CX-5 AppRadio 3 Ep 4

Follow up from the earlier post that few pending items to complete the installation of AppRadio:

• To reactivate the stock backup/reverse/rear camera.
• To reuse the OE/stock USB port in the center console.
• To activate Bose's center dash speaker when playing music from phone i.e. Spotify.

I bought the step down transformer and USB cable off eBay/Amazon to achieve the first 2 items...

I will go through one by one, and share as well things that I discovered over the use of more than a month. 

Here's a very good sharing in Mazda247 forum on reviving the stock camera. As usual, I headed to KL Auto to complete the job. It's recommended to get a 6V step down transformer, we tested few 5V but the camera couldn't work with them. Here's the end result...

The Axxess MazUSB cable is a failure. The cable plugged in perfectly at both ends but returned "disk error" when thumb drive was inserted. Same thumb drive was used to upgrade firmware through direct cable from AppRadio 3 without issue. Someone also mentioned in the Mazda247 forum that the cable is not compatible with CX-5's USB. In the end, 2 cables must be maintained, the USB and HDMI... 

The third pending item is an interesting result. I thought we would have to hack the Bose processor to get it functional, it was instead just a simple tweak in the phone setting! After you have everything works as expected, go to phone Bluetooth setting while the it is connected to the AppRadio 3...

Simply disable media audio and voila! The audio will be streaming through the HDMI connection. The center dash speaker or Bose called it "CenterPilot" will be enabled and the music estate is much more broader and enjoyable than before! More to that, the AudioPilot feature is also active when the car is moving fast, I noticed it only gets activated when drive beyond 120km/h. AudioPilot is the feature that Bose named as a noise cancelling feature that turns up the volume according to the vehicle speed. I believe these Bose features would not be available with aftermarket head unit if the original cables were cut.

With above, I can confidently say this project was successfully executed! Thanks to KL Auto and members in Mazda247 forum for all the professional advises and knowledge sharing. Leave your comment (requires G+ profile) if you have questions.

p/s: Google released Android Lollipop recently, I probably write a post later to share what needs attention to making sure the phone still works with AppRadio 3 after the Lollipop upgrade. Stay tuned. ;)

CX-5: AppRadio 3 Ep1
CX-5: AppRadio 3 Ep2
CX-5: AppRadio 3 Ep3
CX-5: AppRadio 3 Ep5