I ended up mounting a Pioneer SPH-DA360DAB with wireless Apple CarPlay in the Smart Fortwo, instead of the old-school (and rather outdated) Smart Radio 9.
I listen to a lot of podcasts while I drive, and I’ve been missing them a lot since I bought my little cabrio.
Luckily the Smart Fortwo is prepared for any 2-DIN radio you throw at it, so apart from a single wire, that had to change place in the plug that powers it, it was a very simple job (read more about upgrading the original radio in a Smart Fortwo here).
I’ve been thinking about getting a 2-DIN unit with CarPlay since I had my old Smart, so now that I’ve got a new Fortwo, with a radio that doesn’t even get close to impressing me, it’s time for an upgrade.
At the beginning, I was going for the “little brother” Pioneer SPH-DA160DAB, but it only works via cable, and I really wanted to be able to use CarPlay without pulling out my phone, and plugging it in. I also charge my phone wirelessly, so it seams a bit cumbersome having to pull out wires and connect them, every time I get into the car.
I could have bought a wireless Apple CarPlay adapter for it, but the amount saved by buying an unoriginal wireless component, that there are no guarantees will work after the next firmware upgrade, was to small compared to the price of the Pioneer SPH-DA360DAB, with built in wireless CarPlay.
This radio completely transformed the cars dashboard, and Apple CarPlay is amazing (can’t understand I have lived without it so far 😉).
The strange thing is that I have bought some new speakers, for the little Smart Fortwo, because the original ones sounded terrible. However, I must admit that the terrible audio disappeared with the original Smart Radio 9, and the speakers actually sound OK with the new radio???
I’ll still upgrade the speakers, but must admit that if the original speakers had sounded like this with the old radio, then I probably wouldn’t have ordered the new upgrade speakers.
Positive
- CarPlay is great.
Navigation, Music, Podcasts etc strait from the big touchscreen.
Apple Maps integrated in the dash is also a big plus. - Wireless CarPlay is brilliant.
No longer any need to pull out the phone, and find the right music or podcast. It just connects automatically, and continues where it got to. - Big screen
Negative
- Volume controls
The volume controls have their own touch buttons, on the left side of the thin frame. Unfortunately the rear illumination can’t be seen in daylight, so a bit of fumbling is done every time you want to adjust the volume.
The original white background colour is a bit better, but if you want to take advantage of the built in “adapt the colour to your cars theme” offer, it’s much less visible. I tried the red illumination, and that’s not even the least visible option.
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