Wiring for my fancy new head unit

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Ataxium

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So I've just put in the first portion of my sound system upgrade, new head unit. I got a Pioneer W4400NEX. Great unit, and I've already noticed an improvement in my sound quality. Speakers are next on the list, and I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.

This unit has support for wireless Carplay and Android Auto, but I need to tap into the parking brake to get full access to it. (I know you can bypass it but I don't want to go that route). And I believe it may need to be tapped on to the speedo as well.
So my question here is, would the instrument cluster be a viable place to tap into both of these?
I'm not sure if the parking brake light on the cluster would work for this or not.
I can only assume the speedo signal in the cluster would work just fine.
 
Just from my experience it was way better to just bypass some of the nanny features. I have a kenwood android auto unit that when I first started had it hooked up properly. It wouldn't let my wife put stuff in, became a pain. Granted i had to have the self discipline to use the voice controls when she was not in the truck.

Just an opinion. This was in my old superduty truck I tapped into the ground wire it connected to.
 
Skylinessuck said:
I have the same head unit. Why don't you want to bypass it?
Click to expand...
Just me being a little OCD and wanting it hooked up properly.
Since you've got the same unit, is the speedo tap in necessary at all? Or can I ignore that one?
 
I ignored it, grounded the parking brake wire, and did the little "demo" hack to make it ignore the gps telling it it's moving. Works great. No speed sensor. It only complains once about the lack of speedo input then never again. Well, unless you disconnect the battery or something. Then just one warning then never again.
 
I have an NEX series installed in my F-150 and I never did the speedo tap and the unit works fine. It is supposed to help the mileage travel calculations for accuracy but the GPS is pretty accurate from what I can tell.
 
Skylinessuck said:
I ignored it, grounded the parking brake wire, and did the little "demo" hack to make it ignore the gps telling it it's moving. Works great. No speed sensor. It only complains once about the lack of speedo input then never again. Well, unless you disconnect the battery or something. Then just one warning then never again.
Click to expand...
AKwinger said:
I have an NEX series installed in my F-150 and I never did the speedo tap and the unit works fine. It is supposed to help the mileage travel calculations for accuracy but the GPS is pretty accurate from what I can tell.
Click to expand...
Good to know guys, thanks. If that's all the speedo tap is for then I won't bother since mine is inaccurate anyways due to the tire size. Maybe I will just bypass it and avoid messing with my factory wires.
 
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Ataxium said:
Just me being a little OCD and wanting it hooked up properly.
Since you've got the same unit, is the speedo tap in necessary at all? Or can I ignore that one?
Click to expand...
My OCD about cutting and splicing factory wiring would override my OCD about having it hooked up properly!! Probably why I had to go to the trouble of reinstalling a factory head unit and factory speakers because the aftermarket stuff just wasn’t correct.
 
I think that’s the same radio I put in my wife’s Sequoia a year or two ago. From my memory, I tried just grounding the parking brake wire, like on the old kenwood it replaced, but it would give an extra message every time at startup that bugged me, so I ended up just connecting it to the parking brake. Apparently the pioneers use a different kind of connection to look for the parking brake. I don’t think I hooked up any speedo wire.

What year is your Jeep? I put a different pioneer in my 97 and had to again connect the parking brake wire to get the radio to work properly. Just grounding it didn’t work. I can show you where I tapped into the brake on my 97 if that would help you.
 
Just wanted to update with what I ended up doing.
Pulled the console up and just stuck the wire from the head unit into the back of the connection going to the parking brake switch. No cutting wires, no soldering, it's just held in by pressure, so I can take it back out anytime I want with no harm done.

IMAG0380.jpg
 
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