2014 Mazda5 Stereing wheel control - Analog or digital?

dpmarc

Member
Hi, Im upgrading my stock head unit to an android based unit. I want to know what I need interms of gear to get the steering wheel volume controls to work? From what I know, if its Analog based I should be able to plug and play. Also what kind of wire harness would I need for easist connection?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
 
It is definitely not analog and you will need something like Metra Axxess ASWC-1 Universal Steering Wheel Control Interface. Its about $50 on Amazon. I recently installed Alpine CDE-143BT with this kit and it works just fine. The only thing that I noticed is that on the OEM stereo, the steering wheel controls lets you cycle through you radio pre-set channels. Now, however, it will just find the next available radio station instead. Another glitch is the mute button only lowers the volume to 1, instead of complete silence. In my opinion, these are little things and the Metra Interface offers a lot programming which I didn't have time to do and fix. There are other options available, so just search around.https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned)
 
I used the ASWC-1 on mine. There was supposed to be a way to program it to use the arrow buttons to go to the next preset, but I never bothered to figure out how- the wife drove the 5, not me. I only used it for volume.
 
Remember back when the universal remote came out and you can consolidate them into one (or fewer). Then you just have a TV model that isn't quite an exact match to the standard codes but find one close enough. Then came the IR learning remote that can program individual buttons? It's kinda like that with these steering wheel control units except we replace resistance, instead of IR signals, to communicate via a single wire connection due to limited slots on clock spring (the things that allows the wires to operate (not bind) when turning the steering wheel many rotations.

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