[David_Vasha]

Hello everyone. I'm looking into getting an MMI for my 2011 535i. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to get mine from? Binmertech sells theirs for $600 and eBay sells them for half the price. I don't know which one to go for or if one or the other is better or not.

[beegeezy]

Originally Posted by David_Vasha

Hello everyone. I'm looking into getting an MMI for my 2011 535i. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to get mine from? Binmertech sells theirs for $600 and eBay sells them for half the price. I don't know which one to go for or if one or the other is better or not.

All the answers you seek (and more): https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1675929

[Tombfrmnh]

Just installed the Roadtop box in my ‘15 535i NBT. Pretty sure all the boxes are the same and rebranded. I picked that up in the first couple of pages of the post mentioned above. That string is pretty long. Got mine on Amazon with the trim removal tools for ~$300. So far it’s good, not great as it will reset occasionally. Hoping this is just a settings thing. All in all nice upgrade no matter what box you buy. Install wasn’t bad. YouTube is your friend.

[ErnestHouse]

Originally Posted by Tombfrmnh

Just installed the Roadtop box in my ‘15 535i NBT. ... All in all nice upgrade no matter what box you buy. Install wasn’t bad. YouTube is your friend.

I found out today that my 2014 F07 with NBT is part of the 60% of BMWs that had their real-time traffic discontinued and won't be provided a fix.

My head spins with all the posts in the 300+ pages of the F30 thread about audio conflicts with the Carplay MMI unit. I'm concerned about not hearing Carplay navigation alerts if using the NBT which defeats the purpose of the MMI (for me).

Since you have the unit in a car similar to mine, can you tell me:
1) If I install the unit, can I run AppleMaps/WAZE in the background while using the NBT Navi/HUD/Maps and hear AppleMaps or Waze notifications and just flip to their maps as needed?

2) And if 1) works, can I do everything else (phone calls, satellite radio, FM, and audio books) using my NBT? TIA

[Tombfrmnh]

Originally Posted by ErnestHouse

I found out today that my 2014 F07 with NBT is part of the 60% of BMWs that had their real-time traffic discontinued and won't be provided a fix.

My head spins with all the posts in the 300+ pages of the F30 thread about audio conflicts with the Carplay MMI unit. I'm concerned about not hearing Carplay navigation alerts if using the NBT which defeats the purpose of the MMI (for me).

Since you have the unit in a car similar to mine, can you tell me:
1) If I install the unit, can I run AppleMaps/WAZE in the background while using the NBT Navi/HUD/Maps and hear AppleMaps or Waze notifications and just flip to their maps as needed?

2) And if 1) works, can I do everything else (phone calls, satellite radio, FM, and audio books) using my NBT? TIA

1. From what I have seen you can only “listen” to one or the other. The audio from the MMI unit is played through the forward Aux. It took me a while to figure this out as when I first installed it I could not hear the Waze/Siri commands. You have to go in and turn up the volume for the forward Aux. If you want to listen to Waze/Siri you have to have the forward aux selected. There is a way to “shortcut map” this. Go into Multimedia and select Aux input/fwd aux and select it. Then long push a button on your radio (I did 8). So when I want to select the FWD aux to hear Siri read a message, I push the MEM 8 key and it will switch. To go back to the radio just select the radio mode. You can switch back and forth but cannot play both as far as I know.

2. As far as the maps/HUD go for the screen its one or the other. (Again as far as I know). Guidance will show on the HUD if you program a destination but I do not think you will hear the guidance if you have the FWD Aux selected to hear Siri. Headed out in a couple of hours and will verify this.

Also, I deleted my BMW Bluetooth from the phone and only use car play. (Mostly as a troubleshooting tool to figure why it resets). I think the CarPlay BT and Audio is better quality and have heard same from listeners on other end. Less ambient noise. I’ll report back in a couple of hours to verify all the above.

[ErnestHouse]

Originally Posted by Tombfrmnh

2. As far as the maps/HUD go for the screen its one or the other. (Again as far as I know). Guidance will show on the HUD if you program a destination but I do not think you will hear the guidance if you have the FWD Aux selected to hear Siri. Headed out in a couple of hours and will verify this.

Thank you. This is a common problem the more I read up. So doping it out is giving a lot of desperate BMW owners some relief.

The specific solution I am looking for is to SEE the BMW Navi but HEAR the Carplay navi. TIA

[Tombfrmnh]

Originally Posted by ErnestHouse

Thank you. This is a common problem the more I read up. So doping it out is giving a lot of desperate BMW owners some relief.

The specific solution I am looking for is to SEE the BMW Navi but HEAR the Carplay navi. TIA

Originally Posted by ErnestHouse

Thank you. This is a common problem the more I read up. So doping it out is giving a lot of desperate BMW owners some relief.

The specific solution I am looking for is to SEE the BMW Navi but HEAR the Carplay navi. TIA

Okay Just spent the better part of an hour drive messing around. To answer your question

Yes you can display the BMW Nav on the screen and hear the CarPlay Nav. You must have Aux In selected to do this. So you will be limited to hearing BT music from phone (Spotify, stored music etc) Waze Will interrupt the music for directions, alerts etc. you can also hear the BMW Navi commands at same time
If "Voice Guidance" is selected.

A few things I discovered

With Aux selected the scroll wheel on the steering wheel is disabled

I got a call and the person complained about an echo. ( as stated above I had disconnected the BMW BT) I decided to reconnect it and use the BMW BT for phone and the person said it was fine So disregard what I said earlier about the CarPlay having a better BT

With the BMW BT connected it is not possible to use Siri. There is a setting in the CarPlay box to use Car BT OFF/ON but that had no affect. The only way to use Siri is with the BMW BT disconnected and using the CarPlay. Then the "speech" button on the steering wheel will activate Siri.

It's not that difficult to go between the Idrive system and CarPlay. It's just a long Menu button push You just have to remember to make sure that Aux is selected if you want to hear anything from your phone. The more I play with it the more I like it. There are a bunch of settings and haven't even got to those.

[ErnestHouse]

Originally Posted by Tombfrmnh

Okay Just spent the better part of an hour drive messing around. To answer your question ... The more I play with it the more I like it. There are a bunch of settings and haven't even got to those.

Awesome test drive. Thanks for posting. Getting Navi alerts from the phone/carplay but the visuals from BMW Navi might be the best solution for those of us left behind by BMW. I'm liking the MMI Carplay more and more but I don't like it disabling BMW controls. The Audio routing is also tricky.

I did some experiments as well using a USB connected iPhone and BMW Navi in split screen mode. I am also liking the approach.

1) Using Apple Maps, the audio alerts switches the left screen to a phone call when it voices and switches it back after an ending pause.
2) Using Google Maps, the audio alerts come through. I could not get the audio alerts with Google set to use the BMW BT.
3) In both cases. I can enable/disable the BMW Navi audio alerts and playback music from the phone. However, I have a feeling that if I switch to the radio, I lose the phone navi audio alerts.

I'm going to try the BMW App next but I don't see any settings for audio so it may not be a solution which is a shame.

BMW easily could have beefed up the BMW App to provide RTTI audio alerts or even integrate it with the BMW Navi with an update to the NBT firmware. I'm not impressed with BMW's software savvy at all.

[asian]

Any suggestions for CIC though?

New screen required right?

[ErnestHouse]

PEMP units include a display and some allow you to activate a SIM card to get LTE connectivity. But I think they use the term "car play" loosely to mean "Android Auto" and not Apple's Carplay.

https://www.amazon.com/PEMP-Vertical...08ZSYPCBN?th=1