Head unit advice

[Dewatte]

Hi I, new to the forum. I have a 2007 Alphard with a multi AV Station head unit including GPS and reversing camera (photo attached). Everything is in Japanese including the lady who keeps talking to me when it’s switched on.

if I keep the unit I need to manage it esp a) turn off the Japanese lady, and b) delete unwanted tracks from the music hard drive. It records every CD played.

i have found that the radio will find the UK stations eg Radio 4 if you scan but it will show the wrong wavelength when tuned in. However FM reception is poor esp when out of the city (Glasgow).

Another option is to replace the unit, but there seems to be several different head units and I can’t find anything specific to mine. I’ve been quoted £1000 which seems exorbitant.

advice gratefully received please

[Rojie]

Hello, and welcome to the Forum.

 

Dissatisfaction (or total confusion) with the head unit is not uncommon !

Do you know what model Alphie you have ?

 

I find the CD auto recording feature really convenient.

 

Eightseaterblog.com has published a very good guide to the (usual) HDD head unit.

I think Eightseater covers how to delete tracks.

However, your unit is a different model. Is there any type number on the bezel of the unit ?

However, his blog may be helpful to you.

I suggest you give it a try.

 

Jenny, a member, has the same unit, I think !

I need to check and ask if she has an English manual for it.

She certainly discovered how to change the language to English; which ought to help you.

 

Be careful if you decide to replace your unit.

DO the research, as with many replacement units you may / will lose the cameras and steering control functions.

There is lots of info on this Forum.

 

Happy reading.

 

 

 

[Rojie]

3 minutes ago, Rojie said:

Hello, and welcome to the Forum.

 

Dissatisfaction (or total confusion) with the head unit is not uncommon !

Do you know what model Alphie you have ?

 

I find the CD auto recording feature really convenient.

 

Eightseaterblog.com has published a very good guide to the (usual) HDD head unit.

I think Eightseater covers how to delete tracks.

However, your unit is a different model. Is there any type number on the bezel of the unit ?

However, his blog may be helpful to you.

I suggest you give it a try.

 

Jenny, a member, has the same unit, I think !

I need to check and ask if she has an English manual for it.

She certainly discovered how to change the language to English; which ought to help you.

 

Be careful if you decide to replace your unit.

DO the research, as with many replacement units you may / will lose the cameras and steering control functions.

There is lots of info on this Forum.

 

Happy reading.

 

 

 

 

I just checked if this unit is the same as Jenny's (Smedley). It is.

I suggest you send her a personal message, perhaps she will be able to help you.

[Dewatte]

Thanks. I’ve messaged her

[Jenny Smedley]

11 hours ago, Dewatte said:

Thanks. I’ve messaged her

Hi - we have the same unit as you, but we had a different problem in that it was locked - that being caused by the battery being disconnected at some point. It's taken us a couple of months to get it to work at all. 

So, in fact you probably know more than we do at this point, but hopefully if we share what we discover we'll get there.

We know how to get the CD to play and have tuned the radio into Radio 2. Which is not as much as you know!

Yesterday we put the car in reverse for the first time since 'waking it up' and discovered we have rear view cameras!

The lady chattering away doesn't bother us as we tell people our Alphard can speak  but I think it might become wearing in the end.

We do have a manual for the radio, but it is in Japanese of course. Unlike the car handbook there are no translations available.

I got an app on my phone that can read Japanese symbols, but it's only of limited use as whole sentences seem to turn into gibberish!

I had a book translated by a Japanese publisher so today I'm going to contact them and see if they can put me in touch with the translator - even if we can get certain pages translated it will be a big help!

I think your radio is an HDD Navigation System NHZN-W57

Keep in touch!

 

[Rojie]

I only get radio 2 on mine head unit (could be worse!), and have no plans to upgrade the HDD unit.

 

Dewatte, I have read somewhere, or seen it on youtube, how the erase the HDD recordings.

I'll try and find it again, but don't hold your breath !

[SupaDave]

1 hour ago, Rojie said:

I only get radio 2 on mine head unit (could be worse!), and have no plans to upgrade the HDD unit.

