T-Style Android Head Unit first impressions - 2016+ model

[greynolds]

Yes the dual temp up/down are some of the customization from Sergey's firmware. There are quite a few changes from the original setup plus it speeds up some of the app opening times. Also you can customize the background with your own photo if you have a good one in the right position (looking at the left-front at a 45 degree angle).

Sounds good. I paid him for the firmware yesterday and received the instructions over night. I'll need to read through those and find an appropriate block of time to go through all the steps.

I went into the settings and typed the passcode to get the screen...I had no idea that was a thing! One of the mods that Sergey had put was to pull the temp from an outside source so I turned that on but the temp was way off so I turned his setting off but the temp remained and has been on for a week or so. When I pulled up the menu it was turned on there too so I must have backed into it by accident.

Yeah, there's a good chance his mod turned that setting on. When the ignition is in accessory mode, it will display -40F . But when the ignition is on, it seems to work as expected in my very limited use so far. Another bonus is that it doesn't rely on having an Internet connection available.

 

[greynolds]

Sergey's custom firmware is now fully installed and I switched to the Land Cruiser theme. I'm going to need to spend some time going through all the options again as he has added a ton of features.

 

[greynolds]

I’m at the tail end of a 10 day trip and returning home today. I will have driven somewhere between 2500 and 3000 miles, so I feel like I’ve got a decent amount of experience with the head unit now. Overall, I‘m happy with it. But it isn’t perfect. I had lots of cases where CarPlay lost the connection or Zlink crashed. Generally speaking, all I needed to do was go into the Bluetooth settings on my iPhone and tap the connection for the head unit to get CarPlay back. Sometimes I had to reboot the head unit. Over the course of driving perhaps 3-4 hours, I could probably count on this happening at least once. If Zlink crashed, I had to kill it and then start Zlink again. I ended up setting up my cell phone mount and having the iPhone running Google Maps just in case the connection dropped at a critical spot. The upside of this is that the iPhone will display upcoming turn details when CarPlay is connected, which is useful when multiple turns are happening every few hundred feet as it helped me figure out which lane to be in.

Yesterday, I hit a REALLY bad pavement “patch” on I90 east in New York not to far from Rochester. It was a really unpleasant experience and I’m kind of surprised I didn’t have a blown tire or obvious front end alignment issue afterwards. Someone with a trailer was pulled over with a tire that disintegrated, probably from hitting the same spot. It knocked cruise control off, triggered the traction control alarm, and ended up screwing up the 360 camera operation. The camera would get stuck I. The forward or reverse view or show no signal. Since I brought some tools with me, I popped off the driver side trim panel and vent to get access to the 360 camera connection. Reseating it appears to have solved that problem.

I have a CarLinkIt CarPlay USB adapter designed for Android units that I’m going to try instead of Zlink and see if that might have fewer disconnect issues. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to bring it with me on the trip as it would have been nice to try it for a few days where I was driving some real distance.

The head unit itself rebooted a few times here and there, but those weren’t as annoying or frequent as the CarPlay disconnects and may be related to Zlink crashing.

Just using native Android apps instead of CarPlay is an option as well, but when driving, the simplicity of the CarPlay apps is usually a good thing IMHO.

The heating controls, which was an area where I was a bit skeptical, worked flawlessly.

The current time is sometimes off by an hour, despite the correct time zone and DST settings. Weird, but I can live with it and it usually self corrects eventually.

If I can get past the disconnects, I’ll be pretty happy.

 

[greynolds]

I've made a number of updates to post number 3 recently, including info on hooking up the 360 camera and an adapter for using the factory GPS antenna.

I'm going to be wiring in a couple of USB charger ports to a replacement panel that Gamiviti makes for the center speaker grill. For the power source, something I've been wondering about is that EC Offroad mentions that the secondary main harness plug that comes with these head units (and isn't used in our LC's) can be used as a power source for accessory circuits (about 6 minutes into the part 2 video that's included in the first post of this thread). Does anybody happen to know how much power would be safe to draw off of that?

I'll be installing a pair of these:

Amazon product ASIN B08DFR571Z
The specs say the output is 5V 2.1A * 2 for one of these charging sockets.

Using the Volts * Amps = Watts calculation:
5V * 2.1A * 2 = 21 watts (this agrees with the posted specs)
21 watts / 12V = 1.75A (@ 12V)

Allowing for some wasted energy in converting 12V to 5V and the power draw from the power indicator light (the seller says that those draw 0.06W), I would think a pair of these would be drawing less than 4A @ 12V total if all 4 charging ports are in use.

