Kenwood DNX525 and iPhone 6

kevinday909 · Mar 16, 2015

Hi Guys,

I am new to this site. Cali has just arrived in the country and will be picking it up at the weekend. We are (were) going to have this unit fitted, but looking at Kenwood's website it appears that an iPhone 6 will only work for phone but you can't connect it at a source.

Has anyone had any experience with this as not sure to change the unit or the phone!

Thanks

Kevin

motacyclist · Mar 16, 2015

Hi Kevin, welcome to the forum.

I'm not familiar with that Kenwood you mention, but if it won't work properly with popular phones it's not really fit for purpose so it may be worth looking at an alternative head unit.

Colin

kevinday909 · Mar 17, 2015

Thanks Colin... It is a VW approved component and seems to work with every other phone under the sun apart from an iPhone 6!

Cheers

doug · Mar 17, 2015

Hi Kevin,

I have one of these units and an iPhone 5S which works well as a music source and it also displays mirrors the iphone home screen, plays iphone videos / films etc with the right cables attached. As the iphone 6 has the same operating system and connector i would be amazed if it didnt work.
Maybe the documentation for the unit was written before the iPhone 6 was released.

Keith from Kenwood is on this site periodically - maybe you can PM him. He fitted and set-up my unit for me at SMG (its a long story!), and did a great job by the way, he would know for sure.

Doug

Splitrich · Mar 17, 2015

Slightly concerned as I'm having this fitted to mine which I collect next Monday.

What does it not do? Can you connect the iPhone 6 through Bluetooth, make and receive calls?

kevinday909 · Mar 17, 2015

Thanks Doug - on the Kenwood site it specifically states iPhone 5 supported, iPhone 6 isn't. Maybe something to do with screen size?

http://www.kenwood-electronics.co.uk/car/oem/vwc/DNX525DAB/?view=support

Splitrich, yes it will connect through BT for phone calls etc, but it appears as though there may be a problem streaming music. I agree with Doug that it shouldn't make a big difference as OS is the same.

Finally, I have asked the question on a T5 owners site - if anything decent comes back from that I will post it here.

Cheers

marshian70 · Mar 17, 2015

I'm currently looking for a replacement for my RCD310 and am considering the Kenwood's.
I may be wrong but from the research I have done it would appear that the problem with iphone's not connecting relates to changes Apple make on successive generations, rather than Kenwood. Clearly Kenwood have no direct control over this although you would hope it would be possible to update the systems firmware to work.
I have read that people with the previous DNX 521 model seem to have no issues with the iphone 4 and earlier, but iphone 5 is an issue for them, in the same way that iphone 6 appears not to offer full compatibility with DNX 525.
You may want to try contacting Kenwood directly for advice - there is an email address on their website