Android head unit, great alternative

Thanks for the thread, guys. I am taking the plunge and replacing my 2011 jbl head unit with the JY-UL124. I really appreciate all the helpful tips I've read on here. I'll post pics and a review as soon as I get it installed.

 

You'll be pretty happy with it, just remember (if you already didn't) to order the Toyota harness for plug & play, so much easier. Don't bother with a Metra, go with the Scosche kit. Also I had no idea that with the Joying, you can go to the steering wheel control screen and actually program in the volume, maps to what buttons you like without ANY extra wiring ! Sweet, only minor issue i didn't like is that you can't delete your contacts on your Bluetooth directory.
As there is no "delete" button, you will have to remove the contacts on your phone and then hit the update button.

Kind of silly, but for the price of these they are a really incredible unit. Wanted a stable platform so i went with KitKat 4.4 works just fine for me. Love it !

 

Has anyone tried the 10.1" screen unit?

 

Well, i got my joying installed this weekend. I can confirm that if you have a 2011 JBL system, all you need if the Toyota/JBL harness. Man, does it get tight in that dash with all those wires. It took some creative packing to get everything in the dash. One tip is you need to pry the hazard unit off of the factory radio at the base of the hazard box and not the white backing plastic. Once everything started up, I barely had any sound with the volume turned all the way up until i moved the fader from all to anywhere else. This took me about an hour to realize. I was really close to sending the unit back. Also, I found out that GPS will turn off other sound sources unless the GPS monitoring box is checked. Now that I'm getting familiar with the unit I really like it. The sound is better than factory, and i have a lot more source options. I'm curious how much data increase i will get from hot spotting from my phone. I really only plan on using data for Google maps. I usually bluetooth Pandora and Google Play music from my phone. Thanks again to all the help i got from reading this thread, it made this project way easier.

 

One other thing, I purchased a USB extension that fits the rectangular spots under the a/c controls.

$16 Metra AX-USB-35EXT 3.5mm iPod to USB Extension Cable - 27" - Black

Metra AX-USB-35EXT 3.5mm iPod to USB Extension Cable - 27-Inch - Black

It was a perfect fit.

 

Replaced the Metra with a Scosche kit and it looks and fits much better, easier to trim down than the Metra.

 

Forgot to include, I guess everyone can find their own place for the USB cables, if i want to replace this piece it is a lot cheaper than drilling a hole into a more larger expensive panel.

 

Sorry wish I showed u thus before u did that.

 

Nice !

 

Anybody else having trouble getting the mirrorlink to work...I can't get my S6 to mirror at all.

 

When i was looking at all other's JVC, Kenwood, etc, the mirroring was the main item i wanted. But now i don't even use it, it came with all the maps, google store, so it don't need it now. Is suppose to be pretty easy, i hope this can help ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o40IcA-HRes

 

Ok, sorry, that one was pretty useless, try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeeHZ2a8hbo

 

I just moved my Pumpkin head unit from my 07 to 14. I had to trim the Metra dash kit on either end of the opening to get it to fit, and also had to trim plastic inside the cavity to allow the wires to get out of the way.

 

Any update?

There also seems to be several other of the same style radios under differ et names on EBay. Iokone, Eonon, and Joyous are a few. Has anyone looked into these? Is there a reason Joying was chosen over the others?

I just searched eBay for "Android 5.1 Toyota Universal" and found them. They all have about the same website design for being "legit."

 

Thanks for the write-up OP, I just ordered the same unit you have plus the Scosche kit and other accessories. Can't wait to get the Entune replaced with something better. Lots of great information here, for under $300 for everything, I'll take the gamble.

 

Need some help with wiring.

I have a base model 2010 Tacoma(no jbl or steering controls), and there are three plugs in the back on the back of the stock cd radio (not touch screen). One is matches up with the harness included in the Joying kit.

The second connector has only one yellow wire going into it, and the third connector has a about five wires (black/grey/red w black/wrapped one in black)

What are you supposed to do with the other two connectors?

 

No trying to hijack this thread (hope you don't mind), but I wanted to post an update to my Joying head unit, same HU as the OP.

Bought it from Amazon, also purchased the stereo mini female to RCA jack, Tacoma wiring harness, antenna adapter, OBDII scan tool, and the Scoshe dash kit.

