Teardown: Inside the BMW Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit
Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)
I took apart the new BMW IDC23H infotainment unit made by Harman Becker to see what's inside. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P, this system handles both the main screen and the instrument cluster. I found a new APIX connectivity board for the driver camera and heads-up display, marking a shift in how BMW manages vehicle data.
On the newest generation of vehicles, BMW appears to have fully removed the dedicated KOMBI instrument cluster module, instead relying on the head unit to drive both the instrument cluster and infotainment systems!
- Zigurd
Everyone who can afford a car with an infotainment system also has a high-end smart phone that they replace several times over the life of the car. It's not quite as bad an idea as putting a tablet in your refrigerator door, but the product lifespan mismatch is of the same nature.
To handle the case where the customer would prefer not to think about interfacing their phone or tablet to their car, a branded compatible tablet should be a dealer option, or at least the tablet-like part of infotainment should be replaceable.
- alright2565
I haven't driven this particular car, but if it's anything like any other infotainment system I've seen, I'm really hoping they're able get a profiler running on there to determine the technique they use to get massive frame drops on hardware they fully control.
- jdalgetty
I had no idea Garmin made stuff like this.