I know how to run circuits through the firewall to the battery, but am hoping to avoid doing that yet again and it would also be nice to have these switched off when the ignition switch isn't in accessory mode or on (I know this can be accomplished that by hooking a relay up to an appropriate circuit so that there's minimal drain on an existing circuit).

 

[kcjaz]

I've made a number of updates to post number 3 recently, including info on hooking up the 360 camera and an adapter for using the factory GPS antenna.

I'm going to be wiring in a couple of USB charger ports to a replacement panel that Gamiviti makes for the center speaker grill. For the power source, something I've been wondering about is that EC Offroad mentions that the secondary main harness plug that comes with these head units (and isn't used in our LC's) can be used as a power source for accessory circuits (about 6 minutes into the part 2 video that's included in the first post of this thread). Does anybody happen to know how much power would be safe to draw off of that?

I'll be installing a pair of these:

Amazon product ASIN B08DFR571Z
The specs say the output is 5V 2.1A * 2 for one of these charging sockets.

Using the Volts * Amps = Watts calculation:
5V * 2.1A * 2 = 21 watts (this agrees with the posted specs)
21 watts / 12V = 1.75A (@ 12V)

Allowing for some wasted energy in converting 12V to 5V and the power draw from the power indicator light (the seller says that those draw 0.06W), I would think a pair of these would be drawing less than 4A @ 12V total if all 4 charging ports are in use.

I know how to run circuits through the firewall to the battery, but am hoping to avoid doing that yet again and it would also be nice to have these switched off when the ignition switch isn't in accessory mode or on (I know this can be accomplished that by hooking a relay up to an appropriate circuit so that there's minimal drain on an existing circuit).

I can’t answer your power draw question but I just used the cigarette lighter circuit for the USB outlets I added to my Gamiviti dash panel. Super easy.

 

[greynolds]

I can’t answer your power draw question but I just used the cigarette lighter circuit for the USB outlets I added to my Gamiviti dash panel. Super easy.

I'm also considering that option - I just prefer to not tap into the factory harness when I can avoid it. Did you go the add-a-fuse option in the fuse panel or just tap into the wiring at the cigarette lighter? IIRC, the fuse for that circuit is on the driver's side.

Tapping into an otherwise unused connector on the aftermarket wiring harness seems attractive, but not knowing how many amps it can handle obviously isn't ideal .

 

[greynolds]

So there may be some hope for using the factory microphone:

Use OEM Mic with Aftermarket Headunit

I ran across a thread on another Toyota forum about how to use the OEM mic with an aftermarket headunit. You don't have to use the 28 pin wiring...

www.tundras.com

I'm not sure if this would be compatible with some or all of our Land Cruisers (depending on model year, of course), but this would be pretty much a plug and play solution:

Site Maintenance

 

[kcjaz]

I'm also considering that option - I just prefer to not tap into the factory harness when I can avoid it. Did you go the add-a-fuse option in the fuse panel or just tap into the wiring at the cigarette lighter? IIRC, the fuse for that circuit is on the driver's side.

Tapping into an otherwise unused connector on the aftermarket wiring harness seems attractive, but not knowing how many amps it can handle obviously isn't ideal .

I just used T-tap style connectors. I generally hate those things and use solder and shrink wrap but I ran out of time before LCDC. So far so good. I will say that I shook the crap out of my rig on the trails and except for a trailer plug coming loose had no loose wire issues.

 

[greynolds]

So there may be some hope for using the factory microphone:

Use OEM Mic with Aftermarket Headunit

I ran across a thread on another Toyota forum about how to use the OEM mic with an aftermarket headunit. You don't have to use the 28 pin wiring...

www.tundras.com

I'm not sure if this would be compatible with some or all of our Land Cruisers (depending on model year, of course), but this would be pretty much a plug and play solution:

Site Maintenance

I just spent a few minutes poking around in the electrical diagram for where the required connections for the microphone exist on our Land Cruisers. It looks like the microphone connections that are needed are on the big cam lock connector, which I see as a bit unfortunate as it's probably the most difficult connector to work with (and I can't find a male to female jumper cable similar to what is used in the above solutions). The diagram shows the SGND, MIN-, MIN+, and MACC connections going to pins 28, 48, 27, and 29 on connector A, which maps to connector F58, which is the big connector. It looks like these connections are identical on 2016-2021.