First things first - I did not use the Scosche kit. It was very expense, $50, and was worthless for this install. The kit does have nice metal brackets, but the problem is that if you trim the opening of the kit (so that the head unit will fit) it would look like ass. The opening is beveled towards the bottom of the opening. It would look good for a standard double-DIN HU, but not if you trim it.

All of the other pieces I ordered were just fine, I wanted to retain all of the features that my Entune Plus has, and then some.

I ended up using the stock DIN dash kit that was in my truck - 2014 DCSB Sport 4x4. I had to modify the metal brackets by grinding off the dimples and drilling 2 holes in each. that's it. The only thing I had to do was to make a couple of small spacers out of Kydex because the Joying HU is about 1/2” narrower on each side of the opening. Top to bottom was fine, it was just the sides that needed filled in.





Once that was done I needed to work on getting all of the other connections identified and tested.

Using the stereo mini 1/8” female to RCA adapter, I was able to get my SiriusXM docking to work (basically AUX input).

The steering wheel wiring to Key1 and Key2 (and ground) was spot on. However, some of my buttons just don’t work with the Joying, but about 80% of them do and I’m good with that. Maybe getting the one of the SWC controllers work better, but I’m fine with how mine turned out.

Backup camera - this was a pain but it was mostly my fault. Once I identified the camera wiring and found the backup 12v wiring behind the glove box, I hooked it all up and sho-nuff it works perfect. The video signal isn’t as good as it was with the Entune, but its good enough.

I originally hooked the HU to my Alpine 445U amp, but there was a slight hiss, so I pulled that out and went from the HU to the stock speakers. the Alpine amp really brightened up the sound from the Entune, also from the Joying, but the hiss was a little annoying. I don’t think it’s the amps fault, I think that either the ground I was using or the power connection needed to be connected better. It’s a really nice amp, oh well. The sound from the new HU is decent, about twice as loud as a stock Entune. Here’s the thing, the stock music app is not that great. I downloaded PowerAmp, and wow, what a difference. It’s only a 2 week trial, but I will buy it, it really gives you more control over sound and sounds very nice.

I didn’t use the included external mic, I just plan on using the one built into the HU. I tested it and it’s just fine.

I mounted the GPS antenna on top of the unit. It’s magnetic and stuck to the chassis pretty good, and seems to lock on to satellites pretty quickly.

I can’t remember anything else, other than it took me about 6 hours to complete the job. I’m slow - lol… and old…. I soldered all of the wires and shrink-tubed them. The unit is a very tight fit in the dash, so much so that it took me about 8-10 tries to get it to fit in. Stuffing all of the wiring and adapters behind the unit was a pain for me, take your time and don’t force it. So far, everything works, meaning all of the functions that Entune had, plus newer functions of the Android HU.

Heres’s some money shots.







Some minor issues that I have with the unit. Now, I’m not bitching about it, it was $229, plus the accessories. The HU does a hell of lot for a little money.

- the touch screen gets really hot after running it for a while, I mean hot enough that when you touch it you can feel a little heat on your finger tip. There’s no fan on the unit. The Entune that I removed did have a built in fan, it also said “Pioneer” on the underside of the Entune unit. Just surprised to see that. I’m hoping this doesn’t create an issue if you run the HU for several hours. We’ll see.

- when using the nav and the music is playing, every time you touch an option in nav, the music level goes down quickly then back up, it’s annoying. there may be a setting but I have not found it yet.

- the FM stereo is weak. lots of people comment about it and I can tell you they are right - the stereo is nothing write home about. it works, but I didn’t buy it for that.

- the weather widget doesn’t work and you can’t remove it. I installed another launcher just so I didn’t have to see it. I installed Nova launcher and so far it seems to work just fine.


OP, thanks for starting this thread. There’s some good info in this thread that really helped my get my unit installed and working.

 

Anybody want to trade for a pioneer avh-p2400? Lol

 

You can update the firmware from Joying. They fixed the Weather Blank - by deleting their weather widget entirely.
I added Weather Bug App and use one of their widgets.

https://www.carjoying.com/Joying-blog/12.html

Fritz

 

Thanks Fritz, I may just try this.