 

Dewatte, I have read somewhere, or seen it on youtube, how the erase the HDD recordings.

I'll try and find it again, but don't hold your breath !

The bandwith doesn't go above anything other than radio 2 on Jap imports I'm afraid. You could get a bandwidth expander or just connect your phone via bluetooth & play radio stations from all over the world via your data. I've deleted all my hard drive & G book stuff. Can't fully remember how I did it but it was fairly easy with google lens on my phone. If you want to message me I can go through it again for you.

[SupaDave]

2 hours ago, Jenny Smedley said:

Hi - we have the same unit as you, but we had a different problem in that it was locked - that being caused by the battery being disconnected at some point. It's taken us a couple of months to get it to work at all. 

So, in fact you probably know more than we do at this point, but hopefully if we share what we discover we'll get there.

We know how to get the CD to play and have tuned the radio into Radio 2. Which is not as much as you know!

Yesterday we put the car in reverse for the first time since 'waking it up' and discovered we have rear view cameras!

The lady chattering away doesn't bother us as we tell people our Alphard can speak  but I think it might become wearing in the end.

We do have a manual for the radio, but it is in Japanese of course. Unlike the car handbook there are no translations available.

I got an app on my phone that can read Japanese symbols, but it's only of limited use as whole sentences seem to turn into gibberish!

I had a book translated by a Japanese publisher so today I'm going to contact them and see if they can put me in touch with the translator - even if we can get certain pages translated it will be a big help!

I think your radio is an HDD Navigation System NHZN-W57

Keep in touch!

 

The 'lady chattering away' can be turned down or muted. Quick & easy. Message me if you want to do it.

Also when you disconnect the battery it seems to reset everything....I had no audio whatsoever but once I replaced my old battery everything was fine. It's a great system I don't know why anybody would want to replace it.

[Jenny Smedley]

9 minutes ago, SupaDave said:

The 'lady chattering away' can be turned down or muted. Quick & easy. Message me if you want to do it.

Also when you disconnect the battery it seems to reset everything....I had no audio whatsoever but once I replaced my old battery everything was fine. It's a great system I don't know why anybody would want to replace it.

I will, thank you! 

 

[Dewatte]

Thank you all.

The head unit is so high function compared with anything I’ve ever had in a vehicle it’s a pity it seems it can’t seem to be converted to work properly in the UK. You’ll never get anything like full function unless you speak Japanese and in any case the gps won’t work here. I read somewhere that although the Japanese FM radio band is narrower than in UK the radio will find local stations not in that bandwidth. This seems to be the case. I can get BBC radio 2, 3 and 4, which is above 90, and Smooth which is about 105. But it’s fiddly scanning to find the stations and I can’t get the presets to work. The firm that imported and converted my van never warned me about this, not that it would have stopped me buying it. I met a fellow Alpharder who had his unit changed by his (different) supplier for £1000 as part of the conversion.

Unfortunately I’m one of those sad people who hate to have stuff that doesn’t work properly.

I know I could get a DAB radio adaptor for about £100 and use my mobile phone to navigate, and listen to music on CDs and the hard drive until that fills up (about 30 GB I think), but it niggles. I don’t want consider changing the unit until I’m sure I won’t lose the reversing camera and steering wheel controls. Maybe I have to spend the £1000 to get it done right.

Thanks again. I’m sure the changing heads story will run and run.

dewatte

[SupaDave]

41 minutes ago, Jenny Smedley said:

I will, thank you! 

 

Jenny I should've mentioned...this is my head unit, is yours the same?

[Jenny Smedley]

No, not quite NHZN-W57 

[SupaDave]

Oh right...all I can suggest now then is to get google lens on your phone & point it at the unit to translate everything & just go through the menus until you find the right settings. Mine was in with the volume controls but it was a button on the screen that found it eventually. It's a bit tedious but eventually you should find everything. I changed the screen colour, brightness, contrast...chinese chattering lady...found record & delete settings for the hard drive, camera settings, lane settings & everything. It was a combination of touch screen, physical buttons & the drive mode on the steering wheel. Hope that helps. 

