Parrot RK8200 iPod car radio

With "In dash iPhone for Car?" I suggested having a dashboard car radio with a slot for an iPhone. Parrot have done something like this with their RK8200 car stereo / Bluetooth hands-free kit. This looks like a dashboard media unit with a small colour screen and removable head. But underneath where you would expect to find a blank panel, there is a slot to put an iPod, MP3 player or mobile phone.

The iPod or phone is plugged into the Parrot with a short cable, the iPod is then slipped into the cavity in the dashboard unit and the control unit placed over the top. The iPod or phone is then operated via the Parrot's front panel controls. The unit includes a Bluetooth handsfree unit for calls and music can be played via the car's speakers.

This is a lot more complex and expensive that I was proposing. The Parrot RK8200 is £278.10 on Amazon UK. What I had in mind was a simple car radio which could use the display and controls of the iPhone for complex functions. Instead of this the Parrot provides its own controls, display and MP3 functions. This makes it a better integrated device, but increases the cost by about ten times.

Another problem with the Parrot is that a mobile phone may not work well when inside a slot in a car dashboard. It is not clear if the Parrot has provision for an external antenna and units such as the iPhone have no provision for one. A phone may not be able to connect to a base station inside a box in the dashboard.

In dash iPhone for Car?

There are various holders for iPhones and iPod touches in cars, but no one so far seems to have thought to build it into the dashboard. Unlike the average smart phone or PDA, the iPhone and touch can be used in the landscape position. In this position, the screen is about the size and shape of a small entertainment/navigation screen in an upmarket car. Provide a low cost radio and amplifier with a socket for the iPhone to fit in the standard radio dashboard space and you could have a touch screen communications and entertainment system for under $US100 (not including the cost of the iPhone).

An example of this approach is the Eclipse AVN2210P: a dashboard media hub, with a removable TomTom navigation unit. This system got mixed reviews, some good and some bad. This is a large unit, so it will not fit some cars and it is designed to provide a CD and MP3 player, even without the TomTom installed and so is large and expensive. But a similar device, smaller and cheaper, could be made for an iPhone.

An iPhone is 115×61×11.6 mm and the iPod touch is 110×61.8×8 mm. This is a bit taller than the standard slot in a car dashboard for a radio: 180 x 50 mm (the so called "DIN car radio size" DIN 75490 ISO 7736). The iPhone could be accommodated in a double DIN (180 x 100 mm panel) slot (as used by the Eclipse) or simply by having the iPod/iPhone protrude a few mm outside the slot (the average car radio has a surround a few mm bigger). The iPhone is 65 mm shorter than the DIN slot, leaving enough space for a volume control , digital display and some radio controls.

When the iPhone was not in place, the car would still have a working radio. With the iPhone plugged in there would be phone, MP3 and other functions provided via the touch screen. The car unit could be made at very low cost with simple analog electronics, with all the sophisticated functions provided by the iPhone.

As the dashboard unit would only contain a minimum of electronics, it could be made about 10 mm deep and so could also be mounted on a flat surface or on a dashboard top mount, when a dashboard slot is not available. The unit could be made as a removable head, like some car radios. The same unit could then also be used as a desktop dock for the iPhone in the home or office, with some low cost speakers and a power supply attached.

The iPhone does not have a GPS receiver built in. However, the connector on the iPhone includes a USB interface and so the docking unit could pass these signals through to a USB connector for use with an inexpensive external USB GPS receiver. Alternatively a Bluetooth GPS receiver could be used (the iPod touch lacks Bluetooth, but has USB).

See also:

• Eclipse AVN2210p CD receiver with detachable TomTom portable navigator
• Books about the iPhone
• iPhone and iPod Touch Accessories
• iPhone Car Mounts
  
• iPod Touch Car Mounts