Dension Gateway Lite BT - ipod/iphone/USB/A2DP integration for early 159s

[Evan Bottcher]

For a couple of years we've had a 2006 159 with the Blaupunkt stereo head unit and 10 CD stacker in the boot.  It's a perfectly good stereo for my use, but I've really gotten bored of carrying CDs and rarely changed the contents of the stacker.  I carry about three weeks worth of music on my iphone every day, so that would be ideal but required some research on how to fit an ipod kit.  I also coveted a Bluetooth option, as I've observed my brother-in-law happily playing music on his hilux stereo cable-free and it looked great.

After eyeing it off for a while I recently bought a Dension Gateway Lite BT kit.  Looking at overseas prices I ended up buying it from Cushie Audio (http://www.cushieaudio.com.au/) based in NSW.  The kit consists of a small blue plastic control box, a cable specific to the Blaupunkt 939 head unit in our 159, and a hands-free microphone.  In addition I bought an ipod cable for connecting wired and charging the ipod/iphone.  The box also has a USB input for memory sticks.



Installation was pretty straightforward - I first needed to extract the head unit.  The Blaupunkt head unit has two holes each side to insert a pair of forked probes which unlock the stereo.  I used some coat hanger wire bent to make the removal forks.  The blue box is then connected to the back of the head unit using the supplied specific cable, taking the place of the line to the CD stacker in the boot.  The CD stacker is no longer usable, but that's no great loss to me.  The single CD in the head unit still works fine. 


(see the two holes each side - poke some coat hanger wire in there and the head unit will just fall out)

I fitted the handsfree microphone near the drivers side sun visor, and that required the usual contortions to run through the dash and finding paths back to the head unit, but it looks neat enough now.  The iphone cable I routed into the glovebox, there's a handy little snap panel in the side/roof of the glovebox which gives access.  The Dension box fits fine in the vacant space under the head unit (which is actually only single-DIN size with a double-DIN fascia).  It's now invisible in the car.

The Dension unit provides basic functionality - essentially mimicking the function of the CD stacker.  The bluetooth function works great.  Once my iphone was paired with the Dension every time I sit down my phone automatically reconnects to the device without needing to be plugged in.  I switch the head unit to CD Changer function and it displays Track 99.  Whatever I play on my iphone then comes through the car stereo (selecting the Dension Lite BT as an output on the iphone).  The steering wheel controls for pause/play and forward and back work correctly.  There's supposed to be an extra mode for controlling playlists from the head unit, but I don't really need that - happy to select a playlist on the iphone then just use the steering wheel controls.  There is no display of track names or anything on the head unit.  The handsfree works pretty well - muting the music for inbound calls and reasonably clear audio.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the addition of the Dension to the 159.  For older cars like ours with no real iDevice integration or bluetooth it seems like a good compromise short of changing the head unit.