 

[greynolds]

I just used T-tap style connectors. I generally hate those things and use solder and shrink wrap but I ran out of time before LCDC. So far so good. I will say that I shook the crap out of my rig on the trails and except for a trailer plug coming loose had no loose wire issues.

In case anyone is interested in another wiring option that doesn't require tapping into the factory harness, it occurred to me that I had ordered something with the intent of tapping power off of the 2nd row cigarette lighter (on the back of the center console near the floor) that wasn't a match for the factory harness, so I had tossed it into my parts pile. It turns out that it's a perfect match for the front cigarette lighter wiring harness (the price has gone up by $5 since I bought mine almost 2 years ago):

Amazon product ASIN B07TM4DPQS
It has matched male and female connectors to install inline with the factory harness with a pair of USB charging ports on a fused pigtail cable. Getting the plug out of the back of the factory lighter was easy. Blindly installing the new connector took a bunch of trial and error. Both the cigarette lighter plug and the new USB ports on the end of the pigtail all have power. I should be able to just cut off the USB port end and wire up the new panel mount USB connectors when I get some time to finish the job. The wiring appears to be of sufficient gauge for everything to be safe and even though there will be 4 charging ports, I don't envision more than 2 ever being used at the same time.

While I had everything pulled out for the cigarette lighter project, I hooked up the factory USB port to the head unit. I connected the USB harness that came with the head unit to the appropriate factory harness connector and then ran a USB extension cable to the USB hub I'm using for connected USB devices. I tested with a wireless keyboard with USB dongle and it works fine. So I now have a super easy to access USB port available.

 

[LC2015]

I got this EC OffRoad tesla-style unit installed over the weekend and it's a huge upgrade for my 2015. Installation is a bit of a PITA, but EC OffRoad provides instructional videos that are pretty helpful.

A couple questions for those who have this unit:

- Do the up/down steering wheel buttons work for you? They used to skip forward/back on music tracks with the OEM head unit, but now they don't seem to do anything.

- Android auto works when plugged into USB, but I can't get it working wirelessly. It worked when I first installed the unit, but then stopped working and I can't get it to connect wirelessly anymore (I've tried 3 different Android phones and all do the same issue). Using my son's iphone, Apple Car Play works without issue both wired or wirelessly. Any ideas? I'm tempted to just switch to iphone, but that seems extreme.

Also, I had a volume issue where the music volume over Bluetooth or car play was very low. I found a setting in Car Settings that allows me to increase volume of the amp; if anyone else has this problem, send me a message and I can get more specifics about where that menu/setting was.

 

[greynolds]

I got this EC OffRoad tesla-style unit installed over the weekend and it's a huge upgrade for my 2015. Installation is a bit of a PITA, but EC OffRoad provides instructional videos that are pretty helpful.

A couple questions for those who have this unit:

- Do the up/down steering wheel buttons work for you? They used to skip forward/back on music tracks with the OEM head unit, but now they don't seem to do anything.

- Android auto works when plugged into USB, but I can't get it working wirelessly. It worked when I first installed the unit, but then stopped working and I can't get it to connect wirelessly anymore (I've tried 3 different Android phones and all do the same issue). Using my son's iphone, Apple Car Play works without issue both wired or wirelessly. Any ideas? I'm tempted to just switch to iphone, but that seems extreme.

Also, I had a volume issue where the music volume over Bluetooth or car play was very low. I found a setting in Car Settings that allows me to increase volume of the amp; if anyone else has this problem, send me a message and I can get more specifics about where that menu/setting was.

You should be posting in the other thread since you have a 2015 - this thread is for 2016+. We created 2 distinct threads because there are wiring harness connection differences. But here are some responses...

The steering wheel controls work fine on mine. Is your unit running Android 9 or a newer version?

No idea on Android Auto as I only have an iPhone.

I also had to initially adjust the volume level to get reasonable audio levels.

 

[LC2015]

You should be posting in the other thread since you have a 2015 - this thread is for 2016+. We created 2 distinct threads because there are wiring harness connection differences. But here are some responses...

The steering wheel controls work fine on mine. Is your unit running Android 9 or a newer version?

No idea on Android Auto as I only have an iPhone.

I also had to initially adjust the volume level to get reasonable audio levels.

Thanks, I'll post in the other. The newest unit appears to be running Android 11 and has a very different GUI design relative to the one in the EC OffRoad videos - much more modern look/feel.

 

[Snipersixate]

It seems like that seller on Alibaba now requires you to order more than one unit. Has anybody tried a different seller? Or one from Aliexpress?