Bovee 1000 alternative

[Rocky997]

I have a 997.2 with PCM 3. I have the usb/ipod connector in the arm rest. I am aware that the Bovee 1000 seems to be the poular choice with a Y cable to power it to give bluetoooth audio. The £99 current price seems extortionate. Does anyone know how this differs to other 30 pin bluetooth dongles out there which are around for much less money. I have a dongle that converts an old Bose I pod dock to bluetooth which is 30 pin female in and only needs power which I presume the USB side of the Y cable will provide. It fits my current Porsche I pod cable but obviouly cannot get power from it. Does anyone know if it is likely to work or does the Bovee 1000 do something else I am not aware of. I have a Y cable.on order from Design911 and am just wondering if anything else will work bwfore I order a Bovee?
Thanks in advance.

 

[malarcy]

the bovee 1000 and the slightly cheaper invery version of the same thing are more expensive than the regular 30 pin dongles becMaude they emulate an iPod to the car not just "some sound on the audio pins”

so. You get track info. Music search (artist, album etc) and the next and previous track controls as well as "mute” pausing the playing track. Steering wheel controls if you have them also work.

all of the above assuming you have an iPhone. Otherwise. It’s as "dumb” as the generic ones.


the y cable will give you power. The generic adapter will give you "sound".

fwiw the y cable from OPC is about 28 quid including vat and my local posted it for a couple of quid. Don’t know how that compares to design 911

I have been around the loop on this with my setup. And I have gone to a wired solution ( happy to share/bore with the details if you want )

the upshot being I have an invery unit - does the same as bovee and is about 15 quid cheaper to start with which I would be happy to sell on for £40 ( half what I paid ) if any interest.


other it’s destined for the draw of abandoned things.


Invery device is this one.


Airdual Bluetooth Adapter for BMW Mini Cooper iPod iPhone Y Cable and Diversified Cars with iPod Music Interface… https://www.amazon.co.uk/...c_WDXNYE6RSH4X6D756NH3

 

[Rocky997]

Thanks for the reply....very interesting..mainly because I was unaware that Bovee wouldnt allow control of an Android device. I have a Samsung S10 and if it wont give me track listing and control it will be fairly pointless. Be happy to consider your 2nd hand device but I assume from what you have said It wont be any better with an Android device from what
I have already.

 

[malarcy]

The invery has a switch. One is "I am an iPod" the other is "I make sound"

the bovee looks like it just does "i am an iPod"

the Issue as I see it it the head unit has no idea about Bluetooth. It knows ipod So it doesn’t have any idea about the Bluetooth remote protocol so can’t drive an android device Like it can drive an iphone.


wild guess based on some Experience and bit of understanding of how Bluetooth profiles work i would guess that android is always going to be "just sound" when hooked up to the PCM 3

I reckon based on this that my device would not buy you nothing you don’t already have ( or will have with the y cable )

the other alternative I considered was this unit. Into the usb and the aux Port. No track info, no control but a simple route to sound. If you hadnt already ordered the y cable then this may have been an option.


TUNAI Firefly LDAC Bluetooth Adapter: Hifi Wireless Audio Bluetooth 5.0 Receiver with Audiophile USB DAC 3.5mm AUX for Car/Home Stereo Hi Res Music Streaming; Auto On, No Charging Needed https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HXXJPWK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_S9ES6TQQP0HY6B5FM45G

all the above based on what I know from experience with iphone and what I think regarding android i may well be wrong but I know the invery in dumb mode doesn’t give and track info or track control.

maybe drop an email or web enquiry to the bovee manufacturer to confirm.


sorry can’t give you a definitive answer but I haven’t had an android phone for a while.

 

[malarcy]

And after all that. The bovee blurb on Amazon suggests "yup. you get the full support with android" so back to "ask them” or order from Amazon and send it back if it doesnt work

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B52LLJ6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_Q8QAEMQ1D6YPPPY0S3MZ

interested in the results.

 

[Rocky997]

Thanks for your input. Although the info on Amazon regarding the Bovee says it works it is not definative about track info and control. Reading a number of reviews on there , how you explain the situation makes perfect sense as it seems most peoole who complain they have issues with it are Android users. I cannot find anyone with an Android device who says they have full functionality. I am going to try my generic bluetooth dongle to see if that works. If not, next step may be to try a bovee or similar. If I can skip tracks then I will be happy as track ID is a bonus. Where abouts are you, as I was wondering if I could give your device a try?

