Rear Seat Entertainment Upgrade

[rcompart]

Those that have the RSE, if I was to work on getting something built that would display the rear screen menus on the front screen, pipe RSE audio directly to the amplifier for the rear speakers to eliminate the audio lag and allow the front speakers to play audio for whatever source SYNC is on, while making it so the rear volume could be controlled independently of the front, what would people be willing to pay for this additional functionality? Obviously, I think Ford should have made it this way from the start but seeing as to how that is not going to happen, I'm looking to see if I should further invest time into something like this.

 

[edizzle]

I think it is impossible to do, but I would throw a grand at it to feel fully satisfied.

 

[Josh Armour]

Its an Android Tablet, so yes, it's possible and yes, I'd pay.

 

[edizzle]

Its an Android Tablet, so yes, it's possible and yes, I'd pay.

Being an android tablet has nothing to do with hard wiring audio into the audio system, splitting the audio between front and rear, independent volume control of front rear, controlling the rear seat entertainment from the front, etc. literally nothing to do with it.

 

[Josh Armour]

Ahh, gotcha. I work at Google on Android so I defaulted to envisioning how this could be done entirely in software. Tap into the bluetooth stack, build android intent hooks to control media over bluetooth sockets, create a bluetooth profile on the headunit. Pipe audio to the front head unit using a2dp (or even apt-x if it supports it) and have controls display on the front unit.

You're way works as well!

 

[rcompart]

The piping the audio into the head unit is already possible, but at the detriment of the sync between the audio and video. The rest of it is because if I have to interface hardware to make this work, I’m going to not just bandaid it but make something truly worth installing. Something that a parent in the front passenger seat can control for the viewing of little ones in the back that couldn’t otherwise control the system.

 

[Aquineas]

Definitely interested in this. As for what I would pay, I have no idea what the costs are. I'm liking the $69 number (apologies if that's too low that it's insulting).

 

[rumline]

I don't have an Expy yet but I'd pay $400. $500 would be pushing it.

 

[Regan DeMello]

At $2,000 for the RSE you would have thought this would be included. I would pay an additional $3-400 to be able to control it from the front seat, especially since 2 carseats are in the 3rd row and it's a pain to stop/unbuckle (3rd world problems LOL). Would you be able to fade the RSE audio to the rear only or 2nd and 3rd row only as well if wanted?

 

[rcompart]

Definitely interested in this. As for what I would pay, I have no idea what the costs are. I'm liking the $69 number (apologies if that's too low that it's insulting).

Pipe dream at that price.

I don't have an Expy yet but I'd pay $400. $500 would be pushing it.

This is where I'm hoping the price will end up being.

At $2,000 for the RSE you would have thought this would be included. I would pay an additional $3-400 to be able to control it from the front seat, especially since 2 carseats are in the 3rd row and it's a pain to stop/unbuckle (3rd world problems LOL). Would you be able to fade the RSE audio to the rear only or 2nd and 3rd row only as well if wanted?

Piping the audio from the displays to only the middle and rear rows while allowing the front speakers to still be used for the radio/carplay/etc. is definitely something I'd like to see happen but I foresee it being a problem due to how the audio is routed from the APIM to the audio unit which drives the front tweeters and D-pillar speakers and then to the DSP which handles the center dash speaker, front door woofers, rear door speakers and subwoofer. I've spoke with some of the people at VOXX regarding this but it's been on the back burner due to a lack of time to devote to it seeing it through to completion at this time.