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      09-19-2015, 02:15 PM   #1
3002 tii
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AirEnabler Install DIY: Wireless Digital Audio in 15 Mins

I've been using the Intravee for few years and it's great for what it is. But really wanted a better way to play music digitally without being bound to my 10 year old iPod. Enter AirEnabler.

I purchased this for my X3 but I realized it's better suited for the Z4. It basically has an audio jack that connects to any aux port. You then plug the microusb cable to any usb port to power the device. The device creates a wifi signal in which your iPhone can connect to. You're probably thinking well it's still feeding off the aux port so isn't the quality average at best? Simple solution is to add cheap DAC. My total cost $86

Here's my setup:

1. AirEnabler $60
2. Hardwire kit $14
3. DAC $9
4. Audio cable $3
5. Generic wire taps

As always you do this at your own risk. I'm not responsible for you damaging your vehicle. Feel free to watch this video before for removing the trim. It's pretty short but it'll make everything below easier to understand.



1. Remove the ash tray assembly. If you remove the ash tray itself, you'll see a screw that secures the entire assembly. Unscrew it and pull the assembly out. You don't need to disconnect the wire plugs that feed into cig lighter or other buttons (traction, heated seats, etc.).








2. Remove the shift boot. You really don't need to remove the entire center trim like below (Picture is there for reference). I removed literally just the leather boot (which snaps in/out), and the foam by the shifter.



3. Use some trim tools to remove the access panel under the HVAC controls (above the ash tray). My 07 came equipped with an aux port pre-installed here.



The panel is secured via clips. If you pop that open, you can disconnect the aux cable port from the panel.

4. Connect the DAC on USB side of AirEnabler and then connect your 1/8th plug from DAC to the factory aux port.





5. Connect the microusb hardwire kit to AirEnabler and tuck the device and wiring under the trim (as instructed in the YouTube video above).



6. Last thing you need to do is power the device. I posted another thread here asking how the sport button was powered. I just used wire taps for ground & power onto my sport button (brown/black is ground and green/yellow/blue for power). One thing to note is the button trim is quite fragile so it might be easier to tap power elsewhere. You could use an add-a-fuse from the glovebox and just route the wiring behind the kick panel up to the ash tray.

7. Put everything back in reverse order. Turn on the car, wait 20 second for the AirEnabler to power up. Connect to the wifi network on your iPhone and then choose AirPlay. Switch iPhone to AirEnabler. Set the radio to Aux and start playing your favorite tunes, wirelessly with digital quality! =)
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Last edited by 3002 tii; 04-24-2017 at 11:08 PM..
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      09-20-2015, 12:20 AM   #2
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Got a picture of your final setup?
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      09-21-2015, 07:58 AM   #3
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I need a picture too because it looks like quite a few wires and extra items that won't fit in our tiny ashtray. The video shows all the components sitting in a little cubby that we don't have in our cars.
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      09-21-2015, 06:27 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Twixboy View Post
I need a picture too because it looks like quite a few wires and extra items that won't fit in our tiny ashtray. The video shows all the components sitting in a little cubby that we don't have in our cars.
Flick on the first video in my original post. It shows how to remove the ash tray and the ample space you have to tuck that tiny little device.

Pics now included.
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      09-21-2015, 10:27 PM   #5
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I tried to do something similar, but I tried the easy way. Since I already had the AUX in the ashtray I got one of these http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Techno...arette+lighter then I figure I could run a short aux cable from the aux input into the bluetooth device.

Unfortunately every aux cable I could find stuck out too much so I could not close the ashtray lid. I may have to try something like this.
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      09-22-2015, 04:39 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps View Post
I tried to do something similar, but I tried the easy way. Since I already had the AUX in the ashtray I got one of these http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Techno...arette+lighter then I figure I could run a short aux cable from the aux input into the bluetooth device.

Unfortunately every aux cable I could find stuck out too much so I could not close the ashtray lid. I may have to try something like this.
Keep in mind though you lose a lot of quality with Bluetooth whereas wifi is lossless.
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      09-22-2015, 07:08 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by 3002 tii View Post

6. Last thing you need to do is power the device. I'm a fan of Add-a-Fuses but I didn't want to make this more complicated than it needs to be (i.e. remove more panels and snake a wire to the fuse box). I posted another thread here asking how the sport button was powered. I just used wire taps for ground & power onto my sport button. But to cut through it, I tapped into brown/black for ground and green/yellow/blue for power.
I missed this the first time, so this is what you were up to! Could you just tap the cigarette lighter? Thanks for the pictures, they are great. But no thanks for adding things to my to-do list for the Z4
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      09-22-2015, 09:30 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 3002 tii View Post
Keep in mind though you lose a lot of quality with Bluetooth whereas wifi is lossless.
A direct wire is less lossless

I have to admit that the more I think about this mod, the less I understand the usefulness. I mean the aux jack is right there already...is it that much of a hassle to just plug in the one cable? The only advantage I can think of is the wear and tear on the jack itself if you use it on every single drive.
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      09-22-2015, 10:04 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by XMetal View Post
A direct wire is less lossless

I have to admit that the more I think about this mod, the less I understand the usefulness. I mean the aux jack is right there already...is it that much of a hassle to just plug in the one cable? The only advantage I can think of is the wear and tear on the jack itself if you use it on every single drive.
I guess it's all relative. I personally think an aux cable by itself sounds terrible. Spend the $9 and connect an external DAC, it makes a huge difference. If you appreciate the improved audio quality with a DAC, this mod makes more sense since you don't have to worry about extra wires or hardware in the way. I guess it's similar to anyone who hard wires their radar, less clutter.

