E82 with CCC , medium term plan for bluetooth etc?

[HalfJobHarry 106]

So my E82 has the CCC...in the era of smart phone sat nav and all the rest of it..I'm not fond or too fussed on doing something like a CIC retrofit etc.

I'm thinking of two possible directions, keep things stock but go for some kind of built in bluetooth adaptor thingy (I had a box called a GROM in my E46 which wired into the factory harness and gave modern functions via the smartphone using the built in radio and steering wheel controls. It pretended to be a CD changer and was kind of cool...

Alternatively , is there some option out there to replace the CCC screen/unit with something else entirely? I do like to keep things looking quite original in terms of styling so not sure how I'd feel about some kind of double DIN replacement headunit, mainly in how it would be in keeping with the interior style.  

BMW audio options are by far my weakest point of knowledge so any guidance and suggestions are appreciated. 

EDIT: Spotted the headunit below in a youtube video....that looks classy...ish...something like that could be tolerable. 

Edited August 14, 2020 by HalfJobHarry
added info

[M3AN 4016]

There no point in upgrading to CIC, they're all terribly old tech now. GROM is great if you want to keep stock (not sure about E8/9x options personally). Alternatively an Android unit, I really like mine.

Chris (@Jacko) has put in a double-din, check his 130 thread and I've put in a 10.25" dash-top one in my black car to replace the CCC screen.

[Jacko 2152]

The headunit in the screen shot above looks the same as mine, I just ordered another for the 330 too - https://www.belsee.com/ I suspect the fascia is made by another company and belsee strap their innards to the back of it.

Ive had mine for a few years, works really well, has a few niggly annoying issues (like without a reversing camera the screen just blanks out in reverse) but otherwise theyre great. Theres some stuff of it in my 130 thread, and here - 

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by Jacko

[HalfJobHarry 106]

9 hours ago, M3AN said:

There no point in upgrading to CIC, they're all terribly old tech now. GROM is great if you want to keep stock (not sure about E8/9x options personally). Alternatively an Android unit, I really like mine.

Chris (@Jacko) has put in a double-din, check his 130 thread and I've put in a 10.25" dash-top one in my black car to replace the CCC screen.

Totally, the CIC upgrade doesn't interest me really at all for exactly that reason. 

If you have CCC/CIC and go with an android unit, does one typically replace the dash mounted screen and then disregard the stock headunit controls , or get rid of the dash screen and mount a double DIN ..or is that just a choice thing? 

[M3AN 4016]

39 minutes ago, HalfJobHarry said:

If you have CCC/CIC and go with an android unit, does one typically replace the dash mounted screen and then disregard the stock headunit controls , or get rid of the dash screen and mount a double DIN ..or is that just a choice thing? 

That's a choice, often driven by whether you have iDrive or not. Chris replaced his non-iDrive HU with a double DIN whereas mine is iDrive so I replaced the screen and kept the HU which controls the radio (edit: and volume, CD, MD).

If you have iDrive you'd typically replace the screen so you don't end up with two screens (one being redundant I'd imagine). You may be able to do double DIN plus iDrive screen with both functional but I've not seen that.

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by M3AN

[Jacko 2152]

Really the only thing to be careful of if changing the headunit out is if you have anything on the fibre optic MOST bus, as the factory headunit is the controller for it. My car has MOSTbus, but has nothing on it so its a non event, depending on spec you can have things like the factory amp on MOST. 

[exextatic 111]

Planning on converting my partner's E87 130i to NBT (iDrive 4) at some point soon - not the most economical, but will look very factory-like and have the modern niceties - perhaps another option to consider.

[HalfJobHarry 106]

On 8/16/2020 at 4:55 PM, Jacko said:

Really the only thing to be careful of if changing the headunit out is if you have anything on the fibre optic MOST bus, as the factory headunit is the controller for it. My car has MOSTbus, but has nothing on it so its a non event, depending on spec you can have things like the factory amp on MOST. 

Yeah, good point, thanks. I have the HiFi option so got the factory amp...there is also the mysterious 'Telematics' / Bluetooth unit on the bus too.  

[HalfJobHarry 106]

3 hours ago, exextatic said:

Planning on converting my partner's E87 130i to NBT (iDrive 4) at some point soon - not the most economical, but will look very factory-like and have the modern niceties - perhaps another option to consider.

It's another one to consider for sure. I'm ambivalent about upgrading to something that effectively becomes a 'fixed' configuration though...the attraction for an Android type base platform is the ability to run the random things like Torque and Waze...admittedly this does fall beyond the requirements of my original post...I'm getting scope creep. 

 Given it's probably a no-no to dump the factory head unit given it's the MOST bus controller, a replacement screen unit (like a Belsee) is the way I'm likely leaning right now....but in no hurry so will keep evaluating.

[HalfJobHarry 106]

With a bias for action, I've ordered AVIN's E87 / E82 CCC/CIC replacement screen/android unit. Did some digging on the alternatives like Xtron and Belsee. I've gone for the 4GB android 10 unit with all the trimmings (Android auto, Wifi ODB for Torque, front and rear parking cameras. Seems there are some little quirks with these units in that they rely on the factory AUX to send sound through to the existing system. I also like the idea of being able to switch between the CCC display and the android display. 

I went for AVIN as spoke to their people in the US and they run their support from the US and they provided a lot of guidance around the fitting whatnot prior to committing to purchase. Xtron and Belsee did not extend the same support but....it's hard to tell if there is anything technically between the three choices. Will document and share my fitting experience when the time comes.