If it helps, that was my Cyber Monday total for an OE heated steering wheel, relay, and collar. ;) It all has to go *somewhere*!

Did my heated sport wheel last year. Love that on a cold day. Flip it on with the heated sport seats and comfy comfy. You will love it. :thumbup:

Here's a long boring video on the Avin Avant-3 unit in an M3. Shows the basic operations and graphics along with some of the features that can be added, most of the other systems do the same but I like the DVR (Driving Video Recorder). Gives you the dash cam, back up cam and one thing I love is the lane departure alerts. Like I said, a little boring but shows some nice features. Skip the last 10 minutes...

https://youtu.be/x90ED5zboro

Here's the evolution of the heated BMW wheel and I...

I bought a '97 E39. Heated wheel. Heated seats. I wasn't yet 30 years old. I thought, "These are the stupidest things I have ever seen! Who needs heated seats, much less a heated wheel?!"

I sold it in less than 3 months. Bought my '00 E39 with heated seats- but no bothersome heated wheel. BC, WTF, right? What a weird, wonderful journey it is to be with the same cars and actually start to appreciate the little things they did right outta the box.

It's 20 years since I bought that 1st E39. Hell, I still *own* the 00 540. And those heated seats, along with the ones in both of my E53's have really become the starting point. Add a daughter who loves turning them on in the *back* seats of the E53, and you've got a downright family member on your hands.

And so I just decided. One particularly chilly soccer game this past month made me know the time is right.

I've aged *in* to the heated steering wheel. In the same damn chassis. The real question is, what will I do with the '75 '02?

Tommy over at Avin usa is good to work with. The avant 2 I had was not a closed system. Install whatever you want. Liked everything about it until it failed to Bluetooth after 4 months. Tommy had an updated unit in my hands in a week or two.

Interested in how you get on with the avant 3. Talked to Tommy extensively about it but just didn't pull the trigger. Adding up all the goodies was nearing the $800 mark too quicky for my liking.

I don’t think the avin3 is closed system either the videos talks about play store and downloading what you want.


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I had the same reaction, it ended up about $772. It just costs more than the other android models but I needed the DSP plug n play feature. So many people have had problems with android and DSP it was one of the reasons I have been so hesitant to adopt the android HU. The rep confirmed it is truly plug n play with no additional wiring or squirreling away original head units somewhere. When I reminded him of the DSP problem in our community with other android vendors he told me they had been working on it for several years and had figured it out.

So I am willing to pay a $100-$150 premium for that alone. Also being a company based in the USA and support even on Sundays, I am willing to add an additional $100 in value. So ultimately it brings the price into range when you consider all the benefits and features.

^Oh it's a good head unit, and worth that $... as you say for the customer service especially. As a returning customer and due to the write up I did I was going to get a deal but I wanted to try a larger screen and android setup as well so went with the cheaper option. I might get an Avant 3 in the future if the one I bought doesn't "float my boat" during daily use.

Now I remember why I didn't pull the trigger at the time, he didn't have the front camera in stock. The one that replaces the front mirror trim. Was going to take a number of months to get it in so I waited. I was asking for all the options, front cam, rear cam, TPMS, etc.

Gosh. Between the lighting thread and all this yakking about HU.

TRUTH - I have never looked at the android units at all. Considered it way too after-markety. But that lighting thread talking about iBus control and whatnot - Ha. Got me to put on the honey-to-do list on how ya'll use the HU relative to the car

The HU right now for use does 1 thing only and 1 thing only. BT audio via spotify, and gps nav audio output via Waze or G Maps. Real time data nav is far superior to even the NAV with have with existing HU. The only NICE thing with the HU is the 3D scaling we get when in metro local streets

I didn't go with any options at all other than the IBus interface/DSP license and offline maps. I want to make sure I really like it before investing in the other features. Plus the cost with everything would require the CEO (Wifey) approval and with Christmas coming this month, well, I just won't go there... :rofl: