Coastal Tech's Ipod interface

Search on Coastal Tech they are having problems with manufacturing and distribution. You may not want to hold much hope for immediate delivery. I think Costal Dave means very well and develops great products. Getting them out the door is a problem. I have said it before and I will say it again "Costal Dave makes things I want not that I need, I can wait for things I do not need"

 

Coastal E Tech is clearly using one of the Satellite radio screens. Since I have XM, I'd rather not give this up.
I have a playlist with well over 2,700 tracks in it and the AIC-100i appears to work perfectly using the random button. What doesn't work "correctly" is the track number. Instead of showing the actual track number that is playing, the Vais will count up the number of songs played. If this is the third song played, it will show 3. This is a limitation of the CD/MD Changer interface and think they did a great job adapting to it.
The iPod2Car and the like emulate a CD Changer. If your Prius has a changer, it will not work correctly. It also will not work with satellite radio. If you don't have a changer or satellite radio, it should work fine.
The Vais can emulate both a CD and MD changer, so it won't conflict with the changer. In simple mode, it acts very much like the iPod2Car.

Bob

 

I'm waiting for Coastal Tech's unit as well. I believe they might intergrate the ability to search for songs, artists, genres, ect, using the MFD. This is the ONE thing that is preventing me from buying the VAIS. I tend to hear a song on random and then wish to hear more from that artist or albulm, so I search my ipod for it. But using the VAIS, I don't want to pay that much money and still have to use the ipod to search for the specific music I want to listen to. I'm using the $30 iPod FM transmitter for now. I am patient enough to wait for Coastal Tech and I'd hate to buy the VAIS and have Coastal Tech release their product a week after I bought it. I'll be paitent for what looks like the better product.

Also, I don't see much of a point using a CD changer or XM radio with your iPod. Unless you're loaded and don't mind spending the dough. I use my iPod to listen to all the music I could want. That's like XM. Especially with podcasts now, you don't really need to listen to anything that isn't live on XM anymore. And a CD changer? Are you kidding me? Who's using more than ONE CD per day who has an ipod? That defeats the purpose of the ipod doesn't it?

 

I'm sure you know that it's an entirely safe bet to bet against Coastal considering it's coming on a year since they "announced" their unit, and NOBODY has gotten anything beyond the basic stuff from them so far.

If you're getting by with a FM modulator now, you sure aren't a picky music listener from the way you've listed. I would be using the cassette adapter if I could, unless you don't have that package #6.

Besides, after the few years using the VAIS you always then have the option of selling it and getting the Coastal unit when the Gen 4 Prius comes out.

Besides, after listening to the awful sound coming from the iPod through my JBL system, I went straight back to my cdrws. It's not that much trouble to randomly burn 6 cdrws on a random basis from iTunes/Nero.

 

I tried four different FM transmitters and couldn't stand to use any of them. Personally, I’d rather not listen to the iPod then use an FM Transmitter. If it works for you, that’s great.
Coastal E Tech’s interface looks really cool, but it is only a still image on their website. There is no guarantee that it will ever be released and what features it will have. I’ve had the Vais for months now and couldn’t be happier with it.

The internal CD Changer that comes with the Prius is all there is. So if it is disabled, no CDs can be played. I tried the iPod2Car and found that the volume was lower, even if I flipped the #6 pin, when compared to the radio or CD Player. Plus if I wanted to see what I was listening to, I had to have the iPod out with the cable running across. Sure, sure I could run the cable under the rug and drill a hole in the center console. I really don't want to do that. Since it didn’t work with XM, it was a deal breaker for me. For a lot of people, the iPod2Car does what that want. I can understand that and that's great.

I'd hardly consider myself loaded, but I do drive a lot and use my iPod and XM Radio just about every time I drive my car. For the holiday my wife and I drove over 4 hours each way. XM radio's music, news and traffic information was fantastic. Now if they only had better Public Radio it would be perfect. That’s not true, I’d find something else to complain about.

Bob