Hi,
So I recently attempted and succeeded at upgrading my 2016 Mazda 3 GS with Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. However my experience was not as smooth due to my ignorance, but with the help of many sources I got it figured out. I wanted to write this post to share my personal experience and to kind of put together the different posts that I used to figure this out.
Part 1: Firmware Update
My firmware version was 56.000.xxx on my original unit so I would only have to do the single update (2 files) to get to 70.000.100. I started off by following this guide on YouTube:
until I stupidly decided to turn the car off between the firmware update file and reinstall package. As many of you probably know this BRICKS your CMU and you will be left with a black screen and audio from the last radio station you had open.
Part 1b: Unbricking your CMU
So now I’ve bricked my CMU. There are people here who explain the situation way more in detail and properly compared to what my understanding is so look around if you want a run down of the problem. But now I had to take out the CMU. Which is nicely explained here:
Once I had the unit out, I undid ALL the screws which are a combination of phillips and torx 20 screws. (They are also cleverly color coded from Mazda) After taking out the torx screws I popped off the metal cover and revealed the SPI NOR flash chip:
View attachment 287640
this is the chip that you need to read and flash. As far as I found there are two ways to do this.
1. With a cheap USB programmer
2. With a raspberry pi
Your mileage may vary, but the USB programmer did not work AT ALL and I only succeeded when using the raspberry pi. This forum post (up above explains how to use the raspberry:
Black Screen MZD
Here’s what happened to me. Because I did not have access to a raspberry pi I decided to try the USB Programmer method explained here:
This process requires you to erase the original contents of your chip after you do a backup. (DO A BACKUP) Now I’m not sure if it was because of the USB programmer, or if it was the test clips I was using but I had problems reading and writing and essentially ended up with corrupted files and an empty chip. So now is when I went for help. Find someone who not only has but KNOWS how to use a raspberry pi. In the video that uses the USB Programmer there is a link to a google drive in the description with a copy of the users own modified file of the flash chip. Essentially I used the raspberry to flash that file from the google drive onto my chip. It’s not crazy complicated, but you can use the code from the forum post above:
Hello, today i wanted to install the v70. I pressed the Start-Stopp Button one time and successfully installed the failsafe package. After that i wanted to install the reinstall package but an error came up "Failed to validate package certificate". So i pressed the Start-Stopp Button another...
www.mazda3revolution.com
to achieve this. Go to the line where the user writes “Now it’s time to write the modified file to the flash” and in the line of code below replace “cmu-mod.bin” with the file name of the modified version posted in the Google Drive. You can verify if it worked by switching the file names in the other lines of code, but once I installed the CMU back into the car I was prompted to insert the USB containing my reinstall package to which the installation went off without a hitch. (Pressing the clutch (manual) every 15 minutes). , I was left with a successful update to firmware 70.000.100
Side note: I also tried various ways the attach the flash chip to the raspberry pi. Ideally, you get an SOC16 Test Clip, but there are pretty hard to find in Canada so I opted to use an SOC8 Test clip for half the connections and used individual test clips for the other half of the connections:
View attachment 287641
Part 2: Installing the USB Hub
So there are plenty of tutorials online for how to Install the USB Hub when it is located in the center armrest, but my hub was located in the front of the Center console under the climate controls making the removal of the old hub more difficult. There is the hack to drill through the 4 clips, but I decided to opt out of that wanting to save my OEM part. To my surprise, taking it out properly wasn’t that difficult despite the lack of tutorials online.
Essentially, I had to slide the entire center console back which is well shown in this video here:
Now I’m this video the guy gets to a point where he takes out completely the center console including the arm rest, I DID NOT have to do this. Once I had the center console slid back about 5 inches, I was able to reach in and undo the 2 top clips of the USB hub and get the top edge poking out of the hole while keeping tension. Next with my other hand and a flathead screwdriver, I was able to reach in and pop one of the bottom clips and once that clip was free I was able to wiggle the USB hub out without undoing the last clip. What comes next is relatively easy, you run the new cables through the glove box up to where the touchscreen is wrapping everything in sponge tape. Next I tested everything to make sure everything was working then zip tied the cables to parts of the interior so that they wouldn’t wiggle or rattle around. Note: you should take the ends of the old USB Hub cable and zip tie/sponge tape it to the new cable so that the loose connector doesn’t rattle around either. Closing everything back up in the opposite way it was installed I finally had CarPlay in my car.
Obviously, don’t be an idiot like me and brick your CMU and you could have this whole process done in 2-3 hours, but for the few who do I hope my experiences help. For the USB hub installation, it is more difficult when it’s in the front, but still only took and hour, plus I got to save my OEM Hub.
Again hope somebody can benefit from this!
