W204 - Mercedes Universal Media Interface

[Diesel Benz]

Anymore info on this? Im looking to buy a new W204 as a company car, and im hoping to retrofit the UMI, (so i can remove it and sell it in 3 years time).

Can digital radio be added to this easily, or should i spec that with the car?

Cheers for any info.

I wouldn't mind more info either. I understood that the kit would need the centre speaker for navigation announcements. I guess it can't use the aux input, I assume it needs to mute the car audio and then the AUX input gets muted too. I wonder if the kit includes the speaker?

A few Comand units are on sale at eBay at a reasonable price, I have not decide myself yet between the two.

You should be able to connect an after market digital tuner to the aux input but you would not have the integrated control for that. If digital radio is important for you, I would take it from the factory (but I don't know how much it would be for a UK car).

 

[wassap]

Looking at the www.comand.co.uk site, it seems that a small speaker is included.

At £795 its a decent enough price, the other option is to spend 1k and get an aftermarket alpine unit or similar.

 

[Diesel Benz]

Looking at the www.comand.co.uk site, it seems that a small speaker is included.

At £795 its a decent enough price, the other option is to spend 1k and get an aftermarket alpine unit or similar.

You may get a Comand unit plus the big display at £1000, depending on the currency ratio (a used device from eBay). This would give full car integration.

But is anyone aware of the compatibility of the small display with the big one? Someone claimed that the big display had been installed on a car with the basic Audio 20 radio. Do the displays have the same number of pixels and are they really interchangeable? One could equally consider the Comand unit alone with the existing small display when comparing to the UMI option.

 

[richard]

Heres a summary of the state of play.

If your W204 has COMAND or Audio-50-APS you have two iPod options now
a) Standard iPod kit - allows control via steering wheel controls & cluster display
b) Media Interface - allows control via COMAND - however, its currently a factory fit option, but comandonline will have a retrofit kit soon

If your W204 has Audio-20
a) Standard iPod kit (as above)
b) Universal Media Interface - adds navigation, control of iPod via audio-20 controls

If you are ordering a new car (any model series) with Audio-50-APS or COMAND, order the Media Interface from the factory, its only about £140, (+£50 for the leads you need) - which is cheaper than just buying the far-less-good standard iPod kit let alone fitting it - which is significantly easier than fitting Media Interface.

Richard

 

[Diesel Benz]

A bit off topic but on the UMI anyway: an expert at a US forum informed that there should be a new version or an update to the current UMI to include voice control. Any info about this, would be nice to know if it really is a new device or a SW update to the current one (probably with some microphone rewiring?)?