[TrasH OppA]

I m writing this to help other members.
I saw other members who bought an identical headunit to mine and he seemed to have no sound issue which I am having as well and I kinda have figured out why after researching a bit.

It seems that the factory wire harness pin "21" is a turn-on/off switch for the factory amp. The Chinese wire harness indeed has the pin 21 wired BUT it is not directly coming from the android headunit but coming from a CANBUS accessory which you will understand from the photos below. I will keep updated. The Chinese android wire harness from the android headunit to the honda factory wireharness I assume is for NAVI units, not for non-navi units.

FYI, I bought the top of the line model that comes with built-in dash kit and I liked the dash kit due to how it is angled toward the driver for easier touch. Also the android unit has a built in steering wheel control so the volume button was working although there was no sound. Once sound is solved, it would be a good one.

HOWEVER, you must have a dremel with a tiny cutting disc ready because the emergency signal button which you will transfer from the factory HU to this android HU dash kit won't FIT. you need to modify it a bit to make the button fit. Also the button will get stuck if you flush fit the android unit to the dash kit because they physically conflict each other at some point. So I had to make sure the android headunit was a bit extruded (not perfectly in flush with the dash kit) by 1 cm on the lower end part and place the emergency button a bit behind where it's supposed to be so that the emergency button won't get stuck once I pressed it.
In other words, the emergency button in unpressed state would look as if it is pressed compared to the factory headunit while the pressed state would look like if somebody hammered it to make the button go all the way in to make it even surfaced with the dash kit surface.

The android, although no sound, due to choosing the fastest speed with big ram (6GB), and big storage space (i think it was 128 gb), the touch feeling was fabulous. I have a decent NAKAMICHI and BOSS touch screen headunits on my other cars and this android surpasses all of them in terms of smoothness and responsiveness. Very impressed actually.
I will try to figure out the no sound issue by today or tomorrow but I posted some photos for your reference what I am meaning by the android wire harness maybe not for non-navi.

So here is the back of the headunit photo.

And this is the android headunit harness pin diagram.

Another photo of back of the unit at a different angle.

You see my index finger and mid finger pointing the pink wires.
The mid finger is pointing the pink wire of the Chinese wire-harness to connect to the factory wire-harness while the index finger is pointing where the pink wire to Chinese wire-harness is coming from. It's coming from an accessory unit for CANBUS.

So this was when I figured out that the Wireharness "21" was NOT directly connected from the android headunit but a CANBUS accessory.

And as you can see in this photo, the CANBUS accessory has in port and output port, and the output port wire harness is not relevant to my EX non navi car.

This is the Honda Factory wireharness and my Thumb is indicating the pink wire which is the PIN "21". On a different post from this CRZ forum, I saw a diagram indicating that the PIN "21" would be WHITE but not my unit. Mine was pink and mine is 2011 which the diagram indiciated (2011-2013).

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I couldn't find a factory harness that matched this one. Hence I assume, this maybe is a NAVI unit.

This is a factory harness and the android unit does not have a harness to match this.

 

[TrasH OppA]

Currently, the illumination function is not working. No difference in brightness when headlight is on or off.

I think I may have to find the corresponding factory pins and manually rewire them with crimping tools.

 

[TrasH OppA]

Not sure if this information will help, but as I was browsing the Teyes CR-Z Android headunits, I noticed this on the product page "NOTE: If using the harness with canbus - amp output should be turned up if you have no sound. This will allow the factory amp to turn on."

I think that's a different wire harness.

I did a in-depth research and compared the diagrams of the harnesses.
Apparently they sent me a CR-V harness with a canbus harness.
Some of the pin outs were missing. One for illumination, hence when turning on and off the head light, it didn't change the brightness level of the screen. Amp turn on & Off switch (Pin 21 of 24 pins) was wired but it was directly hooked to the CANBUS accessory harness, not from the headunit power harness, hence it did not receive the signal. The headunit power harness connected the power wire to canbus and then to the honda harness that's why the power was cut.

In short, they sent me a wrong harness that just had 2 of the 3 matching harnesses (1 missing is the HFL unit I assume).

I have a metra harness for Honda without the RCAs (1730), but the typical colorful wires so I am going to cut the android harness wires and reconnect with this proper Honda metro harness as this one seems to have all the necessary cables in the right places (amp turn on/off is called as POWER ANTENNA on Honda Metra), illumination, ground, and 12V.

I will give an update after this.

 

[TrasH OppA]

Now that you mention it, I've seen the "CRV" label on a harness from some other persons photo seen here 2022 aftermarket radio system , it should be the third photo. They just posted a few pictures about wiring the android headunit. Apparently, he was successful with the installation. It should be a very similar installation since the Chinese Android head units are pretty much all the same.

