Kenwood DDX 917WS

[Carz73]

IOS 11 was launched into September

Kenwood firmware was released on 20th October

 

The beep sound for volume up and down or change channel etc.

 

May I know who's your installer?

Yes pressing the panel soft buttons or the screen has beep sound but not when using steering wheel. Pmed you the installer.

[Carz73]

Yes pressing the panel soft buttons or the screen has beep sound but not when using steering wheel. Pmed you the installer.

Just to be clearer to answer your questions, the beep sound that I can hear include volume control and switching of source.

 

It can be very soft to hear over the music playing if you have enabled some of the sound effects option which makes the music louder.

 

The latest firmware could already be in development for sometime and ready for release before the ios 11 official launch but still it's no excuse for Kenwood not to include support or come out with fixes now.

 

Otherwise, the fact that only Carbon Car System has the patch, could be due to licensing restriction by Apple over how Air Play/Mirror can work with non iOS products, so it cannot be made available through official manufacturer. Carbon Car System has it could be due to being one of the biggest dealer in Australia as I seen posts in Kenwood Asia Facebook showing the staffs visiting them.

 

Not sure if they will entertain those that did not purchase through them for new patch if available.

 

We need a concerted effort to get the right Kenwood technical support email to get them to follow up.

[Lawkoh]

Have you experience USB has read data error?

It's quite frequent.

But I am using a SSD

[Carz73]

Not using SSD. Just a thumb drive that fits well with no free play on one of the the dual data port I bought. However, on the other port with usb cable for Android Auto, due to some free play when the cable is tugged there will be read error. So perhaps you may want to check for similar issue.

 

This is the dual data port I bought. It fits into the empty button slot on my Sienta but the clip does not keep it locked in place when I pull out the thumbdrive but not when I pull out the cable with free play. But it's ok since I seldom do that.

[Carz73]

If loose connection is not your issue, you may want to find out the power requirement of your SSD as if I'm not wrong some SSD requires min 1.5A or more. Although the port is rated 1.5A, I'm not sure if it can provide this max consistently. Using Ampere app for Android, the max charging rate shown is only 1.2A iirc. Results could varying for different phones and cables. You might want to try equivalent app on your iPhone to see the amperage it can provide though again, due to different hardware in this case your SSD and cable, the result may not be a good indication it will be the same with your SSD and cable. Otherwise if you suspect there may not be enough power, those Y-cable that allows you to plug in another power source to the SSD may resolve it.

Edited November 13, 2017 by Carz73

[Lawkoh]

If loose connection is not your issue, you may want to find out the power requirement of your SSD as if I'm not wrong some SSD requires min 1.5A or more. Although the port is rated 1.5A, I'm not sure if it can provide this max consistently. Using Ampere app for Android, the max charging rate shown is only 1.2A iirc. Results could varying for different phones and cables. You might want to try equivalent app on your iPhone to see the amperage it can provide though again, due to different hardware in this case your SSD and cable, the result may not be a good indication it will be the same with your SSD and cable. Otherwise if you suspect there may not be enough power, those Y-cable that allows you to plug in another power source to the SSD may resolve it.

Thanks for the information.

Yes, the SSD is 1.6A, it was used on my previous Pioneer without problem. Will observe more.

[Carz73]

Ok my installer finally managed to get my factory reverse cam connected using 12v!

 

Reverse cam view appears when reverse gear is engaged which is normal but does not appear when I select Menu > Camera as described under "Display the camera screen" in the manual extracted below. Not sure if he missed connecting a wire or something.

Can fellow owners test yours and advise if it's working for you?
 

 

[weekiat572]

Mine oso doesnt appear when i select the camera using the menu. It is only displayed when i engage reverse gear.

 

Btw, has anyone upgraded their firmware ? If so , how long does it take?

[Carz73]

Mine oso doesnt appear when i select the camera using the menu. It is only displayed when i engage reverse gear.

 

Btw, has anyone upgraded their firmware ? If so , how long does it take?

