Kenwood DNX-6140 Thread

There's not a whole lot of information about these things out there yet (perhaps it's new?), but needless to say that the included instructrions leave MUCH to be desired.

So here it is... the 6140 thread. Please post all your tips, tricks, how-to's, easter eggs, successes, and failures in this thread.

I'll try and come back often enough to cut/paste the proven and relative information into the this post for easy reference (giving credit where do, of course).

I'll start with two of what I think are annoying details:

1. There's no way that I've found so far, to make the CLOCK appear on the Navigation page. It'll show you tome to destination etc. but doesn't show current time. If someone has found a way to fix this, please post.

2. Bluetooth pairing of LG Scoop (AX-260). I'm not able to answer incoming calls from the head unit. I have to push the button on the phone itself to answer the call. Kind of self-defeating IMO. I'd rather the two just paired when the phone neared the car and not have to lay eyes or hands on the phone at all (this is how it works with my 700WX). My wife likes to just leave the thing in her purse. Anyone know of a way to fix this?

Thanks,
Daggs


Key word list: DNX-6140 , DNX6140 , 6140 , forum , thread , Kenwood , Scoop , LG , AX260 , AX-260 , Nav , Garmin , Bluetooth

No other 6140s out there?

Well now that I've had a bit more time to play with it, I can safely say that I really like it. I've not had any problems with firmware lock-ups or anything of that nature.

I'm also much more aware of where and how to find the adjustments to get the kind of performance I expect out of this thing. As I mentioned before, the instruction manual that comes with this unit is poor at best. It appears to be a literal translation fromm Chinese to English and wasn't done very well at all. The more time you have to play with it, the more the broken english instructions become clear.

I'd still like there to be a firmware update that shows the clock/current time on EVERY page of the display (including GPS Nav).

I did not install the unit myself but I don't see that it would be a huge problem to do so long as used the adaptor harness appropriate for the application. We put ours in a 2001 Suburban so some modification to the plastic faceplate (the part on the truck, not the part of the head unit kit) had to made. For that, I'm glad it was the installer's problem and not mine. hehe

The unit I purchased was the one that includes the Blutooth (also mentioned above). The Bluetooth setup is kind of quarky and you have to dig around to several seemingly, unrelated setup pages to get everything configured correctly. The funny part is that this feature works best with a phone that was rumored to be incompatible with this unit while features are very limited on the phone that IS supposed to be compatible. My Treo 700wx works great and the LG Scoop works but the features are lacking (mostly due to the firmware on the phone and not the head unit, me thinks). The things that works really well with the LG Scoop is the phone book Sync. What doesn't work is the ability to pick up an incoming call from the head unit. You have to actually lay hands on the phone to answer an incoming call (not so with the Treo 700wx). Phone listing from the 700wx though, have to be "beamed" to the head unit individually by either infra-red or Bluetooth (unless I'm missing something). One of the other nice features is that you can store more phone numbers than you'll EVER need on the head unit itself without affecting your phone. Pretty sweet since you can pull phone numbers from the GPS Nav for things that you probably never need to have stored on your phone itself. We recently took a long trip and I probably added a dozen or so phone numbers for hotels, resturaunts, etc. that were along our travel path. I know have those numbers stored for future reference of nice places we stayed and ate while enroute and can call on them again for the next trip. If I remember right, you can store up to 1000 phone numbers PER PHONE that you linked through blutooth.

Actually synching the phones together (once you're on the correct menu) is so simple that you'd swear you were doing it wrong. hehe I also downloaded and installed an AD2P hack for my Treo and can now play all the music from my phone through teh stereo via the Bluetooth connection (there's probably a hack for LG phone too but I've not looked for it yet).

When I bought this thing I also bought a roof mounted DVD player and screen for the kids in the back. I can send the DVD feed FROM the head unit to the screen in back or FROM the rear unit in back to the screen on the head unit. Very nice feature IMO. My only complaint about the DVD features of this unit are the lack of controls. You'd think that with a touch screen, that you'd be able to interract with the DVD disks menu no matter the format. This is not the case. You cannot touch screen any of the features that pop up on the DVD's menu (odd and hopefully will be addressed in a future firmware update). Instead, you have to touch one of the menu buttons on the left hand side of the screen and a proprietary menu pops up (on the touch screen) with the standard PLAY/FF/RW/CHAP FWD/CHAP RVS, buttons. Those are all fine for putting the disk in and playing it but things like chapter selection and special features etc. are non selectable (unless I've just not stumbled upon a way to make them work yet which is quite possible).

Other features that I've not bought yet are the XM/Sirrus reciever, the back-up camera, traffic update reciever (MSN or FM, you can pick either or both), or the steering wheel control unit. I don't have much use for the steering wheel control unit since the location of the head unit is so well placed for the driver in the Suburban. I'm considering one of the Sat recievers but I'm in no hurry. I know that there are Sat reciever/healdunits out there that are capable of recieving video as well as audio and I'll go with one of those when the time comes. It wasn't much... it was like a news channel or two and some cartoon channels but seemd kewl anyway.

I've seen on Ebay and other sites, kits that allow you to play video on the head unit while in motion. These kits I believe, are a rip-off and not required if you want this feature. All that is required is that you know hook up the speed sensing or parking brake detection wires to the vehicle. I had mine hooked up so that the video will display no matter what (although I don't recommend watching movies while you're driving. lol).

That's pretty much all that comes to mind at the moment. If there's anything else you wanna know, I'll answer it if I can. There doesn't seem to be too much internet traffic about this unit yet and the reviews that I've come across so are generic and/or give detailed information about stuff nobody cares about. Some only list features (you can read these off the box) but don't give much info about usability etc.


Daggs

I am currently out of town and will be until this coming weekend, but as soon as I return I'll go through and provide instructions to the various menus that I had to go through (there were two for the bluetooth IIRC).


Daggs

Sweet! I had a good suspicion that, that might fix your problem but no first hand to say for sure. I've yet to have the chance to update the firmware for my wife's LG Scoop to see if I get abetter result.




Yes... it had noise cancellation and it works pretty well too! It's at least 100x better than the noise xcel I had with old Nokia cradle system.

Honestly, I don't think that you'll be disapointed. As mentioned before, there are a couple of quarks that I'd have done differently with the firmware but overall it's stable, very functional, and probably has available features that I'll never use.

I do not have the Sirrus yet but the one in the showroom from the place I bought mine, did. Yes... it shows all kinds of line info... Things like Title, Artist, Album, etc. IIRC, you can customize the display and show the lines you want or don't. I think it's pretty much like the setup for the tuner menu. You can select between the number of line displays and choose the function for each line.