Discussion
Does anybody have one of these? Superb bit of kit but I'm having issues with the brightness when using CarPlay/ In Google maps, you cannot make out roads not on the mapped route because it's so bright. There are no brightness setting on the HU so I'm stumped.
Lightyears ahead of the OEM T5 HU
Lightyears ahead of the OEM T5 HU
I’ve just fitted one to my TVR Tamora. Cracking bit of kit, but as you say, navigation apps seem to be whitened out to the point of not being able to make out roads. Same in apple maps, google maps and Waze. Only fitted a week ago so still getting my head around various settings. Dark mode is better. I don’t know whether I’m asking too much in an open top car in August /September.
I did contact them and got advised to alter the Halo screen brightness and contrast settings. As if I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve altered the display settings on my phone and updated to iOS 14. The display is bearable but album pictures are still very washed out. Waze seems a bit better. In summary, an epic piece of car audio but definitely has a display that is a generation behind where it should be for £700. I haven’t used the car much lately, but did do 100 miles the other evening (roof off). The display is awesome at night. I’ll get used to it’s daytime image quality, and it’s size does mean it’s easier to glimpse at.
Wow, I thought it was bad in my golf having the brightness setting buried away several menus deep. Not having one at all would be a nightmare for me and that’s without having this bug with navigation apps.
Quite simply it needs to be brighter in the day and much less bright at night.
I’m surprised that by now the top end systems don’t have automatic ambient brightness like laptop and phone screens.
There is a night/day theme setting within CarPlay though which may help. That can change automatically (based on if headlights are on or off in my case).
Quite simply it needs to be brighter in the day and much less bright at night.
I’m surprised that by now the top end systems don’t have automatic ambient brightness like laptop and phone screens.
There is a night/day theme setting within CarPlay though which may help. That can change automatically (based on if headlights are on or off in my case).
This HU does have an ambient light sensor, Mark. Perhaps that is why Alpine deem it unnecessary to allow the manual adjustment of the brightness, which is an oversight from my perspective given the near-infinite installation possibilities.
At a guess, I'm sure it's a minefield for Apple and Google to support diverse hardware, something Apple is certainly not used to given their strength of stability has been born from owning the hardware and the software. And conversely, the hardware manufactures need to find a way to keep up with an evolving OS and as I understand it, how they fund/monetise that support. BWM seem to be trying it with a subscription fee after X number of years, we'll see how that plays out.
At a guess, I'm sure it's a minefield for Apple and Google to support diverse hardware, something Apple is certainly not used to given their strength of stability has been born from owning the hardware and the software. And conversely, the hardware manufactures need to find a way to keep up with an evolving OS and as I understand it, how they fund/monetise that support. BWM seem to be trying it with a subscription fee after X number of years, we'll see how that plays out.
Origin Unknown said:
This HU does have an ambient light sensor, Mark. Perhaps that is why Alpine deem it unnecessary to allow the manual adjustment of the brightness, which is an oversight from my perspective given the near-infinite installation possibilities.
At a guess, I'm sure it's a minefield for Apple and Google to support diverse hardware, something Apple is certainly not used to given their strength of stability has been born from owning the hardware and the software. And conversely, the hardware manufactures need to find a way to keep up with an evolving OS and as I understand it, how they fund/monetise that support. BWM seem to be trying it with a subscription fee after X number of years, we'll see how that plays out.
Interesting. Tbh this sounds more like a bug than a problem with the brightness per-se, but I agree that it’s missing an obvious, important feature not having a brightness control.At a guess, I'm sure it's a minefield for Apple and Google to support diverse hardware, something Apple is certainly not used to given their strength of stability has been born from owning the hardware and the software. And conversely, the hardware manufactures need to find a way to keep up with an evolving OS and as I understand it, how they fund/monetise that support. BWM seem to be trying it with a subscription fee after X number of years, we'll see how that plays out.
Agreed on the support side of things. I think it’s mostly apple and google that control things and the hardware manufacturers have to fall in line.
The vendor supplied options are a bit of a joke imo. The system in my golf which has CarPlay/AndroidAuto also has a VW voice control thing that they wanted 200 quid to “unlock”. Holding down the voice control button instead of clicking it invokes Siri on iPhone instead, which is obviously “free”. I would never dream of spending that money to unlock the VW option and use their navigation software (which must be manually updated) rather than Waze.
The vendors that package CarPlay/Auto alongside their own paid/subscription systems are doomed to fail imo. The odd person with more money than sense will sign up but the majority will use the thing that integrates with their phone for no extra cost to them and generally works better.
Does the BMW system support apple/google?
Origin Unknown said:
That's poor advice, there is no way to adjust the brightness on the Halo 9 HU?!
Just checked their email and I quoted them wrongly. They advised to adjust height and angle of the screen, or use in night mode . As you say no brightness adjustment on these. I know at the time I thought great advice, thanks Alpine. 
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