I upgraded the head unit in a Ford Ka mk2 because I wanted to give the car a touch of freshness without spending too much and to get rid of the aftermarket hands-free wires, using the aux position.
On the positive side, there is full customization with the help of the app, beautiful graphics, hands-free capabilities, satisfactory sound quality, and the price.
On the negative side, there is almost total dependence on the app and the phone—without it, you don’t even have station presets; the Bluetooth connection is not so good (often doesn’t connect automatically when entering the vehicle); poor voice calling, which doesn’t recognize the contact list either in Greek or with Latin characters! The call quality is satisfactory but not perfect. Lastly, when you are in an area with poor FM radio reception in the city, you get no sound at all, the signal bar is zero, and after a delay, it eventually picks up reception.
Pioneer needs a bit of work, but at this price, there is nothing else worth it. Some Chinese models for €70-80 don’t work properly, so if you have an old car and don’t want to spend €300-500-700 for Android screens, this is a solution.
If you also want DAB radio reception (for now only ERT broadcasts), then there is the model sph20bt which has this feature, but you also have to pay €25 for the DAB antenna!!! Extra.
1/2025
What I mentioned above about the problematic delay in reception when there is no good signal has to do with the so-called PI seek, where the radio searches for another frequency broadcasting the same program, so it’s not a device problem and you can adjust it from the app by setting PI seek off as well as AF off, so it doesn’t search and leave you without sound for a while.
9/2025
Something happened and the lighting that changed color along with the screen in the live themes on the LEDs doesn’t work! Maybe due to a new update, anyway I uninstalled and reinstalled the app but it did nothing.
11/2025
Complete disappointment, the unit stopped connecting to the phone!!! Uninstalling and reinstalling the app and pairing and settings from scratch, I’m getting annoyed, I’m 52 years old and I’m starting to lose my patience with these gadgets.
12/2025
The sync app live lighting in the themes returned to the LEDs!! I don’t know what’s going on, the app is unpredictable