2014 Prius: upgrade mfd to add navigation?

That's what your phone or an aftermarket car stereo is for... A 2010 Prius system would be awful compared to newer options and have yet to see someone successfully upgrade to OEM GPS when it didn't come with it.

 

While I agree with PriusCamper, that's not what the OP asked. In terms of the OP's question, with enough money, anything can be done. I'm thinking the head unit would also need a GPS antenna somewhere, but maybe that's not how it works. I'm sure someone out there knows if this is plug and play, at least the head unit swap part. Also, you'd need a backup cam and wiring.

Having said that, I think you could end up with a much nicer system if you went PriusCamper's route. Some integrate well with the steering wheel controls, and also the Internet, so you can have Waze.

 

I have to agree with above... putting in another Toyota system from a newer model is frustratingly difficult because nearly nobody knows the details of the technical changes in them, and nobody is motivated to know that stuff because there's no market. And you wind up with something that was out-of-date even when it was new, because factory systems just aren't that good.

Meanwhile the aftermarket stuff is well known, well understood, well supported if you buy from the right people, and it's not just updated to 2014- it's completely current.

We really enjoy using Carplay in ours for waze, radio garden and other apps. Better still, it is likely going to be less expensive to do a second round upgrade when that matters in a few years.

 

Full-screen continuous camera access is a popular feature supported by many aftermarket head units. P-i-P would be pretty cool- I imagine somebody is doing it by now, but I don't happen to know of any.

ordinary Carplay systems are only internet-enabled by your phone. Your phone is the brain of the system, the processing and network access. The thing in the car is just running a remote access app that draws a second monitor display and reads the second touchscreen. Overall it is very nicely done for Carplay-enabled apps.

You can also get wireless-Carplay decks- I'm not clear on whether they use a newer Bluetooth standard, Wi-Fi or a combination of the two, but the point is they are available if you want that.

We got ours a few years ago before the wireless version came out. I don't find this to be any big deal- I need to plug in the phone for power anyway, because the navigation apps are so power-hungry.

I don't know of any that can be installed with less than dashboard surgery, but I didn't find it to be terribly difficult. If it isn't your thing you can still hire pros.

We bought ours from Crutchfield, they are legendary for their product knowledge and depth of support. You'll pay more but they'll help you if you need it.

 

I think there are some, but it would require a cell phone contract to access the Internet.

Does this require "cell phone as a hotspot" or is it just Bluetooth?

 

It's just your cell phone directly hitting the internet the way it normally would if you were walking down the street. All carplay adds is a second display & touchscreen. Certain apps (not all) get to display car-optimized interfaces on that screen with nice big buttons that are easy to stab while driving.

So if you use Waze or Google maps in your car right now, your phone is hitting the internet for that data. It will do exactly the same thing under Carplay, but it will format the picture for the dashboard monitor instead of the built-in screen. That's all that's changing.

The Carplay setup is technically just an app running on that head unit. Most of these head units can minimize that app and show their own main menu instead. Think about it- it sort of has to be this way if you want to listen to your FM radio while using Waze from the phone to navigate.

They will interrupt fullscreen with the rear vision camera when the hardwired reverse select is triggered. But that is a function of the head unit and its operating system, not something within Carplay. So you can be in the Carplay app picking music or a nav destination and if you bump the shifter to Reverse, the carplay app will get replaced by the camera video on screen. Once you shift out of reverse, the Carplay app comes back where you left off.

Because there is that host OS running the head unit, it is theoretically possible for that thing to be doing P-i-P displays, with the camera floating over the Carplay display. I just don't happen to know of anybody doing that.