And in general it's just a small way to bring this 7 year old car closer to the standard features sound on any car nowadays. When I used this in my X3, it would allow any passenger to load up their music without having to pass the phone forward or run a longer wire. And I don't want to have to deal with pairing someone's phone every time via BT (plus added benefit of wifi offering better quality over BT).

As to why I didn't tap the cig lighter, I don't daily the car so didn't want anything constantly powered.
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      09-22-2015, 01:08 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 3002 tii View Post
I guess it's all relative. I personally think an aux cable by itself sounds terrible. Spend the $9 and connect an external DAC, it makes a huge difference. If you appreciate the improved audio quality with a DAC, this mod makes more sense since you don't have to worry about extra wires or hardware in the way. I guess it's similar to anyone who hard wires their radar, less clutter.

And in general it's just a small way to bring this 7 year old car closer to the standard features sound on any car nowadays. When I used this in my X3, it would allow any passenger to load up their music without having to pass the phone forward or run a longer wire. And I don't want to have to deal with pairing someone's phone every time via BT (plus added benefit of wifi offering better quality over BT).

As to why I didn't tap the cig lighter, I don't daily the car so didn't want anything constantly powered.
Unless, that is, they have an android phone... I looked this up to see if it would work for my LG. It won't. iPhone only.
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      09-22-2015, 02:00 PM   #11
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Quote:
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Unless, that is, they have an android phone... I looked this up to see if it would work for my LG. It won't. iPhone only.
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't even realize the Air Enabler was only for iOS. The idea is great though - something that lets me wirelessly stream Pandora and Waze navigation through my OEM sound system for under $100? I wonder if there is an Android alternative.
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      09-22-2015, 03:48 PM   #12
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Man talk about a tough crowd lol. There's droid equivalent devices out there. I just searched in Amazon and found something called AirMusic wifi. It's probably the same exact thing (spend total of 8 seconds reading it).
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      09-22-2015, 09:40 PM   #13
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Quote:
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Man talk about a tough crowd lol. There's droid equivalent devices out there. I just searched in Amazon and found something called AirMusic wifi. It's probably the same exact thing (spend total of 8 seconds reading it).
LOL I'm not trying to be tough, I'm just technologically stupid. Georgia Tech should be ashamed I graduated from there (but I'm now in finance). I'll look into this one for android, thanks.
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      09-23-2015, 10:12 AM   #14
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Very nice. I may do this mod.

I have a MediaBridge in the trunk. I've drilled a hole in the back of the storage compartment and ran iPhone and aux in cables. I keep my old iPhone in the storage compartment to start Playlists when I start the car, but it would be nice to use the MediaBridge's aux in port without having to open the storage compartment.
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      10-03-2015, 12:56 PM   #15
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I'm looking into doing this, however that Airbender seems to be sold out on Amazon and the alternatives don't seem to have great reviews. A lot say audio cuts out all the time. Also what purpose does the dac serve? I'm not sure how that comes into play. Most of the ones I have seen have an AUX out so why not go from the AUX on the device to the car AUX? Thanks!
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      10-26-2015, 09:08 PM   #16
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I just wanted to update this and say that I did this install. However I couldnt find the AirEnabler on Amazon so I ended up using this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o00_s00

What ended up being a nightmare was removing and then reinstalling the sport button. Mine did not want to come out for the life of me. When I finally did get that sob out it didnt want to go back in. I think the trim surround piece broke so I had to glue it back anyways was a nightmare (maybe it had been messed with in the past). So I ended up just going the add a fuse route which was pretty easy to do once I found a suitable ground.

After all was set and done it works great. Sounds much better than bluetooth and just as good as direct AUX imo. Plus its all out of sight which is the best part.

However after I installed it all it hit me that since I'm connected to the devices wifi so I can airplay to it I do not have internet access since the phone is trying to use the wifi to access the net. Did you run into this issue? If so did you find a solution?

Thanks
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      10-26-2015, 09:36 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps View Post
I just wanted to update this and say that I did this install. However I couldnt find the AirEnabler on Amazon so I ended up using this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o00_s00

What ended up being a nightmare was removing and then reinstalling the sport button. Mine did not want to come out for the life of me. When I finally did get that sob out it didnt want to go back in. I think the trim surround piece broke so I had to glue it back anyways was a nightmare (maybe it had been messed with in the past). So I ended up just going the add a fuse route which was pretty easy to do once I found a suitable ground.

After all was set and done it works great. Sounds much better than bluetooth and just as good as direct AUX imo. Plus its all out of sight which is the best part.

However after I installed it all it hit me that since I'm connected to the devices wifi so I can airplay to it I do not have internet access since the phone is trying to use the wifi to access the net. Did you run into this issue? If so did you find a solution?

Thanks
Never had the issue of not being able to receive or make calls.
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      10-26-2015, 10:21 PM   #18
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Never had the issue of not being able to receive or make calls.
No I mean data. Like I can play music that on my phone but I can not stream from Pandora for example as its trying to stream from the wifi connection, which is to the device and doesn't have internet.

Know what I mean?
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      10-26-2015, 10:28 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps View Post
No I mean data. Like I can play music that on my phone but I can not stream from Pandora for example as its trying to stream from the wifi connection, which is to the device and doesn't have internet.

Know what I mean?
I was able to use both Spotify and Pandora onto the Air Enabler. Which phone model and cellular service do you have?
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      10-26-2015, 10:36 PM   #20
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Iphone 6 with Verizon
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      10-26-2015, 10:54 PM   #21
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Iphone 6 with Verizon
Maybe if you use a static configuration for your WiFi? I found these directions for my device:

http://airenabler.qnology.com/staticipaddress
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