Parrot Asteroid

Offline navigation: I have Navigon on it, installed a few days ago. Works well with an Eastern European map that I use. Can't go to the house number, just to the street, but it may be user error, since I'm more familiar with iGo and Google.

The volume cannot be changed, it's either maximum or mute, but not in between.

An Italian guy (peppino44255) modified it to work with the Asteroid's wheel and Next/Prev buttons.

It works, but when I really have to go to a new place, I'd mount the standalone on the windshield or even use my smartphone. Waze would be more useful on the Asteroid.

I'll see if I can find the download link for you.

Edit: see below.

OK, I got it from here. The page is in French.

What the page, and the comments, say:

1. Get the program from here (on the page, fill the CAPTCHA, then press the button under it, with the text "Valider et telecharger le fichier" on it) or from Rapidshare. It's a 120 MB RAR and downloads slowly (was at 40-160 kbps for me, took ages).

2. Get a Navigon map for your country. I don't have sources for this. The page has a link to France's 2010 map, but newer Navigon maps work, too. I tested it with a 2011 map. I found the map I need from one of the links in the comments there.

3. Get an SD card that you will use in your Asteroid, if you don't have one yet. For now, access the card with your computer, using a card reader or by other means. Make sure it is FAT32 formatted. FAT16 (classic FAT) would probably work, too. Create a folder on it, called "Navigon". Actually, you can put the program in any folder, even in the SD card's root, but this is how I did it.

4. Unpack the RAR you downloaded at step 1, into this folder on the card. If we'd call the card "SD", you would now have:

SD/Navigon/Navigon.apk
SD/Navigon/data/…
SD/Navigon/sound/…
SD/Navigon/map/…

5. Copy the *.map files (US.map, maybe?) that you got at step 2, to SD/Navigon/map/.

6. Unmount the SD card from your computer and put it in the Asteroid.

7. On the Asteroid, go to the Install menu. You will see "Navigon" in the list. Install it.

The main Navigon menu, right after you start the program (the third photo on the French page), is navigable with the Asteroid wheel and the Asteroid Next/Prev buttons. In most text boxes (e.g. when inputting a street's name), you can press the big round Parrot button and the Asteroid keyboard will come up. Changing between uppercase/lowercase/numbers is by pressing the menu button. Changing between night/day is through menu button->Day/Night, when a map is displayed.

The comments say Navigon will default to the system's language. I have the UK firmware and Navigon's menus are UK English. US will probably give you US, not that there are many differences.

Just for making it clear: you will have to leave the SD card inside the Asteroid, otherwise the navigation won't work.

If you know how to create a startup config file for Navigon, please do tell. I'm especially interested in setting the volume, since it's at maximum. The Asteroid's many volume settings do not affect it. What I did, is go to Navigon's settings menu and mute it. I did not try an external USB keyboard, maybe one can use the horizontal arrow keys to adjust the volume slider.

Edit 2:

Got a wireless mini keyboard for it, from eBay, this one. It cost 18.82$, free shipping. It works - input is much easier and faster, and I can also set Navigon's volume. It's not backlit, but for the money, it works.

Here we go chaps, received it on Sunday - version 2: https://anonfiles.com/file/1f1cdaaf798f0e1209feddf15105cf67

Asteroid

Been driving around with the Asteroid for a while now and it's a pretty neat radio but not perfect.

Building it into the car was a breeze. With the radio came all the needed cables, like a 3,5mm jack, iPod cable, USB cable for usb-sticks, GPS dongle and microphone for the carkit. All cables were pretty long so you should have no problem routing them to whatever place you want them in your car.

Soundquality is pretty good and there are plenty of connections for subwoofers and external amplifiers so it should suffice even for cars with loads of fat speakers.

Connecting my phone, an HTC Desire with CyanogenMod 7.1 (nightly build), was easy through bluetooth and streaming music over bluetooth went without problems. Answering phonecalls and navigating the menu is pretty easy.

A few problems I ran into though. To use internet on the radio (for google maps, internet radio, coyote speed camera alerts) you can either use a 3g USB dongle (which costs you at least 10€ a month where I live) or tether your phone through bluetooth (maybe usb works, haven't tried yet). To do this, your phone needs to support the bluetooth DUN profile which android lacks. Nokia phones should be no problem though. I've tried using 3rd party apps like PDANet but to no avail.

Furthermore I found that the device lacks some tweaking capabilities. For example, when i'm navigating my contacts from my phone, the device tries to "read" the contacts for me using text-to-speech. I've found no way to turn this off. Furthermore I could find no option in the settings to turn off the traffic announcements from radio. The device now switches to radio when i'm listening to music from my SD card to bring me the traffic information (Which can be skipped by pressing the "back" button). Finally, the device came with a Dutch language setting and i've found no way to turn this to English, which is the language I prefer.

Please note, I have only used this radio for a short while and I might've missed some things! I think this is a very nice radio though and since it is the first model and only out for a week or so now I think there will be some updates from Parrot's side, perhaps expanding the capabilities of this device. The only major drawback is the lack of internet connectivity if you have an Android phone. This is not Parrot's fault though but rather Google's. I heard though that Honeycomb supports Bluetooth PAN and I think the Asteroid supports this for Internet tethering so i'm keeping my hopes up for Android Icecream to bring this feature to my phone.

Pro:
- Lots sources for music: Radio, USB stick, SD Card, iPod, 3.5mm Jack line-in
- Android with Google Maps
- Speed camera Alerts
- Large screen (for a single DIN radio unit)
- Lots of cables came with the Radio (With a Pioneer your need to buy overpriced iPod cables separately)
- Its a handsfree carkit, and Parrot knows how to make those by now
- Lots of tweaking possible with the sound

Con:
- Internet does not work with Android phones (yet)
- Lacks certain tweaking possibilities in the settings menu

Feel free to ask any questions

back from holidays and on the way to holidays. ^^

but i've got a new version for you (1.7) ... try it out
http://asteroid.rphoto.at/

sorry for my short post ... i'm on the way.

I have posted a separate small tutorial for Navigon Offline Navigation
on the Parrot Asteroid:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=26502867#post26502867