Android Install Help

[g0atb0y_71]

I recently purchased an Android Head unit from Aliexpress to replace the professional head unit in my 2012 128i.

When I pulled the stock head unit out to test the new one, everything plugged in and worked as expected - sound worked fine and I configured the steering wheel controls without issue.

However, I realized at that time that I do in fact have the HiFi system with the black amp in the trunk behind the drivers side wheel well. (very recently bought the car and it has no iDrive so I assumed it was base) There are speaker leads that connect to the head unit as well as the two optical cables.

So the question is, given that I am getting sound, do I still need to add the optical decoder or can I just close that loop with a cable.

I also had issues with the car never going to sleep after powering it off. Could that be related to the open fiber optic loop or is there something else going on? (I adjusted sleep time to never on the head unit and it had no effect)

I have read on some of the forums that the red/yellow are sometimes reversed in the aftermarket harnesses but wanted to deal with the fiber issue first.

TIA!

[g0atb0y_71]

Follow up to original post:

Lots of tinkering later and the car still won't sleep.

Started by closing the fibre loop, then tried a bunch of different CANBUS settings and verified that the CANBUS wires were not reversed in the supplied harness. The unit will not power on without the CANBUS connected so I'm unable to remove it completely from the scenario.

Moved on to changing the sleep setting to never on the Android unit, also to no effect.

The unit works fine. Sounds great and all the features are operating as expected but I just can't get the darned car to sleep no matter how long I let it sit.

If I disconnect the yellow power supply cable the car will enter sleep mode as expected. That yellow cable ~should~ stop supplying power when the car goes to sleep but when it's connected it never sleeps so I'm in a catch 22 situation.

[g0atb0y_71]

For anyone who may stumble upon this thread I'll add another update.

CANBUS is set to E90 to match the decoder they sent. I get my door warnings, backup radar and steering wheel controls. E82 and E90 are similar enough, I guess.

After tinkering with every setting I could think of, I disconnected the quick connect on the yellow power supply and instead took the power from the 12V outlet circuit which I knew shuts down as soon as the ignition is turned off and the key removed.

The car went to sleep as expected. It would appear the stock BMW professional radio will shut down regardless of there being power present from the harness whereas the Android will not. Given that there was a quick connect for the power in the first place I would guess this is not the first time someone has run into this issue.

Only minor issue remaining is that if I use Network or GPS time it sets the time correctly on the unit but the am/pm setting on the dash is reversed. Manually setting the time seems to correct this though.

[ZeroR]

Thanks for the follow up! I am planning to get an Android head unit as well and this helps.

[Yvrbmw]

Which unit did you get? I had to set my CANBUS car selection to an X1 for it to work properly. The only thing that doesn't is the time on the dash for some reason. Whenever starting the car, it's always at 11:08 pm on Dec 21/21, despite the head unit displaying the correct time and date. Very strange.

[g0atb0y_71]

I had to set mine to E90. X1 wasn't listed as an option.

My time is updated by the Network when the car starts and then the car updates based on that.

The only issue is that the time on the dash always updates to AM regardless of what the head unit says. Maybe I'll switch to 24 hour time

The unit I have is this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...2ac71802LspT8B

[g0atb0y_71]

Originally Posted by ZeroR

Thanks for the follow up! I am planning to get an Android head unit as well and this helps.

It's a bit of the wild west. No instructions came with it at all so I had to do a lot of digging.

example: the cable marked "brake" is only required if you want your car to disable video while moving and the key1 wire is only used for non-canbus steering wheel controls.

Nothing in any documentation about that. Same with the yellow cable that appears to be an 'extra' power cable. I sent pictures to the seller but even they don't seem to have an answer.

[g0atb0y_71]

One other thing to note. I had to file a LOT off the sides of my climate control to get it to fit at the bottom. It's not the end of the world because they aren't overly expensive to replace if I ever go back to stock but it was not a good feeling taking the dremel to it.

[g0atb0y_71]

Originally Posted by g0atb0y_71

I had to set mine to E90. X1 wasn't listed as an option.

My time is updated by the Network when the car starts and then the car updates based on that.

The only issue is that the time on the dash always updates to AM regardless of what the head unit says. Maybe I'll switch to 24 hour time

The unit I have is this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...2ac71802LspT8B

Set the android system to use 24 hour time and now it displays properly on the dash

[g0atb0y_71]

Originally Posted by g0atb0y_71

For anyone who may stumble upon this thread I'll add another update.

CANBUS is set to E90 to match the decoder they sent. I get my door warnings, backup radar and steering wheel controls. E82 and E90 are similar enough, I guess.

After tinkering with every setting I could think of, I disconnected the quick connect on the yellow power supply and instead took the power from the 12V outlet circuit which I knew shuts down as soon as the ignition is turned off and the key removed.

The car went to sleep as expected. It would appear the stock BMW professional radio will shut down regardless of there being power present from the harness whereas the Android will not. Given that there was a quick connect for the power in the first place I would guess this is not the first time someone has run into this issue.

Only minor issue remaining is that if I use Network or GPS time it sets the time correctly on the unit but the am/pm setting on the dash is reversed. Manually setting the time seems to correct this though.

For kicks today, I moved the power to location #2 in the fuse panel. I saw someone else had used that in their E82 and thought it was worth a shot.

The car now goes to sleep as normal and the stereo does not need to boot each time the car starts. The time/date are also saved.

I've been playing with launchers but landed on Agama because it 'feels' the most like a stock setup.

[g0atb0y_71]

After using fuse location #2 I started getting CC-ID415 - battery discharge.

Moved back to fuse 8 (12v outlet).

Seems like if I have the stereo configured to 'sleep' it will cause the car to either generate the 415 error or not go into sleep mode itself.

A cold boot doesn't take long but it'd still be nice to not have to.

[g0atb0y_71]

Originally Posted by g0atb0y_71

After using fuse location #2 I started getting CC-ID415 - battery discharge.

Moved back to fuse 8 (12v outlet).

Seems like if I have the stereo configured to 'sleep' it will cause the car to either generate the 415 error or not go into sleep mode itself.

A cold boot doesn't take long but it'd still be nice to not have to.

Since everything is working fine, I've now added a custom BMW boot animation. It certainly looks better than the stock android one.

[g0atb0y_71]

UPDATE:

After many hours of digging and testing I've found a solution to the car not sleeping and battery drain issues.

Connecting power to fuse slot 2 allowed the head unit to sleep and boot instantly but it also resulted in CCID 415. Parasitic Battery Drain.

Connecting to fuse slot 8 (12v outlet) allowed the car to sleep but meant a full boot of the head unit each time I started the car.

What I discovered is that when you have a constant connected to the head unit, that same constant sends power into the canbus decoder so the car never really sleeps and slowly drains the battery. The solution was to cut the yellow power cable that feeds the canbus decoder and piggback that on the 12v outlet fuse. I then connected the main power to fuse slot 2 and it not longer feeds power into the canbus decoder so the car shuts down as expected and no more battery drain.

Hopefully this is helpful to anyone that stumbles upon this thread.