Freelander 1 Facelift After Market Head Unit

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Fritz

Active Member
Posts
183
Location
Surrey
Hi

So I'd like to switch out the factory fitted head unit with an after market one to get hands free & DAB.

I know I need an adaptor plate and some leads but I'm not sure if I need one for power& speakers and another for SWC or whether a single ISO will do both?

Also, the unit itself. E-bay is full of android units that seem to promise the earth but are really quite cheap (makes such as Erisin/ Xtrons/ Eonon/ etc.).

Does anyone have any experience of these units as reviews seem to be mixed?

Fritz
 
know I need an adaptor plate and some leads but I'm not sure if I need one for power& speakers and another for SWC or whether a single ISO will do both?
It depends on what unit you currently have fitted as to what wiring kit is needed to fit an aftermarket HU. The FL1 facelift will take a double DIN, but does need an adapter housing for it to fit in the space available.

Also, the unit itself. E-bay is full of android units that seem to promise the earth but are really quite cheap (makes such as Erisin/ Xtrons/ Eonon/ etc.).

From my research and experience on these cheap Chinese Droid HUs, if it works OK out the box, then it'll probably be OK for a while. However after fitting a couple for people, I'd say that they're far from perfect. The software hangs or is slow and generally is not dedicated to the device it's installed on. It's probably just Android tablet software, which has had a few tweaks to make it work in a car HU.
Generally, where in car audio is concerned, you get what you pay for. So if the unit offers the earth, then it'll probably deliver well short of the promises.
 
So after much deliberation (and getting some advice from people who already had something similar) I took the plunge with one of these Android Head Units.

It's easy enough to remove the old and install the new although be aware that they are not quite correctly sized for a standard double din so there is some messing about to be done to get it to fit properly. You'll need the adaptor plate, a cage (you need to mess abut to get it fixed in the cage centrally due to the size), a surround, converter for the harness, and patch leads if you want the stalk controls to work.

Here's what it looks like (I apologise for the dust but we just got back from driving around Europe for a few weeks).

IMG_20180903_141018.jpg


IMG_20180903_141034.jpg


As you can see I went for the DAB module which works well as does the normal radio. I also bought the OBD2 BT module which works ok but to be honest is a little pointless. Also power seems to be constantly supplied to the module. Now I don;t know how much power it uses and certainly haven't had any battery issues but it's always on, even when no keys are in the ignition.

It came with iGo navigation (not too good as the voice is choppy) & google maps (works well but you need a data connection). I dropped TomTom Mobile Go onto it which does work but in 3D view you only get the route, not other side turnings. 2D is all fine though.

Easy to stream to from my phone so I stream spotify etc and control from the head unit. It pulls in details from my contacts on the phone so all numbers I need are to hand. I can hear and be heard clearly when using the hands free. Voice control works well. Starts up within a couple of seconds when the ignition is on. Radio reception and audio quality is good and I'm an acoustic engineer so know a thing or two about sound. I've had no hangs and apps are fast and responsive.

There are some things that aren't so good though. For example when you start up the DAB it defaults to the list of all available stations rather than the saved ones. That's kind of OK but it plays the first station in the list which happens to be a channel called Centreforce. It really isn't my thing and is starting to be really annoying. I have had to set it to not auto update either the android operating system or any of the apps - see below for why. I can log into the Play Store; gmail, and my google calendar but not all at once (or even two at once). If I'm logged into the Play Store then I have to log out, delete the user account from the head unit, then log into gmail or my calendar recreating the account on the head unit. Again this isn't an issue for me as I don't use my gmail account (I have it only for my calendar access) and don;t need to access my calendar when driving. There are lots of other niggly things (software related) like that though, nothing deal breaking for me but you need to be aware they are there as some apps seem to be hard programmed and even if you could change them for some other similar app it may not work.

Words of caution. I spoke to quite a few people with these android units and I reckon there were as many people that were happy with them as were not.

It seemed to go like this.

People that were happy with them were running them at stock. They had had done nothing to to the head unit other than installed it straight out the box so don't be tempted to meddle too much with it.

Not all apps work on them so in some instances the only option is to keep the app on your phone and use mirror cast to cast to the head unit (their version is called easy connect). This works well as you can control your phone through the touch screen on the head unit but again something to be aware of.