I installed it and now I'm having an issue as this Android harness indeed has 2 pins for Steering Wheel Control but they are not wired.... literally empty. I had to buy a Honda metra harness and rewire all of them and now the sound is working but there is an issue and it seems it's impossible to fix.

The static white/grey noise is there. According to my research, it seems it's impossible to fix as this is a very common issue among Chinese android products.

 

[TrasH OppA]

Update

Android 10 Head Unit Install (2011 EX with subwoofer)

I decided to bite the bullet and ordered this Android head unit from Aliexpress. I chose the CS1-4-64-WIFI-4G - an 8-core model with 4GB of RAM, 4G, upgraded display, and wireless CarPlay. It set me back $299.35 USD shipped to Canada. Mounting As I'd read others say about these, the mounts...

www.crzforum.com

This member exactly has the same unit as I do and already posted an installation guide.

However, he said that he is experiencing white/static noise from the android unit and it's pretty loud and he thought it was due to the Metra Honda harness with RCA jacks but I can confirm that I'm experiencing the noise issue although I'm using a different harness which is a traditional one.

But there was still a problem beside the static noise issue, the harness that came with the Android head unit which is a 16 pin KENWOOD harness is missing 2 wires. Only 14 of them are used of 16. The 2 missing wires are Key #1 and Key #2 which are used for Steering Wheel Control.

Therefore, I had to buy another Kenwood style harness from Amazon but guess what, the Amazon harness also was missing the same two wires. Only 14 of 16 pins were used.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07XJXB8V7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It came with 1 extra wire with a pin terminal so that you have an option to add but I need two of these.

Also another problem is that the Metra 1729 Honda Harness does not seem to have wires for the steering wheel controls either. I can do use a T-splice to tap into the factory wires which I do not prefer as I want to leave them as original as possible but I guess there is no choice to solve this issue.

 

[TrasH OppA]

Sound Quality Review

When I changed all of the speakers and tweeters (Front with top of the line JBL 605C Stadium and rears with entry level Hertz 2-way coaxial), I had noticed a significant improvement with the Honda Factory Head Unit, but something seemed to be blocking the potential of the JBL speakers.

I mean they are literally the top of the line according to JBL and I was expecting some more dramatic change, but well, I could say that at least it improved a lot in clarity while the bass was slightly more.


After changing the head unit, beside the WHITE/STATIC noise issue, I have noticed a dramatic improvement in SQ. I can literally feel the front JBL mid woofers are hitting as hard as the factory 8" subwoofer, literally. The tweeters are very crisp and clear to the point and it's so much louder. Apparently the android unit's maximum volume is 30 of 30, but it's a bit hard for me to go beyond 9 of 30 due to the loudness of the speakers.

I can definitely feel that the JBL front midwoofers are generating bass as much as the rear factory subwoofer. Maybe the factory 8" sub is making slightly more bass. I am to add a subwoofer in a box or replace the factory 8" sub with a pioneer or a kicker 8" one with an amp so I will see how it goes.

The EQ setting for Android unit is very detailed. Unlike the factory HU which has only 4 (bass, mid, high, and subwoofer), this goes by Hz starting from 20Hz all the way up to 20k Hz and it gradually increases from 20Hz to 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, etc like that, making it more than 4 or 5 pages to change the setting of EQ. Each page has about 16 (ex: 20,25,30,40,50,60, etc, next page : 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, ... and so on) bars that you can play with. It is really fun to play with the EQ and the sound just changes dramatically depending on how you change the setting so I guess I will be having fun playing with the EQ to find my ideal customized setting after I add a subwoofer.

Overall, ONLY if this unit did not cause the white static noise, it would have been 10 of 10 but unfortunately it seems to be impossible to fix. I followed all the tips from my research but it did not fix the issue.

Well, maybe this is due to the factoy amp. When I upgraded my Acura TL head unit to a Nakamichi HU, it caused static noise as well when I used the factory amp, but when I by-passed the amp and used the Nakamichi HU to power the speakers, the static noise was gone. Maybe something I should look into but everything takes too much time for me so maybe I will do that experiment later. I still have to install a backup cam, dash cam, dynamat the doors, etc and I'm tired already lol.

 

[TrasH OppA]

Update.

Backup Camera = did not work at first but when I went to settings to change it from NTSC to PAL, the camera started working. Good. 720P.

