RF Head Unit Upgrade?

[BigBlock430]

Hey all. I'm brand new here. Just purchased a 2015 R7 and it has the premium factory sound with the 2 subs. All works well, but the fosgate head unit does not have bluetooth. I have to plug my phone into the USB in front of the passenger seat to connect, which is not ideal. I'm thinking that it should be fairly simple to swap out and upgrade to the newer RF PMX-3 or something similar. I'm hoping this would be a simple plug and play, but really have no idea what I'm getting into here. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[billk2632]

Check out this thread: viewtopic.php?p=110660&hilit=stereo+location+r5#p110660

Are you sure it doesn't? I thought mine didn't and turned out the bluetooth dongle was never plugged in properly, there have been others with the same issue. The unit is behind the small square panel accessible from the head - at least on the R5. Can you select bluetooth from your headunit? On mine there was no setup on the headunit, I just looked at bluetooth on my phone saw the RFX5000 and connected, password is 0000 - once I plugged in the dongle.

[AsLan7]

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Hey bb430...so glad you found us.

I thought there was a BT function as well on that RF unit. If not, you can always purchase a bluetooth dongle.
If you want to replace the head unit it's most likely plug and play, especially if it's single DIN (regular car stereo size). If it's taller (Double DIN) then you would want to replace it with the taller models.

Any pics?

And welcome aboard mate!
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[BigBlock430]

Appreciate the info here. I’ll dig a little deeper into my system to see if it is possibly just not hooked up. It does seem strange that a 2015 with the “premium” sound system wouldn’t have Bluetooth. Here’s a few pics of the new ride

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A0F27CF0-129C-41DA-B4B3-CE3DC5C61B19.jpeg

[billk2632]

Very nice!
Certain you have BT, use the “Mode” button to select BT, it will say “No BT conn” or something like that, then look at BT on your phone, should see “RFX5000”.

[BigBlock430]

Thanks everyone. I know that when I cycled through the "modes" I didn't have "BT" but I'm thinking maybe it's because it is disconnected? I won't be able to check the connection for a few days, but I'm hoping I just have a loose connection as you are suggesting. Fingers crossed...

[LakeLife77]

Beautiful boat. My R5 had the same RF unit, but my Bluetooth would fade in & out all the time. After checking the connections which I also tried securing with electrical tape and reading up on the dongle from other boat brand websites, I decided to upgrade to the newer RF system. The Bluetooth connection is so much stronger and quicker to connect. Running the new Y-Cable was a little tricky, but otherwise all the other connections were plug & play. I also ordered the Cobalt dash panel off a 2016 R5 so the remote looks factory.

[jhnmdahl]

You have to pair the Bluetooth, and some head units need a secure connection to an external Bluetooth adapter while on others it's built in. On some Rockford Fosgate models, long pressing (3 seconds?) the "menu" button brings up a setup menu, which has a Bluetooth pairing function. You can set it as discoverable, rename the device, etc. on the PMX-5CAN, for example.

John