JVC KW-V820BT 6.8-Inch CarPlay Receiver Double DIN BT In-Dash Stereo with XM, iDataLink Maestro, Dual Zone

[Update after September 2016 firmware update. The new firmware took about 15 minutes to install and fixed the Tokyo time clock issue. Other than that, the only noticeable change is to further cripple watching USB hosted video files; now you can't watch video when a CarPlay phone is attached even if the parking brake is on.][Update after Christmas 2016. I bought a Sony XAV-AX100 CarPlay receiver which is superior in just about every way other than the lack of a 2nd USB port and an optical drive. I'd recommend getting that instead, as I'm sort of jealous of my wife now.]I spent a long time deciding on a CarPlay receiver for my 2003 Honda Civic. And the feature set of this one won me over. It has some fairly unique, but welcome features such as:• 1.5A USB ports. Every other CarPlay receiver I've researched has 1.0A ports. That isn't enough for a modern phone. I should say that my USB Ampmeter only shows it drawing 0.97A with both my iPhone 5S and iPad Air 2, so maybe that spec is incorrect.• GPS. Even though this is not a navigation receiver, and doesn't have built in maps, it has a GPS which can be used by my iPhone to more quickly lock on my location.• GPS time set. I don't have to set the time, just the time zone. (You'd think they could set the time zone because of the GPS, but OK).BTW, the price of this thing varies substantially from day to day. You may want to keep an eye on itThere is a bug where after every restart the non-Carplay displays give me the time in Tokyo instead of East Coast U.S. time. This is true whether or not I set the time manually or via the GPS. Thus, when it's 6PM here in New Hampshire, the clock will read 7AM.I purchased a wiring harness for my Civic and a bit of trim to fit the opening left by my old OEM stereo. I soldered and shrink tubed everything that made sense to the corresponding wire provided on the bundle from JVC. I don't have a steering wheel remote, and I had to bring out the parking brake sensor all the way to the parking brake. The included microphone made its way above my rear view mirror, while the GPS antenna and its metal pad ended up just under the windshield.I bought a special yellow RCA cable that incorporated a trigger wire for the backup camera; it took a bit of doing navigating the trim in my car, but I brought the wire to the trunk lid, where I wired the trigger wire to the reverse light in the trunk. I installed a cheap backup camera above the license plate. As the camera had its own distance markings, I disabled those generated by the JVC. And it works well. When I put my car into reverse with receiver on, it will immediately switch to the backup view.I didn't have any use for the external amp connections, the Sirius XM, or the iDataLink, but I'm sure people will find uses for them.Total installation time 4-5 hours, might have wanted to go to a professional installer.Bootup time (after the first time) is about 9 seconds, which is quite quick and makes the backup camera a useable feature. There is an annoying, useless safety warning dialog that you have to dismiss overtime you start the unit, but at least the backup camera overrides it temporarily.This has a resistive screen and it feels a bit odd and old fashioned compared to a modern phone screen. It has a bit of plastic sheeting give to each tap. But it's reasonably responsive and looks fine for what it is. I'd have preferred a dedicated hard Siri button, and a volume control knob, but I guess they ran out of room. There is a column of dedicated soft buttons along the left hand side, and holding down the home button will bring up Siri if CarPlay is enabled. You do not want to have to use this screen with the sun coming in the rear window, you will literally see nothing but reflected sunlight.Phone quality is OK, although I just have Honda original speakers so it sounds a bit hollow. People I talk to say it sounds fine. The microphone looks low end, but I'm unlikely to rip up my dash again to replace it.I chose to do the safe thing and wired up the parking brake sensor. I know that the Internet and Amazon is filled with hacks to get around it, but I cannot imagine safely playing a DVD on this thing while moving, given its position. I've got my kids to think of.And yes, there is a DVD player which I doubt I will ever use, although it was sort of funny putting a copy of Wayne's World in and watching a few minutes on my dash. It's a low resolution display, but it approximately matches the output of a standard DVD. Controls take some getting used to but work.Only one of the 2 USB ports are active for CarPlay. The USB ports are at the end of a custom cable which you will probably want to baby as you'll have to go back to JVC for a replacement. The iPhone port recognized my Lightning cabled iPhone 5S right away, my phone asked me if CarPlay should work with a locked device, and I was off. This is my first real experience with CarPlay and it is limited but easy to use and just what I need in a commuter vehicle. I purchased an auto USB port and cut a hole in the middle of my console for it, so it looks reasonably professional but I'd have preferred shorter cable runs.I put a good sized USB stick with some favorite audio tracks and a few videos. In the odd case of being out of cell tower range, waiting parked in the car, this might be marginally useful. However, the video player is missing even the basics of a scrub bar or chapter skip button, so I guess you are supposed to watch videos end to end like our caveman ancestors did.The receiver is not doing wonders with my stock speakers but I finally found the equalizer and punched it up a bit, so it sounds pretty good now. Also, no HD Radio. The radio is hard to figure out how to tune. I don't know why this product's description mentions HDMI, there isn't an HDMI port as far as I can see.I'm happy with this now that it is installed, and enjoy listening to Podcasts on my upcoming commutes and calling people with the hands free setup. The other receiver I was looking at was the AVIC 5200NEX, but while built in mapping would be nice, especially when driving away from cell towers, I was not looking forward to paying for map updates.If you are looking for a current generation CarPlay receiver on a budget, this is a decent choice.

