Upgrade of UConnect 3 5" to Phoenix Automotive 9" Octa-Core Android Navigation Radio

[gramanero]

I recently purchased the 9" Octa-Core Android Navigation Radio from Phoenix Automotive. I have the unit installed and while it is a tight fit, it does in fact fit. My goal was to not pay the high price tag (at least high for me) for the 8.4" OEM solution and to gain the feature that I wanted which was Navigation + all the fun bells and whistles that comes with the Android O.S.

I have seen posts on wiring diagrams for the stock unit and have been digging through the various-related wiring diagrams for the stereo, but I am no electrician and am just not totally understanding how to re-connect a few of the wires. I have reached out to Phoenix Automotive support, but ... they have been less than responsive and when they do respond the help has been less than helpful. Mostly the unit works great but I have a couple of items to check off my list before being 100% satisfied with the unit.

I could really use some help to understand what the three fakra plugs are that were originally plugged into the stock uconnect 3 5" unit that does have SiriusXM radio. I am including images of the wires in question and an image of the back of the stock unit where I started to label what the ports are meant for as I understand it. There are three wires in question:

• Red port on unit (male fakra port) and red fakra (female) wire - I think this is the rear back-up camera
• Yellow-ish port on unit (male fakra port) and blue fakra (female) wire - I think this is the SiriusXM wiring to the antenna hidden in the top cross-member
• White port on unit (male fakra port) and white fakra (female) wire - I think this is the AM/FM Antenna wiring
• Grey port on unit (micro-usb) and grey wire - I think this is for the USB connection

What I am asking is just confirmation that my understanding is correct as it would help me to figure how to wire these particular wires to the new Phoenix Automotive stereo unit. The connections to the new unit are mostly RCA ports with support for plugging into the original stereo harness that takes care of most of the normal features, so I purchased a few male-fakra to male-RCA adaptors to make the connects however I am just unsure of which wires do what from the original setup.

Lastly, if anyone has experience installing this specific unit then I am all ears!! I have been looking at this on and off for a couple of weeks now trying to figure things out myself, so I figured I would try to take advantage of the great Jeep community to see if others could provide some constructive feedback.

Thank you!!

Sponsored

 

[Bobby Boucher]

Possibly the Wiring Diagrams section would offer some detail ?

 

[UNC]

I recently purchased the 9" Octa-Core Android Navigation Radio from Phoenix Automotive. I have the unit installed and while it is a tight fit, it does in fact fit. My goal was to not pay the high price tag (at least high for me) for the 8.4" OEM solution and to gain the feature that I wanted which was Navigation + all the fun bells and whistles that comes with the Android O.S.

I have seen posts on wiring diagrams for the stock unit and have been digging through the various-related wiring diagrams for the stereo, but I am no electrician and am just not totally understanding how to re-connect a few of the wires. I have reached out to Phoenix Automotive support, but ... they have been less than responsive and when they do respond the help has been less than helpful. Mostly the unit works great but I have a couple of items to check off my list before being 100% satisfied with the unit.

I could really use some help to understand what the three fakra plugs are that were originally plugged into the stock uconnect 3 5" unit that does have SiriusXM radio. I am including images of the wires in question and an image of the back of the stock unit where I started to label what the ports are meant for as I understand it. There are three wires in question:

• Red port on unit (male fakra port) and red fakra (female) wire - I think this is the rear back-up camera
• Yellow-ish port on unit (male fakra port) and blue fakra (female) wire - I think this is the SiriusXM wiring to the antenna hidden in the top cross-member
• White port on unit (male fakra port) and white fakra (female) wire - I think this is the AM/FM Antenna wiring
• Grey port on unit (micro-usb) and grey wire - I think this is for the USB connection

What I am asking is just confirmation that my understanding is correct as it would help me to figure how to wire these particular wires to the new Phoenix Automotive stereo unit. The connections to the new unit are mostly RCA ports with support for plugging into the original stereo harness that takes care of most of the normal features, so I purchased a few male-fakra to male-RCA adaptors to make the connects however I am just unsure of which wires do what from the original setup.