[Rojie]

2 hours ago, SupaDave said:

Jenny I should've mentioned...this is my head unit, is yours the same?

SupaDave, This is the usual HDD head unit. (Jenny's is far more rare).

 

Try reading eightseaterblog.com for a very good and detailed explanation and understanding of your unit.

You can get a frequency expander (£20) that will give you most UK FM stations (but not all).

To fit it, the headunit and dash nacelle have to come out.

 

I suspect you have a powerful and close transmitter if you are getting several stations without an expander.

[Jenny Smedley]

3 hours ago, Jenny Smedley said:

I will, thank you! 

 

I have PM'd you

[Dewatte]

Jenny. My unit is the same as yours. I’ve tried the google translate camera as suggested by SupaDave. It doesn’t translate very well, there’s a vast amount to translate, and if you do eventually figure out how to do something you’ll have to remember is all for repeat operations. I’m going to try again tho cos I’m a glutton for punishment.

On Rojie’s comment about the radio, I live in Glasgow. Once I’ve found the FM stations reception is about the same as it was in my previous vehicle, but once you head out into Argyll the reception is very poor whatever you’re driving. I’ve even found I can get local Glasgow stations, but as I’ve said before finding anything is tedious because the scanning process on my and Jenny’s unit is fiddly using the tiny up and down buttons at top left, and as yet I haven’t found how to use the preset.

[Rojie]

3 hours ago, Dewatte said:

Jenny. My unit is the same as yours. I’ve tried the google translate camera as suggested by SupaDave. It doesn’t translate very well, there’s a vast amount to translate, and if you do eventually figure out how to do something you’ll have to remember is all for repeat operations. I’m going to try again tho cos I’m a glutton for punishment.

On Rojie’s comment about the radio, I live in Glasgow. Once I’ve found the FM stations reception is about the same as it was in my previous vehicle, but once you head out into Argyll the reception is very poor whatever you’re driving. I’ve even found I can get local Glasgow stations, but as I’ve said before finding anything is tedious because the scanning process on my and Jenny’s unit is fiddly using the tiny up and down buttons at top left, and as yet I haven’t found how to use the preset.

 

Dewatte,

I have a different head unit; but once you have tuned in a station, just press and hold a channel number for a few seconds.

I can't remember if it beeps or not. That should preset that freqency to that channel.

[Phil clarke]

Hi can anyone tell me how to switch the head unit off completely or at least mute the Chinese lady..I have covered the unit with a 10 inch gps  tablet attached with strong magnets and have installed wireless reverse camera works mint connected to wifi dongle in car. The only downside is the jap unit reverse camera still comes on so if anyone knows how to mute this as well that would be brill..

[Phil clarke]

Hi anyone can give me instructions to turn down the chatting Chinese lady please 

[Catweazle]

Don't think you can alter the volume of the Japanese lady warning you, and you can only remove her by removing the rear camera wiring.

[Chris.ac]

on the 20 series, you can turn her volume down or off completely, she used to go about not haveing an etc card inserted, but i found the controls for notifications in the G-sound menus

 

[Rojie]

2 hours ago, Chris.ac said:

on the 20 series, you can turn her volume down or off completely, she used to go about not having an etc card inserted, but i found the controls for notifications in the G-sound menus

 

 

Hi Chris, thanks for this.

 

Dewatte, do you have a 20 series?

Check the label on your door pillar, and let us know.

 

Chris, can you be a bit more explicit on how to achieve this for Dewatte.

Perhaps a button sequence with a screen shot or two.

 

TIA.

 

[Dewatte]

Rojie

This is the label

 

[Chris.ac]

10series, not had opportunity to fiddle with those audio systems - I will grab spome photos of the 20series etc volume controls to see if they match anything you see

[Chris.ac]

On 20series headset - 2nd physical button, then 1st screen button, then the left screen button is mute, with 7 screen buttons adjusting volumn from loud whisper to in your face screaming

The long button under the mute button is the 'auto adjust volume with speed of vehicle'

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Chris.ac