Customer Reviews

Dice i-Mazda/Mazda 3 & 5 /Protege/Tribute/ IPod Adapter w/ Aux Audio Input

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I bought this unit for my '07 Camry with Navigation after DICE Electronics assured me that it was compatible. While I guess you could say that it works with my stereo/nav unit, it's so unreliable that it is almost useless. I go on long drives and listen to a lot of audiobooks on my iPod. If I make a quick stop, upon restarting my car, I often find that the book (or podcast, or song, or whatever) has been reset back to the beginning. If I didn't happen to notice the exact hours and minutes of the audiobook, I have to search through it to find my place. Very annoying and a real time waster. It also randomly pauses my iPod without me touching it, then restarts it again a few seconds later. It is capable of displaying the title and track name from the iPod, but then inexplicably blanks this information out. If I switch to map view and then back, the info reappears. If I disconnect and then reconnect the iPod (and who wouldn't, as that's kind of the whole point of having one), the DICE unit makes the iPod "forget" my place in the playlist. Upon reconnecting, it will always play the same track, out of the 10,000 or so on the iPod. I mean, I like "...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead," but I'm damn sick of hearing the opening of that one song. Finally, I should mention that when I sent this complaint via their online system, it took 6 weeks before anyone even posted a "say, did anyone ever help you with this?" When I answered in the negative, I never heard another word. Apparently, they don't care if they have unhappy customers. Do yourself a favor, buy a VAISTech unit instead. It does the same thing, and while the reviews have been mixed, they have been far better than the DICE's.

I originally was to put the ICE unit in my 4runner, but decided to wait when DICE was announced as I would gain a mini-jack aux port. Installation I did myself without any trouble. (If you are a 4Runner owner - excellent instructions on dash removal (very easy) here - [...]. Make sure that you set the dip switches 'up' (all of them) if you want text - this is not clear in the instructions.

Works great - no trouble at all once the dip switches were set correctly. The unit sometimes will not come on when the car has been turned off for a period of time. Two solutions I know of - One turn car back off and restart, or #2 - Turn off radio before turning key off.

Sound quality - I'm a bit picky so take this with a grain of salt. The sound is not great. Not nearly the quality as from a CD, but better than the tape converter which I have used, and much better than any FM transmitter I've used. This could be due partly the sound quality from the iPod itself, I need to experiment with some lossless files and see if that makes a difference. But overall the unit does what it says - iPod control from the stereo with text on the radio - For that I would give it 5 stars, for sound quality it is hard to give more than 3 stars. Some adjustment of the EQ helps, podcasts sound great. So overall 4 stars.

I bought this for my Toyota 4-Runner because it was GUARANTEED to be compatible. Of course, once I received it and paid to have it installed, it proved not to work as advertised. If I turn off the car while the stereo is on and the iPod is playing, when I turn the engine back on the stereo doesn't come back on. If I turn it on, it will only play the radio and will not turn on the iPod function. The only way to fix this is to turn the iPod and stereo off before turning the engine off, then turning it back on once the engine is on. There are other small issues as well. DICE customer service said that this is a known compatibility issue with Toyotas, yet they are still selling the unit as "Guaranteed Compatible." Not only that, they promised on the phone to refund the total cost, including S/H and installation, but now that they have received the unit back they won't refund me, saying that all I can get is a replacement. But a replacement doesn't solve the problem because this is a compatibility issue, not a defective unit. Not only that, I'm out the $15 shipping I paid to receive it, the $50 install fee, and the $12 I paid to send it back to them. Way too much to pay for a unit that does not work as advertised. DO NOT BUY THE DICE IPOD ADAPTER!!!!!!!!

I had this unit installed in my Toyota Sienna minivan with navigation system. The ipod plays through the radio, which is what my primary goal was, but it does not work well with the different cd buttons. Because the unit has tricked the radio into thinking that it is a cd changer, you have to choose different cd's to access different ipod commands. Although it initially displayed the song title when in CD-1, once I navigated away from CD-1 it started to act unreliably. I am able to hook up my satellite radio to the aux port, but when I select cd-5, in order to hear the satellite radio, I am unable to return to the ipod unless I turn off the car and restart it. This is very annoying while you are driving. I also have not been able to get the other functions to work, so I can not change playlists, etc. I had the unit professionally installed, and the installers even contacted the manufacturer as well as Toyota, but the problem remains. Overall I am not very happy with it, but will keep it so that I can at least hear the ipod in the car, and charge it without haveing to use one of my outlets.