Lastly, if anyone has experience installing this specific unit then I am all ears!! I have been looking at this on and off for a couple of weeks now trying to figure things out myself, so I figured I would try to take advantage of the great Jeep community to see if others could provide some constructive feedback.

Thank you!!

Just received mine today and thought it was plug and play but appears to be a lie. Also trying to figure this out. I was told rear camera setup would work but this appears to require a new camera setup. I unfortunately ordered direct from T'eyes and my instructions are in russian....

 

[UNC]

The only reason that I took a chance is that one poster on a couple of JL facebook groups posted that everything worked.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/jee...845851&notif_t=group_comment_follow&ref=notif

 

[wanderer]

Sounds interesting but also flawed. Can you download stuff like BCN or topo USA. How much memory does it have. .

 

[gramanero]

Possibly the Wiring Diagrams section would offer some detail ?

I did see that someone had posted all of the wiring diagrams, which was helpful however I am not someone that has the knowledge to properly decipher them. I did manage to work with someone else who has installed the same unit and he confirmed that my understanding of the female fakra wires coming out of the Jeep is correct. I updated the diagram as well in case it is useful for others.

Additionally, regarding the Apple Carply dongle that you can also purchase with the Phoenix stereo unit the same person pointed me off to a video that comes from Phoenix Automotive website as a how-to video for setting up the dongle. I need to toy with it a bit more but the video got me much further to successfully using CarPlay via my iPhone. So I am happy with the progress. I hope to figure out the back-up camera this weekend.

Here is a link to the CarPlay Video:

 

[gramanero]

Sounds interesting but also flawed. Can you download stuff like BCN or topo USA. How much memory does it have. .

I am not sure yet how flawed it really is to be honest, but certainly I may be missing something that you are recognizing. What I have is a 64-GB unit. I have installed 5-6 apps already and it has barely used any of the disk space. In terms of onboard memory, I am not quite sure. I did see that there is an expansion slot for more space, guessing an SD card, so that's cool. It supports pretty much any app you can download via Google Store, for example, I downloaded Waze, SirriusXM, Weather Underground, and a few others. As for topo maps, my guess is that you can place those onto the SD card and then just need an app that can use those maps. For me, I just want to be able to use something like Waze for traveling where I don't have to be trying to follow the map on my iPhone as opposed to the much nicer 9" display of the stereo unit.

What I am wondering is for any car that has built-in navigation, does it require some sort of subscription or data connection in order to route from A to B location? Or does it only require a GPS transmitter/receiver? Just trying to figure out if I am not understanding something about how these things work. I know when I use my phone it does use Data, so I suppose it seems reasonable that in order for the stereo unit to fully utilize Waze it needs some form of Data connection?

 

[gramanero]

The only reason that I took a chance is that one poster on a couple of JL facebook groups posted that everything worked.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/jee...845851&notif_t=group_comment_follow&ref=notif

The only thing that the unit does not directly support is SirriusXM which is explained on their web site, however, my existing SirriusXM subscription that I got with my Jeep will still work for me. I can either use the BlueTooth connection with my iPhone and listen or I have loaded the SirriusXM app onto the stereo unit and tethered to my iPhone and listen that way as well. What I am currently working on figuring out is if CarPlay will also give me a way to listen to SirriusXM and not have to tether to my phone but still use the app on the stereo unit. There is a video that shows how to setup CarPlay with the dongle that you can purchase with the unit (which I did when I ordered) and I have made significant progress based on the instructions of the unit, but am not quite understanding something. I may have screwed something up with the settings that I was toying with.

Video Link:

 

[gramanero]

Just received mine today and thought it was plug and play but appears to be a lie. Also trying to figure this out. I was told rear camera setup would work but this appears to require a new camera setup. I unfortunately ordered direct from T'eyes and my instructions are in russian....

Sorry to hear that your directions are in Russian. I do have the instruction manual in English and if I can find some time today I am happy to post images in this thread. The back-up camera does work as I know of a few folks that have been successful with getting it set up. It does not require and new camera setup, but rather having the proper connector cable which does not come with the unit (that I think is a big miss on the part of Phoenix Automotive in my opinion). The cable is about $6-$7 so its cheap and can be purchased on various sites or maybe even a local store. Once I get the camera working I will post up how I was able to get it to work. TO be perfectly honest, I am working with another person that has this all working and he mentioned that he would send me some pictures of his install because he needs to pull out the stereo to work on his Jeep, doing something non-stereo related, and will send me how he has it wired up.