Front dash Camera = still not working, figuring out what to do

*Harness = so this is the main problem here. I figured out that the harness that came with the android HU is Kenwood generic 16 pin harness specifically but the one that the seller sent with pre-wired with Honda CRZ harness UNFORTUNATELY ONLY HAD 14 PINS!! 2 PINS ARE MISSING!! (Steering Wheel Control Keys #1 & #2) so steering wheel keys won't work!!

So what I had to do was to buy an extra Honda metra harness that had "FULL"

So I had to buy a Honda harness with full 16 pins and another Kenwood harness with full 16 pins. I bought them on Aliexpress as I could not find the full 16 pins version.
I bought them on Amazon (Metra, Red Wolf, and other brands) but surprisingly they all did not have full 16 pins but 14 pins only. SWC key pins were missing.
Hence until the new harness arrives, I temporarily am using the android HU without SWC key function.



Issues
1. As stated above, the grey static noise is there. The grey static noise increases as the volume increases.
2. Sometimes, the left side of the speakers loses the audio signal and stops playing audio or whatever that's supposed to play and starts causing really loud grey noise at a higher pitch. The right side is fine.
This has happened 2 times so far until now.
3. Sometimes when you turn on the car, the Android boots from the very first 0%. Until it reaches 100% which takes about 10 seconds, you can not use the backup camera. Sometimes Android turns on instantly, sometimes it loads from the very beginning, so I really don't know.
4. Wireless Android Car Connect has issues and always gets disconnected for some reason so I don't even care about this feature.

Sound Quality issue besides the grey noise
1. The EQ is great and fun to play with but let me tell you something. Normally when you have an aftermarket subwoofer hooked up and change EQ of higher frequencies, usually you can feel the subwoofer continuously pumping the bass at the same rate. Unfortunately, this is not the case with this android unit. When you change the higher frequencies, you can feel that this music player intentionally kills/sacrifices the bass to make the higher frequencies sound crisper and the bass is weakened significantly.

2. At volume 7 of 30, it's already too loud with the normal EQ setting where everything is set to 0 db or below 6db on some frequencies. I have a 380w rms amp @ 4ohm and my 12" pioneer sub is rated at 400ish w rms if I remember correctly. But as mentioned above, you never feel the thump of the bass as the higher frequencies setting KILLS the bass intentionally. So the only solution I came up with was two. Do something with the EQ to find the right point OR change the music player app.

3. I tried changing the music player app but there were some issues with the interface. The default fast forward/play buttons on the android main menu screen DOES NOT support the other music player apps. I tried changing the gadget if possible but NOPE.

4. So I had to change the EQ and what I had to do was make everything -12db to flatten all the frequencies equally and boost up some frequencies that I liked but still the sound is not as good or crispy/clear as the regular EQ settings where things are above 0 db.



Other objectives to do.

1. I want to connect the Factory mic to this android unit and there seems to be a way apparently. No, I won't use the factory handsfree.
The android unit comes with a 3.5mm input so if I can get a 3.5mm male with positive and minus wires, I can maybe t-splice or whatever to make it work.

2. I want to use the factory USB port and it seems like there is a way to from my quick research.


Bottom Line
It's a great unit with many great features with a typical Made in China quality and hardware glitches. I doubt it has any issue with the android OS as it runs fine.
The touch screen is great. I like the feel, but the static noise is really something difficult to get used to. If you drive a lot on highways/freeways where road noise overpowers the grey noise and not an audiophile, then I assume you can use this unit. If not, then just get a better head unit with some reputation which does not cause any static noise issues. I bought this unit as it had great features like being able to record front dash cam, 4G, Wifi, android car connection, fast CPU, rams, 128GB storage, etc.

If this unit does not have those above issues I mentioned, then there is no doubt. This would be a bang-for-the-buck all-in-one package deal.




Any questions would be welcome.

 

[TrasH OppA]

Update on static noises.

I saw a YT video of a Honda Civic owner with premium audio and I assume it's exactly the same as our CR-Z or Honda Accord because the audio spec is the same in numbers. (Way to save $$$$ for companies).
So basically, the Honda factory amp is designed to get LINE-INPUT/NON-AMPLIFIED low frequency signals but the harness is directly connected to Speaker-Level/Amplified high frequency input from the android HU. Therefore, due to the amplified/powered high frequency, the factory amp is receiving more than necessary powered signals, hence causes static noises. He fixed the static noise issues by changing it to the RCA pre-outputs. However, this guy had a decent brand (Pioneer I think) head unit. Some members with a Chinese head unit like mine, says still some static noises are occurring even after using the RCA pre-outs but I doubt it would be louder and higher pitched than mine.
I ordered some RCA splitters and a new harness to work on the Steering Wheel Control and make it work with RCA pre-outs like Metra 1730.

Any question is welcome.