By the way, the sound of the XM radio is much improved over the sound I got by using the FM transmission. And I was unable to use FM transmission for the ipod at all--I kept losing the sound every 10 minutes and having to find another station. So this is an improvement, but there must be a bug in the software that is preventing it from working properly.

I bought this for my Mazda 3 so it can interface with my iPhone, and I love it. It works so much better than a FM transmitter. Audio quality is perfect. The only thing I wish this could so is pause. But it takes over the Satellite radio interface where there is no pause so it makes sense that the feature isn't there.

I like this device...it works good for me...I'd buy another one.

My husband bought the DICE for his '07 Prius. It was so cool! It works great. He loves it. For Christmas, he got me a DICE for my '07 Prius. I hate it. It seems to stop playing parts of every other song and then resumes. It's really annoying. My husband swapped out his device for mine and he has no issues. I have the same issues with his DICE in my car and he's not having any issues with my DICE in his car. Our cars are different models. But that shouldn't matter, should it? Neither of us have a CD changer and that's what it hooks up to. I guess now that it's February it's out of warranty so I'm stuck with it. Maybe I can sell it on eBay. It's hit and miss, but overwhelmingly judging from these reviews, it's more often miss than hit. I have nothing good to say about the DICE except that it works great in my husband's Prius.

Whatever you do, don't buy an integration kit from DICE ELECTRONICS. Mine stopped working after about five weeks and they wouldn't refund me because they only warranty their product for 30 days.
Yup - an electronic component manufacturer that won't stand behind their product for longer than a month. I should have looked into it before spending the 200 plus.
My money is gone plus the additional cash that I had to spend to have it removed - not to mention the money I'll have to spend on an integration kit that actually works (which I'm sure will be backed by the company - because it actually works)

My husband purchased this for his car so that he could listen to his new ipod nano. After taking his car apart to install this adapter, he discovered that it played his ipod nano, but didn't charge it. He called the manufacturer to find out why and was told that the model he received was an older model (same name as the new model, but the serial number gave it away) that wasn't compatible with the newest ipods, and that they were no longer selling that version. Even worse, they wouldn't warranty the product because he bought it from Apex, which according to them is an "unauthorized reseller" of their products.

After many hours on the phone with Dice, Amazon and Apex, he finally got them to agree to refund the return shipping costs in addition to the refund for the product. All in all it was a frustrating and time consuming experience, and particularly discouraging because we buy from Amazon to avoid trouble like this! Save yourself the trouble and buy from someone else.

I have the same problems as reviewer jt in my Toyota 4Runner. The DICE unit frequently locks up and won't let me use the radio/steering wheel controls to control the iPod, nor will it shut off the iPod if the vehicle is turned off. (That means the iPod continues to play until the battery goes dead.) The only way to fix this is to get under the hood, pull the radio fuse, and put it back in to reset the radio.

There are other problems too -- sometimes when you turn off the car, and then restart it, the DICE unit restarts your iPod on some other source of audio than what you were playing. And the radio will pretty much never remember that you have an iPod integration unit when you first start the car. You have to kick the key over past the start point to reset the radio, then select the "disc" button to get the radio to "see" the DICE unit.

When the unit works, it's great -- having a hidden iPod in the car is wonderful, and the sound is way better than the FM modulators or the cassette adapters I used to have to use. But then the thing goes haywire and I have to use these tricks to get it to work properly again. Frustrating. . . .

And try teaching these tricks to your wife when she wants to use the vehicle and listen to the iPod! Good luck!

UPDATE: I called the company and told them about my problems. They sent me a new unit. I replaced the old one with the new one, and now everything is working fine, the way it should be.

Hello,
I install a Dice i-Toyota-r in my Prius, that was very easy to install (you can see installation guide on Dice site or in discussions forum).
The Ipod can be controlled by steering wheel and you can see artist and title on the Prius screen and that charge your Ipod battery.
For the sound quality if you have good quality MP3 is good if you have poor quality mp3 is poor.
My Prius is a 2005 model.
(excuse me for my english i live in France)