 

Although some features are only available when using Kenwood CMOS-320, these exceptions will be clearly shown in the manual under each feature. This simple viewing appears to fall outside the exception. I'm wondering if the installation is missing an additional reverse lead wire i.e. selecting camera view should also trigger the lead wire.

 

Would like to hear from the rest of the owners too on this one.

 

For convenience the manual are here > Download > View

 

Lawkoh and myself had upgraded the firmware. I didn't time the upgrade process but it didn't feel it took a long time.

 

Btw, below is Kenwood Asia Facebook admin reply to my pm on the Gesture and IOS issue mentioned in the earlier posts:

 

 

 

Sir Sorry please let us know the FW version of your DDX917WS

as for iPhone mirroring, Currently it's not available due to iOS change, and our engineering team is developing the countermeasure software.

the firmware release timing will be end of this month. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Best regards.

 

Fellow owner, pls also go bombard him/her like I did on these 2 issues as well as for the lack of sales and support presence in SG. They took so long to release the 2017 head units to SG and then yet it's other accessories like DRV-N520 Dashcam, CMOS-320 Camera, KFC-XS1703 high definition speakers which were already launched in other countries for sometime are still not available in SG. They posted on their FB they will be launching new products in March but I'm not holding my hopes anymore even though I'm really keen to see their 360 degree bird-eye view cam and don't mind waiting if it's really March that SG will get.

[Lawkoh]

Mine oso doesnt appear when i select the camera using the menu. It is only displayed when i engage reverse gear.

 

Btw, has anyone upgraded their firmware ? If so , how long does it take?

Yup.

Same for me, it doesn't work for the reverse camera view.

 

For the firmware update, my impression is 10 to 15 mins

Please start your engine

Although some features are only available when using Kenwood CMOS-320, these exceptions will be clearly shown in the manual under each feature. This simple viewing appears to fall outside the exception. I'm wondering if the installation is missing an additional reverse lead wire i.e. selecting camera view should also trigger the lead wire.

 

Would like to hear from the rest of the owners too on this one.

 

For convenience the manual are here > Download > View

 

Lawkoh and myself had upgraded the firmware. I didn't time the upgrade process but it didn't feel it took a long time.

 

Btw, below is Kenwood Asia Facebook admin reply to my pm on the Gesture and IOS issue mentioned in the earlier posts:

 

 

 

Fellow owner, pls also go bombard him/her like I did on these 2 issues as well as for the lack of sales and support presence in SG. They took so long to release the 2017 head units to SG and then yet it's other accessories like DRV-N520 Dashcam, CMOS-320 Camera, KFC-XS1703 high definition speakers which were already launched in other countries for sometime are still not available in SG. They posted on their FB they will be launching new products in March but I'm not holding my hopes anymore even though I'm really keen to see their 360 degree bird-eye view cam and don't mind waiting if it's really March that SG will get.

Thanks for the update, will look forward for the coming firmware

[Carz73]

Thanks for the confirmations too guys. Will investigate further if cam view from hu can be activated without engaging reverse gear.

 

What about steering wheel buttons? Are you guys able to assign long press with a different function to press and release? Or at least for 1 main/center button perhaps the center mode button like mine as I only have mode, volume up/down and left/right which I use for previous and next songs.

 

I was told it can be done for certain head unit.

[Carz73]

I was testing dual zone i.e. Kenwood av-out to portable dvd player av-in and it works.

 

However, when testing portable dvd player av-out to Kenwood av-in, there is no display. Not sure if it's related to the same issue with manual cam view selection as discussed previously because both are also av-in sources though separate rca connector.

[Lawkoh]

New firmware still not available yet?

 

Does this HU able to install map?

Since there is already GPS antenna

[Carz73]

New firmware still not available yet?

 

Does this HU able to install map?

Since there is already GPS antenna

 

I was given the local tech/sales in-charge email who replied they are still working on it.

