Kenwood Excelon DDX9905S Multimedia Receiver with Apple CarPlay & Android Auto

So, first off, this head unit is amazing. I love almost everything about it...enough to give it five stars. I put it in a 2016 F150. It took me many hours as I soldered the wires, rewrapped some of the harnessing and spent a significant amount of time making sure it was close to perfect behind the head unit, as well. Well worth the money and the time. I love the HD radio, Android Auto, DVD player and everything. It integrated perfectly with my steering wheel controls using the idatalink Maestro RR, and it all works like a charm.I waited for a head unit with wireless Android Auto because I didn't always want to have to plug in. Android Auto works well enough wireless, but it really can eat up the battery. So, I only use it on short trips. As far as I understand it, it's using it's own wifi to connect the head unit and phone, so it just eats the battery up more quickly. Thus, if I only use it on short trips, I don't really need it because I know where things are near me. I do plug it in, though, anytime there is any sort of a significant drive because it charges the phone and lets me use Android Auto. Those are my 2 cents.The only part that made this install possible (I've never really done anything like this before and so I was more seeing if I could), were the guys at Custom Sound & Tint. Not only did they take my call, but they walked me through everything I would need for the install in my vehicle. I never had to go to the store to pick up a single thing. They knew what I needed, gave me great prices and even got it shipped to my house in just a few days. Really, they went above and beyond for me and I would recommend the store even more than I would the head unit.

I previously had the DMX905S, I swapped it for the DDX905SPROS:BEAUTIFUL Screen - Not affected by Polarized SunglassesAMAZING Sound - This is an Excelon Reference series, flagship, top of the line, cream of the crop. It sounds AMAZING with factory speakers!FAST - Bootup times are SPEEDY, It's up and ready to go about 5-8 seconds after starting my vehiclePICTURES - Now you can have beautiful photo slideshowsGAUGES - Gauges are more beautiful on this HD screen than on the VGA Screens, and animate smoother.IDATALINK - iDataLink is more intuitive, my AC controls actually show all functionality and seem to work better than the DMX905sCARPLAY - Works great, looks great, apple maps, although not my favorite, look AMAZING compared to the non-reference model (dmx905s)CONS:Weblink - Kenwoods weblink is CLUNKY, i think it's ridiculous that, upon plugging, I always get a prompt asking if I want to allow weblink.WAZE - Waze, while it works, is CLUNKY/JUNKY - Good luck scrolling any menus. Single touches are fine, but you can't scroll or change voices, or many settings via the HU interface (iphone X, latest iOS)WEBLINK - I can't complain enough about weblink... SERIOUSLY, this think is supposed to be hands free compatible, why do I have to constantly push a bunch of buttons on my phone to use a function that's built in!NEUTRAL:Weblink can be used as a wired remote control in either driver mode or passenger mode, with difference controls available for bothI can't recommend this Head Unit enough!!!

Display is perfect! Bright, colorful, and visible with polarized sunglasses on and in sunlight! Can't go wrong with the Excelon series. Spend the extra $100 on the Excelon - it's worth it! It may be the 2018 version, but touch is fast and responsive. Firmware was just updated April 2019. The Kenwood UI is a little clunky with large text sizes that could be reduced or at least uniform throughout. Android Auto (wired AND wireless) works great on my Pixel 3 XL!

