Hi, I have a 2008 535 with M-ASK, no PDC, Trying to decide what path to take. Primary goal is to get Carplay, Secondary are wireless carplay, rear camera, and last is hd radio.

Option A - Retrofit to NBT Evo with wireless car play, etc. - $2500 + Camera kit, apparently needs to be OEM, need to find parts...imagine about $500 more...
Option B - Retrofit to NBT (nonEvo), no wireless car play - $2100 with camera - big issue is that phone charging will su
Option C - Retrofit to CIC+MMI (Joyeauto) - $ 1800 - gets camera, wireless car play
Option D - Get Avin kit - $750 - I know you can get parts/components cheaper on aliexpress, etc. I prefer getting one kit from one vendor that is supposed to work together...

The Avin is looking like the best bang for the buck...Am i missing something? Prefer to have the extra $1-2k for FMIC, JB4, etc.

TIA,
Carlos.

 

One thing I don't see on your list is CCC + MMI (not sure if MMI works with MASK but it might be possible). I had MASK but then got an Avin unit and while it was nice, it was more buggy than I wanted it to be regarding CarPlay. I then picked up a CIC retrofit kit locally on Craigslist for a great price so I did that and later got an MMI unit of eBay. If CarPlay is what you want, MMI is fantastic. It connects to my iPhone faster than my Avin unit did and is more reliable in its connection. I also like that I'm using the OEM screen such that I can change the brightness of it through the OEM menus (Avin you have to do it via the Android interface). I find the E60 screen is too far to reach comfortably for touch so I don't need that feature of the Avin either. Both the Avin and MMI use the iDrive knob really nicely. With my MMI it also integrates with the speech button on the steering wheel to trigger Siri, my Avin unit wouldn't do that. I also have a rear wireless backup camera that I got with my Avin unit and it is working great with my MMI unit as well. Let me know if you have any other questions. There's a user on here, I think @Anthro, who got an MMI unit for his CCC and is really happy with it. I'm sure you could plug it into MASK but I don't know whether it would do that resolution correctly or not.

 

How long ago did you have the Avin? I was under the impression that the steering wheel button would operate "Siri"...The ones now come with Android 10/11. Not sure how much improvement is possible. The glare/touch scare me as i can't stnad the fingerprints, and the glare here can be bad, so without the angled screen, how much worse will it be. The brightness of the screen should compensate.

I didn't consider the CCC, since i think the cost was about the same. I think the idrive needs to be changed too, but I think it was less than $200 difference...
Thanks.

 

I bought my Avin about a month before the pandemic started and it had Android 10 and was a PX6 model I believe. It's very possible the Siri button works now, didn't for me. Once you have it set up the fingerprints shouldn't be an issue if you only use CarPlay as you'll be able to do all of that from the iDrive knob and won't have to touch the screen. It was also a bit tight fitting the Avin unit in, certainly possible, but the female connector on the back of the unit cracked a bit once when I was fitting mine in place. That said, I sold it to someone else and installed it and it all worked fine. Fortunately there wasn't really any glare because the screen is recessed on the E60. I have an Avin Avant 4 in my E46 and it gets a whole lot of glare because of its location.

If you get CCC you can use the same iDrive knob, they didn't change the knob until 2009 (the one with shortcut buttons on it). You would need a new screen and the CCC unit. If you want to use the built-in nav it would need a GPS antenna as well. The Avin kit I got came with a GPS and I'm using that now with my CIC (not like I ever use the built-in nav on it though) and my MMI obviously uses the iPhone's GPS for maps via CarPlay. I also think CCC is a bit easier to setup/code to the vehicle. CIC was fine to install and code but to get the built-in nav working took me lots of time figuring out how to virginize it and get my own FSC code on it to activate. If you buy a CIC retrofit kit they often pre-program it for your vehicle though.

 

Thanks for the info. As I look again now, remember that the CIC requires cutting the trim, etc. Rather skip that as primary use will be carplay. Programming and getting the codes will be fun, but I'm sure someone can help ($) with that aspect. I have the computer with ISTA-P, etc. so just a matter of dedicating time to it. Had been thinking of updating all the software anyways...maybe get through my coding list while I'm at it. Auto-Folding, etc. I don't need to worry about AUX as default.

Which MMI did you get from ebay? I was looking at the Joyeauto one since I'm always a bit hesitant with ebay and electronics of unkown manufacturer. Does the MMI still uses the factory microphone? Does the phone still pair to the car, or to the MMI for the voice? I'll be hooking up a camera on trunk, and maybe the front, do they both work at once, can they be switched on at any time?

Thanks!

 

If you choose to use the newer CIC iDrive knob, then yes, you cut trim for it. There are people who use the older knob with CIC, I can't comment on that since my car is a 2009 and came with the newer iDrive knob (but M-ASK as well). You also need a new trim panel below the CIC (or CCC for that matter) that gets rid of the little sunglasses cubbyhole there since the nav units are taller and use that space. Also may need a new trim panel to go around climate controls as they facelifted them at some point. If you go the CCC route you just need the new panel to remove the cubbyhole.

ISTA-P is great I'm sure, but not what I used for this. If you get a CCC unit you can use NCS Expert to update your VO to tell the car it now has navigation and I believe that's pretty much all you need to do. It's more or less the same for CIC as well. However, if you want to get the built-in nav working on a CIC module that can be quite a bit more tricky. It's doable, I did it, but never found clear-cut instructions on how to do it.

I got something like this. Basically if you search for "BMW CIC CarPlay" you'll find tons of them. Obviously there is probably little-to-no support. I had an issue with mine and they actually sent me instructions (fairly garbled but I figured out what I needed). There are a number of dip switches on the side that you can adjust depending on your car's features and they didn't provide me with instructions in the box. If you go with Bimmertech's MMI I imagine you get much better support (and you obviously pay more for that assurance). My MMI unit came with a microphone (in case my car didn't have one already, but it does) as well as a harness that taps into the existing mic, which I thought was cool. The built-in mic goes to the TULF bluetooth module in the trunk so is not accessible to the MMI. So their harness plugs into the mic, but then has a second plug on the side that the factory harness goes into so that the MMI and TULF can share the one mic. The phone can still pair to the car if you want but I just have it paired up with CarPlay personally as the built in bluetooth is mostly useless for me and kicks in each time I use Siri.

I've found what I feel is a slick way to use CarPlay audio. If you retrofit CIC the top button on the steering wheel (can't remember if's the diamond one or something) switches audio sources. So if I'm listening to radio and CarPlay is up and I want to use Siri, I press that button (switches me back to the aux-in) and then the speech button and Siri prompts me. When I'm done I hit the diamond button to go back to radio. Or if you always want music via CarPlay always leave it on aux-in and you're good.

I got a wireless camera which was extremely flaky until I went on Amazon and got this cheap little backup camera rectifier thing (it was <$10) and it solved my flakiness. The camera automatically comes on in reverse as it is powered by the reverse light bulb. I don't know if my MMI supports a front camera, can't remember if there was a plug for that but I sort of doubt it. It shows me parking lines and the PDC sensor status while I'm in reverse as well. If you hardwire your camera I imagine you could turn it on whenever you want through the MMI but you'd have to use the iDrive knob for a few clicks to turn it on.

Send me a PM if you want me to FaceTime or anything to show you how it all works.