Plug and Play Electronics?

1314 Views 2 Replies 3 Participants Last post by iaa, Feb 20, 2002

MadAboutMINI

Discussion Starter · Feb 18, 2002

Does anybody know what this line item under "Comfort and Convenience" in the US MINI spec list is? It's a standard feature on both the Cooper and Cooper S.

It sounds like it ought to provide a way to plug in a MP3 player, GPS, cell phone, etc. Of course it could just be marketing hype for an empty circuit

Any solid information out there?

Thanks!

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monsta

· #2 · Feb 18, 2002

I think it means that you can add optional extras easily, all of the necessary wiring is there for the official accessories.. (in theory!)

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iaa

· #3 · Feb 20, 2002

MadAboutMINI said:
Does anybody know what this line item under "Comfort and Convenience" in the US MINI spec list is? It's a standard feature on both the Cooper and Cooper S.

Older cars have dedicated wires for each switch and light bulb, building into a very complicated and difficult to maintain wiring harness. Modern cars tend to make use of fewer 'buses' to distribute power and communication signals to more intelligent electronic units. I' m not an expert on the control architectures of BMW/MINI, but understand that a couple of different communication buses are used and that various sensors and displays actually talk to the central control unit at startup to identify themselves. In this sense, these (optional) items are plug and play just like add-ons to your home PC.

Regards,

Ian

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