While the unit is not as plug-and-play as I would have hoped for, I paid $450-ish for the unit as opposed to the $1500 price tag of the OEM unit so I am fine with doing a little bit of leg work to get it set up. The Phoenix Automotive site does indicate that they offer support or I can have a professional install the unit but I am really close to having everything working so I will just continue on and hopefully by doing some of these posts I can help some others along the way.

 

[UNC]

Thank you! I tested out the cables this morning and red is the camera. Audio pros should be able to strip the wire and make the proper connections (based on a YouTube audio guy). He showed it working but I’d prefer not to strip the factory part so I’d really appreciate it if you let me know how you got it to work.

 

[UNC]

Did you have to update the canbus? Thanks to google translate the Russian directions might help out. It says on there that both the camera and canbus need to be updated for the vehicle. Google translate:
For some cars, it is necessary to configure the CAN bus to maintain and control a number of functions, such as controlling the steering wheel buttons, door opening information, reverse display, climate control, etc. In addition to connecting the CAN bus itself to the control unit, it is also necessary number of settings: select Machine model and CAN BUS. After establishing the necessary settings, it will be possible to fully use all the functions of the device. Settings --- Factory settings --- Enter password 168 ----- Auto model

 

[gramanero]

Thank you! I tested out the cables this morning and red is the camera. Audio pros should be able to strip the wire and make the proper connections (based on a YouTube audio guy). He showed it working but I’d prefer not to strip the factory part so I’d really appreciate it if you let me know how you got it to work.

Absolutely! I can do that for sure and I agree on not stripping wires. Much rather have the proper connectors. As a side note, I got Apple CarPlay working this morning, very much stoked. I followed the video that I posted in this thread but the one bit that I had not done was to ensure that Siri was enabled. Honestly never used Siri however once I enabled Siri Apple CarPlay works as expected using the Phoenix Automotive Apple CarPlay USB dongle. So .... I just continue to check things off my list of stuff to get working. The last piece will be the back-up camera. More to come once that gets vetted out.

 

[gramanero]

Did you have to update the canbus? Thanks to google translate the Russian directions might help out. It says on there that both the camera and Canbus need to be updated for the vehicle. Google translate:
For some cars, it is necessary to configure the CAN bus to maintain and control a number of functions, such as controlling the steering wheel buttons, door opening information, reverse display, climate control, etc. In addition to connecting the CAN bus itself to the control unit, it is also necessary number of settings: select Machine model and CAN BUS. After establishing the necessary settings, it will be possible to fully use all the functions of the device. Settings --- Factory settings --- Enter password 168 ----- Auto model

Interesting. I did start to poke around with the Factory Settings to see what all is available. CanBus is a part of the factory settings I beleive. Beflreo I start to mess with the settings I am going to wait to hear back from a guy that is going to send me a pic of how he wired up the back-up camera. If that works, then I probably won't mess with any other settings, other than to just tinker around a bit.

 

[UNC]

Btw I played with the setting and although I have nothing hooked up for the camera (fakra to rca cable) I got a setting that now brings up the camera when in reverse. Let me know if you don’t figure it out and I will add pictures of what settings I have. Not certain which one it was as there were at least two related to reverse (if I remember correctly)

 

[gramanero]

[GALLERY=][/GALLERY]

Btw I played with the setting and although I have nothing hooked up for the camera (fakra to rca cable) I got a setting that now brings up the camera when in reverse. Let me know if you don’t figure it out and I will add pictures of what settings I have. Not certain which one it was as there were at least two related to reverse (if I remember correctly)

Yes, I would very much be interested in seeing the settings. I will say that when I put the vehicle in reverse the radio unit senses it and displays the screen like I am in reverse, but in the center of the screen is a yellow yield sign. I take this to mean that something is hooked up correctly for the radio to at least know the vehicle is in reverse, but the camera is unable to display an image.

Sponsored