Full disclosure up front, I was part of a beta test for BimmerTech for their new CarPlay and Android MMI for CIC iDrive vehicles. (Mine is a 2011 E88 convertible with manual transmission).
I also paid nearly full price for the equipment, in addition to a rear view camera, and I am NOT receiving any compensation from BimmerTech for this post. I’m only posting this because like many, I have been looking for a long time for a CarPlay retrofit for a CIC iDrive, and I didn’t want to shell out the cost of an NBT retrofit or risk the Chinese systems discussed in many other threads.
I received the unit a couple of months ago, and it has been a complete game changer! No kidding, this is the real deal to putting CarPlay and Android in your vehicle. Virtually zero lag in switching menus, great sound and screen resolution, and very intuitive. If necessary for checking TMPS or the oil level, using the OEM radio, or other CIC systems, you can easily switch back to the OEM iDrive system.
The product build is superb and even though you’ll never see the box after installation, it is all very high quality. Same for the user interface. Installation instructions were excellent, it’s all plug and play with harnesses, no coding was necessary, and while it took us about 8-9 hours to install (taking our time and also adding a rear camera into a convertible which took a few hours to route wiring), the whole system is a terrific improvement. Also, the camera (with dynamic parking lines) tapped directly into the onboard system and thankfully didn’t require running a second wire to the footwell control modules even though it’s a stick shift.
Along the way, the BimmerTech staff was terrific providing support. The hardest part was finding a place to put the box and wiring as there’s not enough space behind the head unit for everything, so we had to trim a plastic support piece to the left of the glove box to fit it in. Your experience may vary if you can find a better place to store it—perhaps under the coin tray, if you can wedge it under there. We were tired at that point so we went with the void between the glove box and the center stack because it fit there and everything could be buttoned back up without any rattles or squeaks.
Here is link to the product on the BimmerTech page, as they now have a final version available for sale. Once again, I am NOT receiving any compensation from BimmerTech for posting this. I just wanted to get the word out about how much better we made our car by retrofitting this.
https://www.bimmer-tech.net/category...y-mmi-retrofit