Pioneer steering wheel remote review

[Furious]

well today i had to get the damn thing. my friend has one for his pioneer premier deck and he is always using it.
so i spend the 67 canadian dollars for it and install it. first thing i think is GOD DAMN i love it. then second thing i think is , you gotta be one lazy mo-fo to use this thing. i mean honestly who is that lazy not to use the actual head unit controls. especially in an e36 where the head unit sits nice and high. The remote itself works well, but sometimes doesnt do the action i want it to perform (probably loosing line of site with the headunit or something)

was it worth it? id say yes. but you gotta be lazy like me.

my rating of the product is 7/10.
my rating of the price is a 7.5/10.

[007ben]

pics?

[Furious]

soon..


*edit found a pic on the net for now. ill get some of mine soon.
remember the volume control is on the rear side of the remote.

[Furious]

here is a pic. sorry about the size.

[007ben]

Does Alpine have anything like this?

[jaavaajoe]

Looking good there Furious

I have a detached remote for my wife's car (its a Sony head unit). At first I thought it might be a laziness thing.

But the more I used it, I realized I could manipulate the radio without taking my eyes off of the road for a second.

Same thing with the steering wheel remote buttons on my 330i.

I say, not lazy, just working smarter, not harder.

Looks good.
joe

[007ben]

Originally posted by jaavaajoe@Apr 16 2004, 09:45 AM
Looking good there Furious

I say, not lazy, just working smarter, not harder.

Looks good.
joe

Smarter not harder is one of my mottos.

Partly because I'm lazy.

But it does look good and is a nice feature/creature comfort...

Did anyone ever see Kenwood's Heads Up radio dispay that went on the dash. the had the right idea.... I'd love that with thesteering wheel remoet...

[frw73]

I had one of these things for my Pioneer head unit on my old Mazda MX6. Was not bad, and agree with the overall rating of 7 to 7.5/10. A couple of comments:

1) Battery was unpredictable in cold weather (i.e. Toronto or Canada in wintertime with a cold interior) and would sometimes transmit to the head unit, and other times not

2) The most useful feature, a PAUSE button is NOT on the remote. It'll allow you to change tracks, scroll through sources, attenuate / mute, but NOT PAUSE. Very frustrating

3) In bright sunlight (not a fault of the transmitter, but rather of the head unit placement I think), the unit has trouble transmitting. At certain angles with the sunroof open and the sun shining directly on the head unit, the remote did not work until I shaded the sun from the head unit. The remote was on the left side of the steering wheel, and head unit in the centre console. Maybe this would change if the remote was placed on the right side of the steering wheel. You can put it anywhere you want with the bundled strappy thing.

[frw73]

Oh Yes, and,
4) I liked (and still like) the volume control on the back of the unit as opposed to the volume control on the M3 steering wheel as a "thumb control". It felt more comfortable as a "trigger control" on the pioneer remote.