Parrot Asteroid RNB6 - Shallow Depth/Apple CarPlay & Android Auto

[DennisCooper]

Hi,


I really wish I was back at the CES 2015 show happening over in Las Vegas as it is each year which will have a big focus on Car Technologies and trends that are emerging.


This is bit of a show pre-announcement, as the Press day for the show begins in a few hours time!


Parrot have announced their latest in the range for their Asteroid range of products - Parrot Asteroid Smart RNB6. This unit is perhaps the first from the premium brands in car audio to publicly announce a unit that will support both Apple's CarPlay platform and the Android Auto platform from Google on a single device. I'd think other brands will follow suit either at CES this coming week or, perhaps later during 2015.


Here's the promo video highlighting the features of the unit





I'm not sure if there's a pre-release unit on display at the show, perhaps a little too early for that and hence the video above, but it does look like a shallow depth unit much like the Asteroid Smart. This of course means it'll be much easier to fit into BMW E39's in particular for this forum due to not having to modify the airbox. More of the headline features are of course support for Apple CarPlay and/or Android Auto. Currently, only Alpine and Pioneer have head units which support Apple Car Play only. Parrot are the first to announce support for Android Auto from any of the leading car audio brands. Those who aren't Apple users now also know soon there'll be a solution for them, assuming they're Android users!


Lots of other features included as can be seen in the video, however I think some will not be available to E39 (and other similar era BMW's and also other marques) due to the age of the car and it's technologies (iBus etc) which are too old to be compatible. If there is support or perhaps a way of making it work, I'll update!


There's no details as yet for when the unit will be available or any pricing levels etc. however as soon as I know more, I'll update.


Cheers, Dennis!

[spkrboxx]

I work for a car audio distributor and will be selling these units. Unfortunately I didnt get to go to CES this year but I will ask the rep what parrot info I can get on pricing and release date.

[spkrboxx]

The parrot rep's exact answer was
"It will cost somewhere between $1 an $10000, and it will be out in 2015"
Typical manufacturer's response when they have something cool coming out. Although it supposedly looked amazing.