 

This hu cannot install map but supports Kenwood KNA-G630 running Garmin or 3rd Party Nav module through its RGB interface that also support touch screen control.

 

However, KNA-G630 don't seems to be available locally and is expensive online. It also seems to be quite an old model.

 

Locally, this company has the 3rd Party Nav module.

 

https://www.facebook.com/explorergps/

http://www.vision-sg.com/

http://www.sgcarmart.com/products/overview.php?ID=9098

 

I was told this is the latest model running Galactio:

 

 

They also have RGB android box so you can use any GPS app though I would be concerned if Android version is still v4.x and cannot be upgraded to newer versions:

https://www.facebook.com/explorergps/videos/1265820590121138/

 

Link Auto has their own RGB oem box with Galactio too but I don't have the details.

 

I don't think these come cheap though.

 

These RGB boxes seems to have their own GPS antenna though I'm not sure if they can do without and use the one included with our unit as it is meant to complement AA/Car Play use.

 

The above are from my research sometime back so not sure what has changed. I didn't pursue it further as I prefer being able to use voice command to search for location so to me Android Auto is still my preferred choice.

[Carz73]

Might try one of these solutions for long and short press steering wheel button assignment.

[Lawkoh]

Long press on changing track button does make the song move faster...

 

Anyway to choose the MP3 song display?

Example: Between file name and title

If the display text is too long, can set the it to auto scroll?

[Carz73]

Long press on changing track button does make the song move faster...

 

Anyway to choose the MP3 song display?

Example: Between file name and title

If the display text is too long, can set the it to auto scroll?

I have confirmed with Kenwood SG it does not support dual function for steering wheel buttons i.e. long and short press.

 

So unless we have more buttons to assign, in this case fast forward action, we need to get one of these modules I mentioned earlier that support long and short press button assignment. Either should work within Kenwood music player.

However, I doubt fast forward is supported if used within AA as I think AA music apps still do not have this function. I may be wrong though so those with additional buttons or such modules may be able to advise.

 

As for mp3 file name and title display, I didn't pay much attention as I use AA exclusively and mostly with Spotify but I thought it already auto scroll within Kenwood music player?

 

On a side note, there is still no news on the new firmware as well as the camera view display. One of the manager at Kenwood could get his camera view working for both his front dash Kenwood DRV-N520 and Kenwood CMOS-130 reverse camera. The CMOS-130 is just a normal reverse cam so there is no reason why camera view is not working for the rest of us.

 

His was installed by Ah Put from Link Auto, so maybe @Weekiat572 can check with Ah Put as yours is also installed there.

[Lawkoh]

I have confirmed with Kenwood SG it does not support dual function for steering wheel buttons i.e. long and short press.

 

So unless we have more buttons to assign, in this case fast forward action, we need to get one of these modules I mentioned earlier that support long and short press button assignment. Either should work within Kenwood music player.

However, I doubt fast forward is supported if used within AA as I think AA music apps still do not have this function. I may be wrong though so those with additional buttons or such modules may be able to advise.

 

As for mp3 file name and title display, I didn't pay much attention as I use AA exclusively and mostly with Spotify but I thought it already auto scroll within Kenwood music player?

 

On a side note, there is still no news on the new firmware as well as the camera view display. One of the manager at Kenwood could get his camera view working for both his front dash Kenwood DRV-N520 and Kenwood CMOS-130 reverse camera. The CMOS-130 is just a normal reverse cam so there is no reason why camera view is not working for the rest of us.

 

His was installed by Ah Put from Link Auto, so maybe @Weekiat572 can check with Ah Put as yours is also installed there.

I confirmed twice that long press on steering button will fast forward the mp3 song. It's like long press on the screen button will fast track the song. Thus, I am not should if this is counted as "can"

AA: Android Auto?

I am IOS user, no chance to test anything because IOS 11 cannot communicate with this HU yet.

 

Your stock reverse Camera cannot access to do any adjustment beside guide line? Same here.

 

For the firmware, maybe they are waiting for IOS 12??