People complained that they were prone to hanging or very slow but this seemed to be people who had:

- a 2 Gb ram version
- had updated the android software
- had allowed apps to auto update
- had a unit with only limited internal memory (16 Gb). They take SD cards but I spoke to many people that found this didn't work so well and often loss data from their SD cards.
- had an old CPU
- had an old version of android (5/6)
- had versions with old chipsets

In otherwords its quite easy to get something that isn't going to make you happy.

The version I got was an Erison unit with PX5 chipsets and an 8 core Cortex A53 CPU running at 1512 MHz (they are both of good repute). It has 32 Gb internal memory which should be enough for my needs as external memory can have issues). The radio is based around TEF6686 chips which are known to be of good quality in terms of radio. It runs Oreo 8.0 which is quite important because basically you want as new a version of android as possible (remember it is not wise to update it) but not so new that the bugs haven't yet been ironed out (bugs with the H/U and OS rather than just the OS). As Oreo was released August 2017 I thought that it was probably old enough to have the bugs sorted and it seems I was correct. Android 9.0 (Pie) I being rolled out but don't be tempted to go for it, it is way too new.

Nodge is correct that the OS is a modded version of standard android made to work specifically on the head unit. You will get no support from the retailer regarding the OS and the only place I could find any kind of support was on XDA Devs but it was regarding 2 or 3 specific makes and models only (not actually the version I got).

All in all I give it a 6.5 out of 10 at the moment (it is far from perfect) and it's only been in a few weeks.
 
That's an interesting read @Fritz
I've been waiting for an honest appraisal of these type of units as I've been contemplating one myself. Did you have the single din becker unit or the double din standard radio before, and did you get the steering wheel controls connected okay?
 
Hiya

I had the double din before.

No issues with the steering wheel controls. There's an app on the head unit called Wheel Map or something similar so you just connect the two wires from the Connect2 box to the two wires on the head unit and then programme them from the head unit
 
Any update as to how you are getting on with the headunit Fritz? Looking at joining the FL world and this is something I am very interested in doing to it. I basically just want it to run Google maps and Spotify, maybe torque if it is has any decent info?

Ta
 
Hi, thank you for posting this thread. Please do you have a link to the unit? Also does your vehicle have the harman kardon with amplifier as I am contemplating going down this route.

May I ask how long it took to swap out the units.

Many thanks for your advice Nick
 
Head unit is still going strong.

My only real gripe now is the DAB thing. It still annoyingly defaults to the scanned station list and the "Favorites" button is right below the "Re-scan" button so I have often hit that instead and have to wait through a full re-scan before I get any sound out of it.

Torque makes more sense now I've dug into it a bit. Useful for codes (not that I have any) and general technical data (fuel consumption; various flow rates etc.)

I didn't have the Harman Kardon amp but think the issue with this is something to do with powering the amp. I'm sure I've read fixes for this on Landy Zone or elsewhere on the net.

Start to finish I guess it took me 1-1.5 hours to switch it out.

Here's a link to the unit I have.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8-Core-A...=item3d60c6132d:g:IwAAAOSwXi9b~QMd:rk:43:pf:0

I also bought the OBD2 module & DFAB aerial from them.

If you buy one make sure it ships from the UK (or I guess Europe would be ok too) or else you'll get an invoice for import duty on top of the cost.

Fritz
 
Sounds and looks good to me! The dab thing is a bit annoying I bet, does it have it's own separate arieal for that?
 
I use a stick on the windscreen DAB aerial which came with the DAB module which you need for the DAB (not sure if its an amplifier or receiver) and its ok.

It does drop out every now and then so I guess it depends how good the signal is in your area.

I think you can get dedicated after market DAB/FM aerials but I haven't personally tried them.

Fritz
 
Yeah to be honest it drops in and out a fair bit even for me not too far from Manchester! That's with factory BMW DAB.
 
Yeah to be honest it drops in and out a fair bit even for me not too far from Manchester! That's with factory BMW DAB.
The last 3 family cars we've had have all had DAB. All suffered the same dropouts as the the vehicle moves. I find FM gives the best dynamic range too. This is due to the broadcasters trying to squeeze too many DAB stations into the available bandwidth. This degrades the frequency response massively, by comparison to the relatively large frequency response of the FM band. This is most noticeable on audio systems like Bose, HK and Alpine, with extended dynamic ranges.
 
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