 

[Rocky997]

Forget the last......just seen you are North Kent.??

 

[malarcy]

Just remembered I have an android tablet kicking around somewhere. Won’t get to it today but I can have a play one evening to see what I get.


also. i might be able to borrow a bovee and see if that’s different.


no promises but I will try if I can.

 

[Rocky997]

So, cable arrived. Used my £15, I link dongle and it connects perfectly allowing me to connect my samsung phone and stream audio. No track listing or control via the head unit. Audio is via Aux rather than Ipod on the PCM as if I was connected via a manual Aux cable..
Better , as it connects via bluetooth but not perfect. Did you manage to try your Android device...really interested to see the results. I am happy to invest in a Bovee or Invery but only if it gives extra functionality with an android phone.

 

[malarcy]

Yup - found it, now just trying to put some music on it and remember how it works - hopefully get a chance to have a play later on today.

 

[malarcy]

So - testing accomplished.

The only android device I have is an old galaxy tablet - i put a couple of albums on it and they played ok with the built in samsung app - I got track info although the samsung app seemed to want to order by MP3 tag name - rather than track number or file name - but for the purposes of this test - I could confirm track info was in the files.

I had a Invery AirDual device - AND (bonus) a Bovee 1000 available.....

Results
Invery - the car saw the device as an "iPod" - but music search, album and artist names etc weren't available - it found 4 artists and 4 tracks and I think 4 albums ( there were only 2 albums and 2 artists loaded) - but when you looked they were called Next, Next, Prev, Prev - if you hit start playback from the PCM then playback did start but at a arbitrary track ( it probably was the first alphabetical track of the first alphabetical album of the first alphabetical artist ) - next and prev buttons on the pcm worked - as did the "track" Next,Prev etc. So - next and prev work but the track info is nonsense and useless and theres no music search - If you went to the info screen while playing - it said the Album was "Airdual" and the track was "Next"

This was true in both the modes of the invery ( I am an Ipod and I am a source of sound)

Bovee - pretty much exactly the same re track info and music search - the differences I found were the Album was called "123" and muting the pcm (press the volume button or the volume rotary on the multi function steering wheel) actually paused the playback

Summary

Invery - next/prev work, no track info, no music search, you can start playback but you cant choose where.
Bovee - next/prev work, no track info, no music search, you can start playback but you cant choose where, pause/resume works.

So - don't reckon either unit buys you much ( unless you really want prev/next and I didn't try those with spotify etc. ( because I don't use it ) - the Bovee I have I am sending back to amazon, it didn't solve a problem I was having ( see below ) - and I am in the return window. The invery I have had for a while, so is destined for the drawer of shame - yours for £40 if you want it - but I suspect not.

(The issue I was having that affected both the invery and the bovee I think is iPhone specific - namely - it all works fine, phone calls go to the PCM, music goes to the adapter, but there is some interaction, and the music audio drops and sometimes the adapter resets and the car thinks the ipod went away - it's solved by disabling the Bluetooth phone side on the pcm - but then you lose that feature ( I don't use it often - but I like things to work as well as they can ) - so I went to a wired solution which works for iPhone with the right adapter but likely wouldn't work at all for Android)

Don't think there's any other way around it - unless you buy a 2nd hand ipod mini and load it up with tunes and plug that into the adapter - but in that case you may as well do the same with a usb stick - if you can figure out the stupid parameters the pcm uses for sorting / ordering of tracks.

I have a video of it "working" if you want to see it - drop me a PM with an email address and i will share it with you

Hope this helps

 

[Rocky997]

Hi, massively appreciate your efforts I received my Y cable from Design911 which as I say works.with a cheap £15 I link dongle.I had for converting an old Ipod dock. At the sam time I had order a Rennline magnetic phone bracket which I fitted today and whilst fitting it I installed a fast charge cable which is completley hidden and runs off the 12v supply in the passenger.footwell. The upshot is that I can now run my android phone on that mount, in perfect view and run Waze whilst simutaneously using Alexa to either stream music from Amazon music or digital radio. The track listing/control has now become redundant as track info is now displayed on the phone which is right next to the PCM screen. Mapping is up to date and I have full.voice control.with Alexa. The screeen on the Galaxy S10+ is bigger and better res than the PCM.
The combination of the Y cable, a decent phone mount with.power and Alexa/Amazon music has given me a perfect upgrade whilst leaving the PCM standard and just using a Y cable and cheap.dongle.
Much appreciation for you assistance and effort. For anyone looking for an upgrade, I am pretty happy.with this combo. I have a Bose system and sound is.spot on with no interference.

