GLS X166 Android upgrade

[nocallaghan]

I am going to replace the screen in my GLS with a 12 inch android unit, as the BTG5 is utter rubbish, I thought I would document it in this thread, I have the new unit now, instructions are lacking, not a surprise. Model is for GLE and GLS apparently, incudes new air vents.

I have bought the DAB+ add on as well, my idea is that I will use it for Nav and radio, leaving car settings reverse camera etc on the old system.

My reason for doing this, the radio performance is utterly shocking, I have another car parked right next to my GLS with an aftermarket android headunit and it picks up DAB and radio fine, I had my GLS in with two dealers, thy cant fix it, the cost of sorting it and upgrading the NAV pretty much pays for the new android screen, but I did splurge out on the 12 inch screen, whereas I could have saved money and got the 8inch one. So new DAB+ tuner and ariel, but I am going to try and keep as much factory as I can, so reusing the GPS antenna, and going to try and reuse the DAB ariel, but the DAB ariel could be whats at fault in the car in the first place.

Given the lack of decent instructions, including a very bad translation from German to English this will be a make it work as I go project, fitting the android head unit in to my shogun was a massive job that everyone said wasn;t possible, so mines the only euro spec shogun in the world with the factory optical audio and a working android head unit.

 

[nocallaghan]

 

[nocallaghan]

My car has the rear screens, reversing camera and harmon stereo, I am not sure whats factory or not, but I wanted to keep the basic OEM functionality, I have already had the NTG5 software updated to add apple and android car, but thats rubbish as well. So I decided to go with the aftermarket. This keeps all the OEM stuff, but it does have one weird connection to have to run to the USB port in the centre console storage bin, so I will work on sorting that.

 

[nocallaghan]

Not the worse bunch of cables I have seen

 

[nocallaghan]

The mechanism to replace the air vent controls looks pretty decent and has a good click feel to it.

 

[nocallaghan]

The sponge around the back of the air vents ain't great, but once its in it should hold itself in fine.

 

[nocallaghan]

 

[nocallaghan]

The rest of the cables are pretty obivous, here are the two main harness', one for the original car connector, the other for extra inputs to the android unit I believe.

 

[nocallaghan]

Looks like first problem, the german supplier said to keep the GPS factory ariel for use with the new head unit buy their over priced fakra splitter, turns out the back of the android unit uses an SMA connector, not Fakra, but a small convertor should sort that. Once I open the car up I should be able to check that anyway.

 

[nocallaghan]

 

[nickpb]

Interesting. I'm not sure if it's just me but your pictures (at least that's what I assume they are) are just showing as lines of data/text. No images at all.
IGNORE THIS - must be me. They've suddenly come through. Sorry.

 

[nocallaghan]

it looks like the light connector cable is not needed on the new version

 

[nocallaghan]

old vs new

 

[nocallaghan]

Its installed, all original functions are working, touch screen works well, steering and controller all work.

When you select reverse the rear camera doesn't come on unless the screen is set to the old system, minor.

I haven't finsihed configuring it yet nor put the DAB ariel in, thats a job for another day. Getting the cables in was a pain, but rest of the install was ok.

I hope the images are showing up for everyone.

 

[NJSS]

I hope the images are showing up for everyone.

Sadly - no.

NJSS

 

[nocallaghan]

No idea what went wrong with those, they worked for me, I have put them on a different file share site, I will upload them here now.

 

[nocallaghan]

I have just created a google photo album, its easier lol

Merc Audio upgrade

28 new items · Album by Neil O'Callaghan

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[Bendo]

That looks quite neat. Been tempted to get one for my s212 but the obvious aftermarket effect puts me off.

I've got Carplay/ AA enabled on mine, but without touchscreen it's frustrating to use.

 

[nocallaghan]

I have got everything working, I am actually quite impressed, as normally aftermarket is poor. So far its good. Sorted the minor few issues like reversing camera not working, connected my phone and got Bluetooth and bt audio working, android auto worked straight away, wirelessly as well. I plugged in the DAB module, installed DAB-Z, the cars factory DAB picks up about 15 DAB stations, messing around with the ariel position, including outside the car for reference gets me 106 stations, vertical ariel position top left of window beat the outside position, I imagine I wasn't holding it outside the car in a very good way. long road test is needed next, then tidy up the 2 remaining wires.

 

[Bendo]

Your factory Dab issue is likely software related. Mine was the same but when I had it flashed to add Android Auto, whatever software update that was fixed the DAB as well.