MIB2 (2016) to MIB2 v2 (2019) observations

[KevinC]

I traded my '16 R for a '19 over the weekend. Some observations regarding the differences in the infotainment system:

- Whoever thought a glossy screen and capacitive buttons was some sort of advancement should be shot. Yeah, it all looks very nice - when clean, which is immediately after wiped clean. After even slight use, fingerprints and dust are visible everywhere. And the capacitive buttons are easy to hit accidentally, made worse by the fact that the volume/tuning knobs are shorter than before, putting your hand closer to the screen during operation. The screen resolution is the same as before, so other than perhaps the appearance of better color saturation on the glossy screen, nothing about this seems better to me.

- SiriusXM sounded pretty damn good - For SiriusXM - in my '16. It sounds even better here. Newer codecs to decode the highly compressed stream? I dunno but sound quality is a notch above the older system, and dare I say is better than conventional FM stereo (but not as good as HD radio). This is a big deal to me as I live in the sticks and use SXM a LOT.

- Overall sound seems slightly better, and the speakers aren't even broken in yet. A bit punchier to my ear, and the mids, which are lacking in general, are lacking less now. However, music from my SD card seems ever-so-slightly harsher and more digital-sounding than before. The brain in the '16 was a German-made TechniSat, while now it's the "B" revision and I presume that means it's a Delphi unit. All kinds of stuff potentially could be different internally.

- 95% of my music on SD card is AAC format, with the remainder in MP3 VBR (variable bitrate) format direct from Amazon. Those Amazon files used to display "VBR" in tiny print in the lower right when playing - now ALL music shows VBR, which isn't accurate.

- The old car had text message functionality, and it's now missing. The owner's manual makes reference to it being there but only "in certain markets". So apparently we lost it. Bummer, it was quite handy - showed an envelope icon if you'd received a message and was pretty quick & easy to read incoming messages.

- I figured out how to get a map update! Just buy a new car! <<facepalm>>

- Speaking of nav, some of the city/street names are now displayed bigger and bolder than before, and I don't care for the look of it - it was fine before, everything was already big & legible.. much moreso than Google Maps or Waze via CarPlay. Very minor gripe.

- Thanks to the relatively large center display in the digital instrument cluster, music info now includes album art and overall looks really nice. I'll probably use it more often than before - like when using nav.

Everything else seems similar to before and works as expected. Map display in the center of the instrument cluster is neat, but seems mostly gimmicky and not particularly useful as displayed, plus you lose it off the main screen while doing this.

 

[edrex]

- The old car had text message functionality, and it's now missing. The owner's manual makes reference to it being there but only "in certain markets". So apparently we lost it. Bummer, it was quite handy - showed an envelope icon if you'd received a message and was pretty quick & easy to read incoming messages.

Do you mean as part of CarPlay/Android Auto or are you saying you could read texts on the screen outside of those services on your 16?

 

[KevinC]

Do you mean as part of CarPlay/Android Auto or are you saying you could read texts on the screen outside of those services on your 16?

Outside of CarPlay - natively with just the VW standard software. I didn't even realize the capability was there until about a year ago, it's not enabled by default. Such a handy feature. I only ever used it to read incoming messages, though it allows you to compose outgoing messages as well.

 

[KevinC]

Update: Text messaging functionality restored. The issue was a setting in my phone. To enable it (iOS 13), you have to go to the VW Bluetooth connection's settings, and enable "Show Notifications", which is off by default. Cool beans.

 

[kevinkar]

I traded my '16 R for a '19 over the weekend. Some observations regarding the differences in the infotainment system:
- Whoever thought a glossy screen and capacitive buttons was some sort of advancement should be shot.

Congrats. And yes, a valid use for a bullet. For this issue I bought one of those screen covers off Amazon for $10. While it's still a dust magnet, it's way better against fingerprints and I have noticed no issues with touch. Best $10 spent on the car so far.

