Do not buy pioneer head units, specifically the DMH-WT series

I have had a DMH-WT7600NEX for about 1.5 years now and let me tell you this thing is extremely laggy. It’s actually pretty annoying trying to use it. For example swiping/scrolling to different pages and menus is not smooth and you have to predict how the headunit will react versus it just doing what you’re inputing. If you played FPS games as a teen in the early 2000s on dial up or early days of DSL, it’s that experience. I paid $1300 for this head unit thinking I would be paying for a premium experience, but outside of a bunch of audio certifications it leaves much to be desired. The audio sounds great, the features are great but really the daily useage of this product is pretty painful.

Really due to my ignorance I figured this is probably as good as it gets. I was buying a top tier product from a well known company, paying a pretty penny so surely this would have to be the best of the best even if it wasn’t a cost effective option. I recently played around with a joying unit in a friends car and I was blown away by it. Other than saying his setup sounded pretty good thanks to his component speakers, sub and an amp, I won’t focus too much on the sound quality. The sound quality was where 90%+ of people would want it to be. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it was GOOD.

Anywho, the screen was so crisp and I was so impressed by how responsive the headunit was. Going in and out of menus, switching to CarPlay, scrolling amongst other things was as smooth as you could imagine. If I hadn’t read the specs I would have thought that they jammed an Intel i7 in there.

I’m not advocating joying by any means, I just find it crazy that a Chinese company can produce something that out performs a major player like pioneer.

pioneer released an update in 3.04 to address car play issues. For me, after updating to this firmware, using CarPlay through WiFi has for all intents and purposes stopped working and I have to connect through a cable. It makes me cringe that this patch was supposed to address CarPlay connectivity issues and they just can’t seem to get it right.

Anyways, save your money. This head unit is NOT worth $1300 or anything near that. Personally I don’t think I’ll ever buy a pioneer headunit again.

 

That’s a shame to hear. I have a W8400 (their first unit with wireless CarPlay) that I put in back in 2018 and all features and functions still work like a charm. Wireless CarPlay still connects to my phone within 5 seconds of turning the truck on, swiping is still very responsive. I’m sorry you didn’t have luck with yours. I don’t have experience with anything they’ve released since 2020 so hopefully they get these issues worked out

 

I have an older Pioneer DMH-1500NEX with wired apple CarPlay, worked awesome for the last 4 years.

 

Maybe you can try older firmware versions? IME update does not always equal upgrade. Is the memory loaded down? Factory reset possible? Have you talked to Pioneer?

 

I'm a pioneer fan, but I totally get your issues with it. Whereas I've had noname Chinese and had major issues with it.

 

I love Pioneer headunits , but i recently went to a Sony XAV-AX6000 just becuase i hate how the newer units are so buggy and the lack of support when you do have an issue... my previous

$1,000 avic-w8500NEX 7" AV receiver with navigation

avic-w8500NEX was great when it worked and was super frustrating when it would lag/shut off randomly/Reboot out of nowhere

 

I just ordered a Sony upgrade for my head unit getting the AX6000 system as I want something that looks good on the dash and not too large of display, but has more modern functionality to include CarPlay.

 

I'm having very similar issues with a Kenwood. What did you wind up getting?