 

[malarcy]

Hi, massively appreciate your efforts I received my Y cable from Design911 which as I say works.with a cheap £15 I link dongle.I had for converting an old Ipod dock. At the sam time I had order a Rennline magnetic phone bracket which I fitted today and whilst fitting it I installed a fast charge cable which is completley hidden and runs off the 12v supply in the passenger.footwell. The upshot is that I can now run my android phone on that mount, in perfect view and run Waze whilst simutaneously using Alexa to either stream music from Amazon music or digital radio. The track listing/control has now become redundant as track info is now displayed on the phone which is right next to the PCM screen. Mapping is up to date and I have full.voice control.with Alexa. The screeen on the Galaxy S10+ is bigger and better res than the PCM.
The combination of the Y cable, a decent phone mount with.power and Alexa/Amazon music has given me a perfect upgrade whilst leaving the PCM standard and just using a Y cable and cheap.dongle.
Much appreciation for you assistance and effort. For anyone looking for an upgrade, I am pretty happy.with this combo. I have a Bose system and sound is.spot on with no interference.

Winner - glad you got it sorted, all good learning , and it cements what I guessed about the adapters and the interfaces and the bluetooth profiles - all learning and good info. I have an obsession with steering wheel controls for audio ( had an audi without for 13 years ) - so I like that one extra step for integration ( and as an iPhone user - I am working with different set of options/challenges). I totally get your setup and most importantly - works for you for approx 50 quid - no wrong answers there.

Glad to have helped.

 

[Rocky997]

As far as steering wheel controls I must be the opposite. I originally had a leather , heated wheel with full buttons that was standard with the car but had button gear shift. I swapped it out for an alcantara sport design wheel with paddle shift. I my opinion it transformed the driving experience but obviously losing some control over infortainment/phone etc.
Anyway thanks again.
Dave...

 

[AmericanSuccess]

Would you be able to post pictures of your setup?

So I understand correctly you are using an adapter to stream the music via Bluetooth to the Aux in and then have your phone in a position where you can skip tracks etc etc yourself?

Trying to figure out the best way to achieve spotify streaming from Android. Thanks!

 

[Rocky997]

Happy to try but from previous experience posting pictures is a bit of a nightmare. I will try unless you have any suggestions to PM you the pictures.

 

[AmericanSuccess]

If sending via PM works best for you then do that. Is my interpretation of the setup correct?

 

[Rocky997]

Yes you are correct. A cheap "I link" bluetooth dongle via a y cable in the armrest and then I use Amazon music but as I have my phone on a magnetic rennline mount just by the pcm Screen , I can use see all my track info and have full control via either the phone screen or alexa. I have wired a fast charger in behind the PCM panel so can power the phone as all times. Using Waze on the phone also gives me up to date maps and speed camera detection and keeps the phone screen live with access to the music via the waze app.. I believe spotify is also compatible.

 

[malarcy]

If you don't already have the Y Cable that gives the 30 pin "old style ipod" connector - you can also use something like this

TUNAI Firefly LDAC Bluetooth Adapter: Hifi Wireless Audio Bluetooth 5.0 Receiver with Audiophile USB DAC 3.5mm AUX for Car/Home Stereo Hi Res Music Streaming; Auto On, No Charging Needed https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HXXJPWK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_S9ES6TQQP0HY6B5FM45G

(assuming you have usb and aux sockets ) one end in usb, other in aux and pcm set to aux input ( if you have the socket and the option doesn't appear in the pcm - there's a menu option to enable aux as an input option)

 

[AmericanSuccess]

Yes you are correct. A cheap "I link" bluetooth dongle via a y cable in the armrest and then I use Amazon music but as I have my phone on a magnetic rennline mount just by the pcm Screen , I can use see all my track info and have full control via either the phone screen or alexa. I have wired a fast charger in behind the PCM panel so can power the phone as all times. Using Waze on the phone also gives me up to date maps and speed camera detection and keeps the phone screen live with access to the music via the waze app.. I believe spotify is also compatible.

This sounds ideal, really interested to see what it all looks like. What android phone do you have and is it able to connect to the car phone as well as the streaming at the same time?