RNS-E and Apple Car Palay

I’m likely to be installing this for an A2 owner in the coming weeks. If it works elegantly, it’ll increase the shelf-life of the RNS-E unit nicely. If it’s really clunky and awkward to use, I’ll be honest about this in my review.

Watch this space!

Cheers,

Tom
 
I will then look forward to the honest review, on a side note i had RNS-E unit in my pervious car with a IO Play unit plugged into it, which worked fine to stream music and podcasts. The actual unit was really never used as it should have been, the IO Play took care of the Phone calls and if i wanted to watch sometime on TV i used the Phone.

But i have to say the RNS-E does look good in an A2.

Cheers


Jae
 
Hello Stan,

Excellent question as I see this as a potentially necessary upgrade in the next few years. I’ve been considering this kind of upgrade the last 3 years but so far I’ve not found a solution without clunky operation when switching from RNS-E mode to CarPC/Android Auto/CarPlay mode via the required Video multimedia module.

The idea behind this is awesome though and goes to show how dedicated some people are by trying to solve the RNS-Es lack of recent features as it get older.

There are quite a few DIY solutions of CarPC available out there in various states of usability but regarding the Navinc; there is a decent write up from a user on the TT Forum:


The Navinc solution looks good with its touch screen but at £450 without the Multimedia module is rather pricey for an antiquated head unit that can still demand up to £300 on the reasonably priced A3 Infotainment thread. If you’re starting out from a Symphony unit in a Double DIN dashboard then expect to be £1000 lighter to first obtain the RNS-E PU, video multimedia module and of course the Navinc kit. Installing yourself will keep costs down but installation fees have to be considered as this could turn out to be a very expensive venture, even more so if you’ve still running a Single DIN dashboard. Depending on installation fees then this could quickly spiral to more than I paid for Project EUD which is crazy.

That said, as all the fleet have a RNS-E PU plus carrying a spare then I’ll no doubt have a go at making my own version of this in the next 12 months but won’t be able to start until late July/early August due to current work commitments.

Conduct a thorough search for as much as you can using terms like RNS-E CarPC, RNS-E CarPlay, RNS-E Android Auto, RNS-E Touchscreen. From searching the above terms should see you armed with as much information as I’m sitting on right now.

I do propose to make my own CarPC when the current RNS-E maps (2020/2021) become too far out of date and cause issue. The smart phone is always on standby but there have been occasions when there has been absolutely no mobile service and had to rely on the RNS-E for navigation.

Everything I find out will be on its own thread where I’ll share all the details on how to build such a unit and of course how to integrate it into the A2. My personal venture on this subject won’t start immediately as I’m waiting for the day job to ease off along with waiting for someone to stumble across the best possible smooth setup for an acceptably smooth operation.

It won’t be a cheap enhancement but nice things are expensive I suppose. The easier option would be to install an aftermarket RNS-E lookalike which which comes packed with the latest features, but I do like the look of the RNS-E and I wouldn’t want to loose the infotainment information in DIS.

More to follow from me towards summer period but for now we look forward to the reviews of the off the shelf Navinc solution from both the installer and end user.

Kind regards,

Tom
 
Last edited:
The idea does look awesome although running a touchscreen application through a non touchscreen as the RNS-E is, will be extremely unintuitive for people who have touchscreen phones for the last 10 years.

I have been a bystander for a while following the CarPc evolution for last couple of years and have seen some really interesting ideas and setups in their cars, but the introduction of the smart phone has i believe put an end to the possible benifits of having a CarPc.

Has anyone installed anything other than a RNS-E into their car, some form of touchscreen that interacts with the Phone. i have a RNS-510 that came out of my old Touran that is sitting around waiting for a car to plug into, which may be an option, but i have no idea if will fit in a double din unit.



Regards
 
I am the customer that Timmus is referring to and he now has both the RNS-E unit, which is the SEAT version (with the higher resolution screen) together with the kit from Navinc. i am sure that Timmus will post the results on the forum as soon as he has fired everything up and given it a try. Sadly ,we had a mishap with the transportation of the DD dash required to complete the installation, so that will delay things somewhat
 
The idea does look awesome although running a touchscreen application through a non touchscreen as the RNS-E is, will be extremely unintuitive for people who have touchscreen phones for the last 10 years.

I have been a bystander for a while following the CarPc evolution for last couple of years and have seen some really interesting ideas and setups in their cars, but the introduction of the smart phone has i believe put an end to the possible benifits of having a CarPc.

Has anyone installed anything other than a RNS-E into their car, some form of touchscreen that interacts with the Phone. i have a RNS-510 that came out of my old Touran that is sitting around waiting for a car to plug into, which may be an option, but i have no idea if will fit in a double din unit.



Regards
I had a Pioneer DA-120 head unit in my double din dash A2, it was chosen for its very Audi OEM look, as customisable colour backlighting of which the red is a perfect match for the Audi backlighting. It is Apple carplay and over the last 3 years its performed perfectly. I found the resistor network values for the wired remote and have 7 functions on a customer 3D printed binacle on the left hand side of the steering cowl, this gives volume up/down, mode change station up/down etc

Paul
 
Paul, thanks for the information regarding your set up, does the Unit fit in the double sim without an issue with gaps? And do you have a surround/trim that fits like OEM?

I may wait awhile as I am finding the symphony radio in the car is producing a really deep and fulfilling sound, apart from the annoying issue with the Radio stations kept losing their signal as you drive from one area to the other. I have now inserted some CD’s so let’s see how I get on with some real sounds in the car.

The list of upgrades has increased over the weekend.





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top