iPod going to the Aux-in on my aftermarket stereo in my convertible...

I'm likely *never* going to subscribe to XM or Sirius simply because I don't spend enough time in the car to justify the subscription fees -- so it occurred to me that rather than give up the CD changer I could give up satellite radio as an option, still hook my iPod in and get the bennies of steering wheel control of the iPod...

Has anyone tried this?

Thanks!
Peter+

815 miles on my new baby! (one tank refill)

 

First, I know everyone's curious, but the UPS arrival date for my kit has been posted as 10/15, so it'll be a few days before I get a shot at putting it in. Secondly, the vendor I ordered from included the required cable, which may or may not be that particular Toyota part number. The frustrating part of that was when I talked to the Toyota parts guy, he said it was a single-ended point to point cable, but if it already has the pass-through, then I'm all set. I guess I'll see when I get it. My cost for the ipod2car, all cables, s&h, came to $208. Yeah, it's pricey, but so was the XM unit. I've paid higher for both for the added perk of having it integrated with the wheel controls and allegedly the MFD.

Like I said, we'll see...

 

Not really interested in the XM hookup, but I am curious to hear about the MFD integration with the iPod.

Since most of these devices work by emulating the CD changer telemetry, and since something in the MFD is intelligent enough to display the CD Text from the CD player, it would seem like a simple enough trick to at least be able to display what you're listening to by reading the signal off the iPod then faking it out as CD Text. Of course, it seems like this is an "on demand" capability; I haven't noticed it automatically showing my CD titles when the tracks change, but that could just be because I have so few CDs with CD Text.

Actually being able to see what's on the iPod would be a serious bonus-- I could bury the iPod somewhere in the car and not have to worry about carrying it with me when I parked for 10 minutes, but still be able to pick songs-- but as long as I have a key to skip ahead, that's all I really care about.

 

K, looks like the folks at ipod2car have at least tried to make the display stuff work:

http://news.com.com/Photo+gallery+Microsof...-5420957-3.html

Looks a lot to me like they're trying to display the artist on that head-end. Oddly enough, there's no mention of this on the Peripheral web site or ipod2car.com... Annoying!