Installing a Parrot MKI9100: Bluetooth, ipod, aux, usb

[Cadiblk]

I don't have any questions at the moment, but I do have compliments and appreciation for taking the time to educate all of us. Your installation process and explanations are very well explained. These are features that everyone has been wanting (as you know) and I am extremely appreciative of the effort you put in, your initiative, and your willingness to share. Thanks I will be ordering mine very soon!!

[Phrede]

Thanks for the post. I am in the same boat. My car came with the same Parrot unit installed, but used an external speaker. I removed it and installed the Bluestar unit. I am not happy with it at all. The audio quality is terrible and only works correctly some of the time. My goal was / still is to get a bluetooth unit that will automatically mute the radio and play through the systems speaker. I am going to revisit integrating the parrot into the system.

I now know which wire mutes the system for the OnStar. Since I have no desire to maintain the OnStar I am going to look into possibly using the OnStar mic, be able to get navigation instructions from the phone through bluetooth, use the audio output from the Parrot to feed into the main audio amp to get more volume.

I was not aware that the Parrot had an IPOD interface and installed a lock pic to do that. I'm not real pleased with that either. It works, but the display is not as advertised and is very crude. You can only change playlists once without cycling the power on the radio.

I think this is doable and just will mark up the Blue star purchase to experience.

[Doug Doty]

Very nice work, and thanks for the tip, I found my way !!

[XLR QUEBEC]

I KNOW ITS A OLD POST BUT THIS SET UP YOU DO .... ARE GOOD FOR ALL
XLR YEAR AND RADIO WHIT OUT XM OPTION

BECAUSE I HAVE 2005 MODEL


REGARD DANIEL...............

[BoughtTheXLR]

From the service manual, the radio wiring is the same for all years.

As an update, I found the cigarette lighter connection for battery+ stays on until the 20-minute timer expires. The only alternative I found is to connect a fuse adapter to the RUN ACSRY PWR fuse.

I'm also less than pleased with the screen saver on the mki9100; I'll replace it with an mki9200 when I find one at a really good price.

[BoughtTheXLR]

Swapped out the mki9100, whose display was unreadable except at night, and installed an mki9200. Note this is a whole different box, you can't just plug a 9200 display into the 9100 box.

Moved the box to the left of the radio. This significantly improved communication from the remote.

Since the lighter power stays on for 15-20 minutes (which kept the bluetooth link active when I carried the phone into the house), I switched the "ignition+" power lead to a fuse adapter attached to the run/acc fuse. It doesn't have retained access power, but it's better than before.

By the way, in addition to the ipod/aux/usb connection choices, the mki9200 also has a slot on the back of the display for an SD card.

[BoughtTheXLR]

Some Q&A from a related thread, copied here for completeness:

Originally Posted by Phrede

Thanks again for the thread, it brought a few thoughts to mind and may very well be the approach I take. Do you mind a couple of questions?

Is there a reason you did the interface behind the head unit rather than at the amp, which I think is easier to get at?

I originally started with an adapter cable which claimed to be for an 04-06 SRX, whose Nav/radio wiring is identical to ours. That cable turned out to be seriously incorrect. I rewired it to work, and at that point discovered that any connection between the radio and cd did not override the cd output. Also, I needed to pull the radio out to place the parrot box behind (and now alongside) the radio.

Originally Posted by Phrede

Did you consider using the mute and the OnStar audio in rather than breaking into the music audio lines? Is it important to you to maintain the OnStar?

I thought about it, but looking at all the connections it appeared that the Class II network bus was involved in too much of this. I had the onstar trial active at the time and had not yet decided if I wanted to keep it (As in, might they offer a good deal to not let it lapse.).

For what it's worth, even being directly wired into the cd-to-amp connections, the incoming Onstar marketing calls overrode my music.

Originally Posted by Phrede

I thought that the Parrot output was for speaker level signals, not line level. Did this create any problems? Did you attenuate the signal any? Was there enough volume?

For whatever reason, it works fine. Setting the Parrot volume to about 70% of its scale yields the same volume as the car radio so switching between Parrot and radio/cd I don't have to change the car's volume setting. I expected to have to work on an impedence match but it was not necessary. I'm not an audiophile but it sounds fine to me. (Anyone coming to central Florida, PM me and we'll arrange a listening.)

Originally Posted by Phrede

I am not really wanting to mount another unit and am wanting to do commands and such either thru voice or on the phone. Will the Parrot let you do this?

Parrot accepts commands through its own microphone. I have a very basic cell phone and have never tried to use its voice recognition. You probably need to ask Parrot.

Originally Posted by Phrede

One thing I am considering is just hard wiring the phone in. I usually connect the power anyway. The hard part with that is getting the interrupt working so that if listening to a CD and a call comes in.

That's exactly how this setup works. The Parrot is its own mute box, so if you are not using the phone and not playing music, the regular radio and cd work normally. On an incoming call or access to the phone book, the radio/cd audio is shut off and the parrot audio goes to the amp. Note that if a music source is connected to the parrot when you start the car, you will need to press the parrot's pause button to switch it off so you can listen to the radio/cd.

[Phrede]

Thanks for the info:

You may have some better info, but I have not found any units out there that are wired like ours despite being told by vendors that their wiring will work. The closest I've found is from a C6 Corvette, but still not 100%.

I expect since you did nothing with the interconnection between the OnStar and the amp that it would still work, just as you described.

Are you interested in selling your 9100 that you replaced? The display is not that important to me so it might be ok.

[BoughtTheXLR]

emailed you re the 9100.

I did a lot of searching for a cable, and thought I had a winner when I found one for an 04-06 SRX, as the radio pinouts on the nav radio on the original SRX are identical to the XLR (as is the whole radio/changer/nav for that matter). Cable plugs fit, but only one audio channel was wired correctly, and it had ground wired to B+, while B+ and Ign+ were both wired to ground. And after I rewired it to work right, it only worked while playing the radio and not the cd. Had a long chat with the manufacturer about that...