* Update 8/30/2018 - I've been running Android Pie for a few weeks now and sadly I can't say that anything has really changed with regards to Android Auto. Guess we still have to wait for an update to fix connection issues, etc.As an early adopter of this high end head unit I figured I should report back here with my thoughts. First off, I want to clarify that I bought this head unit specifically for Wireless Android Auto, and I don't use any other features on the head unit whatsoever. This review is based entirely on my experiences with Wireless Android Auto, connected to a first generation Google Pixel. I'll also try to skip some of the basic Android Auto stuff since there's tons of info available for that.Here's all my thoughts on the unit so far:Overall I really like the head unit and the Wireless Android Auto experience, but it's not quite ready for prime time yet. 4 stars for now with hopes that I can bump this up to 5 at some point in the future. There are some growing pains you will have to deal with if you take the plunge, most of which should be sorted out in future updates.Most importantly, make sure you update the firmware on the unit. I was getting tons of nasty pops and disconnects with the original firmware, but it's much better after updating to the release from May 2018. It's still not perfect, with only a couple of pops or skips a week now. This should continue to be improved with updates from both Kenwood and Google.Sounds quality is great. This is clearly a high end unit, and it sounds better than the stock head unit in my 2015 WRX Limited, with the upgraded Harman Kardon sound package.Be prepared for high data usage. I average about 10gb a month, streaming music through Google Play Music set to High Quality and running Google Maps at the same time, averaging about an hour a day.The phone gets hot, and it tears through battery life while connected. You'll definitely need to plug in the phone for long trips.The screen is great, but not perfect. It's beautiful to look at, high resolution, perfectly clear and readable, but sadly it's a fingerprint magnet like nothing I've ever used before. This issue is compounded by the fact that you still have to touch the screen for multiple actions which I'll detail below.I tried to work around the fingerprint issues with a screen protector, but that made the text blurry so I had to take it back off. I believe the display is mounted too far underneath the surface to keep the screen nice and crisp when using a screen protector. Side note - There were no screen protectors available for this unit at the time of purchase, so I bought one of the top rated iPad screen protectors and cut that down to size. I also tried that same screen protector on a phone to see if had the same issue but it did not, so I think the blurriness may be unique to this head unit.There is a really annoying WARNING screen every single time you turn on the unit. To get past this, you have to either touch a button on the screen, or wait 10 seconds.It takes a long time to boot up. Every single time I get in the car, I have to wait for the unit to boot up, go past that warning screen, wait for it to connect to my phone, and then switch to Android Auto. The entire process usually takes about 30 seconds or so, assuming it actually does connect, which brings me to my next point...It has trouble connecting to my Pixel automatically. About half of the time, it fails to connect the first time. I've found that rebooting the unit usually gets it to connect the second time, but sometimes it takes three or four tries. To reboot the unit, hold the Home button down for a second to turn it off completely, wait a couple seconds, then hold the Home button down again for second to turn it back on again. You then have to go through the entire boot process again, getting past the warning screen, etc. Given the fact that I'm having these types of issues with one of Google's flagship phones, I'm not entirely optimistic for how other phones may behave.When first starting up Android Auto, nothing happens automatically and you're dropped onto a weird home screen of sorts that I would personally never use. Music doesn't start playing automatically, and you can't see Google Maps on this screen either. This personally annoys the crap out of me, and causes me to have to touch the screen multiple times to get my music to start playing, and switch the view over to Google Maps so I can see live traffic.Steering wheel buttons can't be used to start playing your music where you left off, or switch between Android apps. I'm using an Axxess steering wheel controller which allows mapping any button to any supported head unit functionality, but there are currently no functions for either of these operations. For example, the Mode button on my steering wheel currently switches between head unit features, like FM radio, rather than switch between Maps and Music. I've reached out to Kenwood about this and they've added this suggestion to their list of possible feature enhancements for a future release.The Google Assistant works quite well, and can be mapped to the voice button on the steering wheel. I use this all the time for things like navigating to a new restaurant, or switch up the music. Note that as far as I can tell you can only start playing new track/band/album, and can't continue playing whatever you were playing before.Google Maps looks excellent on this high resolution display, although there is some strange color shifting from time to time. For example, if traffic on a specific street is clear in one direction but slow the other, the display of that street will sometimes quickly switch back and fourth between green and red. I've never seen this behavior on phone so I assume this is something with the way Google Maps is being rendered on the head unit.I know it sounds like I'm having lots of problems, but overall I'm actually really happy with it. Android Auto is so much better than what you get with a traditional stock head unit that it's totally worth it. It just needs a few more updates to work out all the kinks. Android Auto is still in the early stages, so some growing pains should be expected.I'll try to update this review as major updates occur.