Update: January 14, 2017: Firmware update installed and most everything below seems to now be corrected, but still living with one MAJOR flaw. I won't improve my review until JVC addresses, and there has not been a firmware update since September 2016.REMAINING MAJOR FLAW: The unit will completely lose audio output, randomly. The only resolution is to completely turn off the vehicle for at least 18 seconds. Highly inconvenient, and truly random in timing (meaning you never know when the audio will go out). Sometimes I can drive an hour without issue, sometimes less than 15 minutes... I am working on isolation patterns and starting to believe it may be only when I am using the integrated SiriusXM function??? More to come, but I still would not recommend this product.Original Review below:OK, there are a slew of issues with this new platform. I'll post more as JVC works through firmware updates.The Good - Great feature set, BT, Sirius, CarPlay, etc. Screen is nice, but highly reflective so you could have problems viewing in bright sunlight. Great sound, major improvement over Toyota head unit (replaced a JBL unit).The Bad - Doesn't hold GPS date; BT has major issues (only have iPhones) with pairing and autoconnecting. I also suspect BT is causing system-wide sound shutdown (explained later); CarPlay is cool in concept but has a long way to go (Needs Apple Airplay capability or many more apps)The Ugly - System wide shutdown of audio requires you to turn off the car and turn back on. I haven't isolated a pattern yet, but am suspecting it is some change in audio (e.g., when streaming SiriusXM app and it times out-which it does by default after so many hours).I've contacted JVC, they have been responsive but I had to press. Apparently there is a recent firmware update, so I'll get to that soon and report back.Note: This device was just released, so I'm holding out hope that JVC will pay attention to early adopters and fix the issues.

I bought this radio because it stated it was compatible with android auto. It is very limited to what you can do with a Galaxy S7 or above. Mirror link support via HDMI cable is not there after Galaxy S6. You can blue tooth Audio and Phone calls. Android auto does work some what but not correctly. You can use speech to text and it works ok with Google assistant but again all visual for text and mapping are on your phone but audio is over the radio kind of defeats the purpose. I am constantly being asked to set up the audio. Bluetooth audio seems to drop out often and I have to redo settings. I did a firmware update but it did not add much function. If you plug in an Android device it will continually cycle and say unsupported device.As far as sound quality in my 2006 Hummer H3 with factory Monsoon amp I give it an 7 out of 10. The factory navigation unit was louder but this unit is clearer and you have more range in sound.Now I did borrow a family members I-phone and if you are an I-phone user it interfaces beautifully and you have full control mirroring of the phone on the radio display. Plug it in and store your phone away. every thing from your phone appears on the radio screen.Audio also seems to be a lot more clear with an I-phone. Anyway I will be getting a different head unit.

Many of the features are good and work well with the following issues:1) The screen is not very bright and washes out easily during the daytime.2) The non-CarPlay user interface is confusing and unattractive. The Radio is weird looking.Small annoyances:a) The CarPlay “Home” button is on the far side of the screen.b) Mute is only available on the radio screen.Pluses:1) The sound quality is good.2) The backup camera image is good.I installed this in a 2006 Honda Ridgeline.