However, music from my SD card seems ever-so-slightly harsher and more digital-sounding than before. The brain in the '16 was a German-made TechniSat, while now it's the "B" revision and I presume that means it's a Delphi unit. All kinds of stuff potentially could be different internally.

Your music is in AAC and MP3 (both compressed) and a "better" system can make them sound worse (or more "accurate" and thus, worse.) All my music is FLAC ripped from my own CDs using Exact Audio Copy and, to me, they all sound pretty freaking fantastic and better than Sirius/XM as they are not compressed at all. I will agree that modern Sirius/XM equipment and maybe better compression makes satellite radio sound better than ever but it's still not as good as a good FLAC (which is AT LEAST CD quality.) I presume you have some CDs of your favorite music so you should try ripping some FLAC files and compare them to what you have now. I bet they sound better than the AAC/MP3s. Or, since the car has a CD player in it, you could pop that in and compare to what you have on the SD card? Have a friend get in the car and try to replicate a blind test with them flipping back and forth between the sources while your eyes are closed.

- I figured out how to get a map update! Just buy a new car!

Grrrrr!

- Thanks to the relatively large center display in the digital instrument cluster, music info now includes album art and overall looks really nice. I'll probably use it more often than before - like when using nav.

I had to struggle getting that to work in my '18 using OBD11. Finally got it to work. Also got station logos to show as well but that's still dependent on the stations broadcasting the info for it. But all my album art shows on both main screen and dash screen. Interesting it's enabled on the '19s.

Map display in the center of the instrument cluster is neat, but seems mostly gimmicky and not particularly useful as displayed, plus you lose it off the main screen while doing this.

I find this one of the most useful things - I just have to glance down instead of down and to the right. Plus the main screen shows music so I guess it's a choice between music info in the dash or main screen and map data vice versa. I prefer map in the dash and music in the main screen. Don't forget you can make the map bigger in the dash by displaying it and pressing OK which will reduce the tachometer and speedometers and increase the map area. Not a lot but it's definitely more.

 

[KyACRASH]

I had to struggle getting that to work in my '18 using OBD11. Finally got it to work. Also got station logos to show as well but that's still dependent on the stations broadcasting the info for it. But all my album art shows on both main screen and dash screen. Interesting it's enabled on the '19s.

Do you remember where this was in OBD11? I had to replace my glovebox unit and the new one does not have the art activated to display in the AID like my old one did...

 

[KevinC]

Your music is in AAC and MP3 (both compressed) and a "better" system can make them sound worse (or more "accurate" and thus, worse.) All my music is FLAC ripped from my own CDs using Exact Audio Copy and, to me, they all sound pretty freaking fantastic and better than Sirius/XM as they are not compressed at all. I will agree that modern Sirius/XM equipment and maybe better compression makes satellite radio sound better than ever but it's still not as good as a good FLAC (which is AT LEAST CD quality.) I presume you have some CDs of your favorite music so you should try ripping some FLAC files and compare them to what you have now.

I've done the FLAC taste test in the other car. To my ear, and within the limits of the good-but-not-great Fender system, the car environment, road noise, etc., 256k AAC or similar VBR MP3 files sound virtually the same. Now if I sit down at home and compare to FLAC via my decent wired headphones and Audioengine external DAC, then yeah, I can probably pick which is which in a blind test. Maybe. It's a shame that VW doesn't support ALAC, somewhat surprising since the system does support SO many other formats, because if it did, then it would be super easy for me to just use a bigger card and export my stuff in that format. But for all the work it would take to re-rip them in FLAC, I'm not going to bother. But your point is well-taken.

I went on an extended cruise today and cranked up some of my AAC stuff and it sounded great. Whatever I was detecting as "additional harshness" wasn't evident to my ears today. And still sounding slightly punchier than the other car, so I'm a happy camper.

 

[KevinC]

Update: Text messaging functionality restored. The issue was a setting in my phone. To enable it (iOS 13), you have to go to the VW Bluetooth connection's settings, and enable "Show Notifications", which is off by default. Cool beans.

