Been looking into mutiliating a dashboard centre panel and fitting a modern large screen "radio" (or whatever the proper modern name is ) to my HSE. Primarily for hands free phone, reversing camera and nice big GPS map display.

Naturally done neatly without wires trailing all over the place.

Downloading and reading the instruction manuals suggests that the Panasonic SPH Evo950DAB will do the deed. £££ but I've not got teh patience to deal with integrating a more affordable import. Seems to have an appropriate feature list and run Waze natively. I assume running Waze via the phone means I loos navigation if I have to deal with a call. But it needs a wired connection for the media player. Looks like either a USB stick or my old iPhone SE can act as a media player but I'd like a baby binnacle / plug panel with the necessary sockets, including one to charge the phone I'm using, to sit neatly on the top of the dashboard. Nearst I can find is the USB & iPhone connection panel out of an L322 which is still short one connector and needs neat box.

Does anyone know of anything more appropriate?

The instructions say to sit the GPS antenna on either dashboard or parcel shelf on top of the supplied metal plate that, presumably, acts as a ground plane. Which is likely to be best or won't it matter? I guess the DAB aerial sticks to the screen and the wire tucks inside the A-post trim. Head lining has to be done so routing the reversing camera connections over that shouldn't be a problem.

Attenuate the audio outputs or bypass the door amplifiers? I suppose whilst I'm in the doors giving the locks et al their 10 year service & clean tip I could change the speakers but is it really worth it given my 70 year old, never wonderful, hearing.

Clive

Last first. I recently fitted a Kenwood DAB radio in the recently purchased red 4.0SE (an almost identical one to what I have in my car). Rather than knocking up a set of attenuators and trying to fit them somewhere, I bypassed the door amps and installed cheap eBay 2 way crossovers instead (these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/296953938142). Snipped and insulated the power and turn on signal wires and fitted the crossovers using one of the original mounts that the amps had been screwed to. I also installed a PAC-SWI-RC unit so the steering wheel buttons still work, volume up and down with the Mode button programmed to answer a hands free call and the other two to step through the station memories.

DAB aerial is on the far left (passenger) side of the windscreen about halfway up. That way it isn't shielded by the heating element as that doesn't go right to the very edge of the screen. Works just as well as the amplified whip I've got on the roof of mine. No need to drop the headlining to run a cable from back to front, just pull the door rubbers down at the top and shove it in above the edge of the headlining.

Not sure about losing Waze when taking a call but I suspect you won't. I have a Garmin sat nav with live traffic via an app on my phone and linked with Bluetooth to the say nav so ordinarily I wouldn't need to use Waze or Google maps on my phone but did once. Driving back from SW France on a weekend the French farmers decided to block the Autoroutes. As the blockages were moving, the Garmain app couldn't always keep up with the closures so I ran Google Maps on the phone and guessed which one of the two was keeping me pointing in the right direction. The phone was streaming music over Bluetooth to the Kenwood stereo in the car with the Maps announcements causing that to mute when giving directions but the map display was still working. When receiving or making a call, the mapping continued to work, including the announcements which didn't fully mute the call, just reduced the volume a bit. So I had Garmin telling me to go one way, Google maps telling me to go another and Dina at home on the phone looking at where I was on Google Maps and making further suggestions..... Still took me 12 hours to do a 7 hour journey.

My Garmin sat nav also has a Bluetooth linked reversing camera too, It will only work with the genuine Garmin camera at around £130, but it works very nicely.

For charging the phone, I've got a couple of USB ports in the ashtray so are covered up when not in use. Could you not put your connection in there for your media player rather than on top of the dash to make for a neater install?

Thanks for the comprehensive reply which will be very useful if I decide go ahead. Doing things the way I want to do them with a nicer wood panel rather in place of the black plastic is going to run out at approaching a £1,000 so I need to be sure I'm going to get what I think I'm getting.

Plodding through the blurb its not at all clear what runs concurrently when the radio is doing more than one thing at time.

My Garmin is probably somewhat older than yours. No rear camera input. The live traffic function was less than wonderful so I let the subscription lapse. Realistically the beast is getting past its sell by date hence the interest in serious upgrading. I find Waze very good for diversions.

Presumably a PAC-SWI-RC unit will interface the steering wheel buttons to the Pioneer I'm considering? Probably go for the cross over instead of the attenuator and amplifier . Keeping it simple is always good.

Modified ashtray area is the fall back position for a neat installation. Obviously will work fine with a USB stick but I'll still need to run a cable or two up top to keep the live phone happy. If I use the old iPhone as a media player it seems best to have it where it can be easily seen.

Clive

For my satnav I use TomTom on my iPhone 12 Pro Max. It's in a very decent Brodit holder & is powered from an adapter in the cigarette lighter. I plan on getting the GROM Bluetooth so the iPhone can be both satnav & media hub. I used to think that I needed a DAB radio but there really is no need when you can stream over the Internet. I did contemplate getting an iPad Mini as a dedicated satnav/media centre in the car but TBH the iPhone screen is big enough.