Well, a fly in the ointment. Can't use this function with the car in motion, along with a lot of other trivial stuff. Can this be enabled via OBDeleven?

 

[KevinC]

Here's an example of album art in the center display..

Here's another question - I hate the temp/fuel displays with their Americanized C - H and E - F labeling - yuck! Is it possible to code it to make them display like Europeans (and probably everybody else - Canada?) gets, as below? Without causing other undesirable changes?

 

[kevinkar]

Do you remember where this was in OBD11? I had to replace my glovebox unit and the new one does not have the art activated to display in the AID like my old one did...

I'm not sure this is complete but it's in the file I saved after doing the mods:

Add Station Art to Dash
Adaptation
Control unit: 5F Information Control Unit
Name: Dashboard_Display_Configuration
Values:
stationart:
Old value: Off
New value: On

Add Cover Art to Dash
Adaptation
Control unit: 5F Information Control Unit
Name: Dashboard_Display_Configuration
Values:
coverart:
Old value: Off
New value: On

The problem with this was that I don't think the changes worked until I also changed the dash display to a different style as well as having to hard reboot the radio (press down on the on/off button until it restarts) If you do the above changes, you may also have to change the dash style like this:

Change Dash Display
Adaptation
Control unit: 17 Dash Board
Name: Display depiction
Values:
Old value: Version 2
New value: Version 4

I believe this changed the speedo to a more realistic 160MPH (200MPH is just stupid if it can't actually get there) as well as changing the tachometer to something a bit less funky.

Once all those were done, I think the station/album art started showing up for me.

 

[kevinkar]

I've done the FLAC taste test in the other car...... But for all the work it would take to re-rip them in FLAC, I'm not going to bother. But your point is well-taken.

I went on an extended cruise today and cranked up some of my AAC stuff and it sounded great. Whatever I was detecting as "additional harshness" wasn't evident to my ears today. And still sounding slightly punchier than the other car, so I'm a happy camper.

I find you get used to the sound if you listen to it enough (unless it's actually crap which you can't really ever enjoy) but sounds like you have source data that's reasonable so it should sound good as is.

I originally ripped all my music using Musicmatch Jukebox (back in the day) and it was fine until I bought a newfangled HD audio player (Fiio X5) and found out how short they fell from the mark and I ended up re-ripping in FLAC using EAC and some pretty aggressive settings for the best possible results. Took literally over a year to re-rip 1,200 CDs. So I know what you mean.

 

[kevinkar]

Well, a fly in the ointment. Can't use this function with the car in motion, along with a lot of other trivial stuff. Can this be enabled via OBDeleven?

Might be part of this whole list of items:

Unblock Infotainment Screens
Adaptation
Control unit: 5F Information Control Unit
Name: Locked menu contents
Values:
FB_PHONE_6:
Old value: blocked
New value: non_blocked
FB_TUNER_3:
Old value: blocked
New value: non_blocked
FB_CAR_7:
Old value: blocked
New value: non_blocked
FB_MISC_9:
Old value: blocked
New value: non_blocked

There are more but didn't want to make a ridiculously long post. I just changed them ALL to non_blocked.

 

[KevinC]

^^ Sweet.. I just messed with this, wow what a long list of stuff, no way to know what's controlling what, other than "PHONE" etc. So I only unblocked the 5 phone-related ones, which were 0,4,5,6,7. I'll find out in the morning if that does the trick. I was about to just unblock everything but didn't want to create a disaster that would be a PITA to undo.

 

[KevinC]

Update: making the above changes worked, now able to see text messages in motion. Thanks kk!

 

[kevinkar]

Update: making the above changes worked, now able to see text messages in motion. Thanks kk!

Glad it worked. Would like it if there was a better way to know what did what but, in this case not knowing what could still be blocked, it made sense to just unblock them all.