Atoto A6 review

[degozaru]

Hey all, I bought the Atoto A6 unit in hopes that I would be able to interface with ECU connect and be able to display gauges on the head unit, which is way better than a phone mount. I was surprised and am writing my very first in-depth product review of anything ever because there was a lack of information on google/this forum, and I would like to fill it to save other people some trouble. I was looking for a head unit and it seems that these lesser-known non-kenwood units arent documented as much. I'm surprised that this head unit isn't getting as much attention, because I did not have to cut a single wire to get this thing to work


I purchased the Toyota/Subaru specific headunit, which accounts for the fact that Toyota head units are not true 2DIN head units. This saved me from having to buy an adapter harness. It fits right in with the factory brackets.



INSTALL

The install was very straight forward. I was able to do it in around 15 minutes. For those of you with factory backup cameras and USB/AUX, the harness provided does not interface these. I have ordered a harness on amazon for both of these, and have not confirmed that they work yet. I will report back soon once I get these harnesses in the mail at the end of the month.


Other than the backup camera and USB/AUX, everything was pretty much plug and play.




Startup time

First boot will initialize the device which will take about a minute. After that, it starts up way faster than the factory head unit... Like 3 seconds?


Fitment

Looks OEM. see pictures below


Interface

It has a dated android 6 OS. It has a little bit of lag, but nothing that would piss me off. I'm not exactly doing any high performance gaming/shitposting on this device, so as long as pressing the play button will play music within a second, I don't mind a small lag for a cheaper price.


It is an android OS, so you naturally can customize it to your heart's content. you can do anything from changing the wallpaper and moving the icons around to downloading apex launcher and customizing the whole UI (I have not tried this yet, but it is on my list).



Bluetooth

Bluetooth works well, I am able to connect to my phone every time without issue. This device has two different kinds of bluetooth. Bluetooth 1, which is classic bluetooth used to stream audio from your phone, answer calls, and so on. Bluetooth 2 allows you to connect to low energy devices (ecutek connect, obd2 devices for torque, controls for your ricer underglow systems, etc), and connect to the phone to perform data transfer (such as bluetooth tethering). I had a bit of problem connecting bluetooth 2 to my ecutek plug, but it worked out after a couple re-trys.



Internet

Wifi works well, as does bluetooth tethering. Good enough that I can watch keiichi tsuchiya clap his 86 on a touge, and some other goodies described below


Audio

Audio is good, I'm not an audiophile so I don't notice any difference. I can switch between equalization schemes and such.



Supported applications

Pretty much any sort of audio is supported. I opted to go with spotify on the head unit. I downloaded my playlist onto the head unit. This way, I don't need to waste phone battery streaming to my head unit:




I used ecutek connect on the car, and it seems to run flawlessly. I am able to log data, send it off to my email/my tuner's email






Harry's lap timer seems to work. Haven't tried going on a track yet. I will update after my track day next weekend if anyone's interested in this




For GPS, I chose to use waze, and it works really well. Intergration with spotify works well, too. I tried the microphone out by telling waze what address I wanted to go to, and it worked out well, so the microphone works well.





And, since I know you're all wondering, pornhub works. Thank god.







Complaints


My main complaint is that bluetooth thethering doesn't start automatically. I could be wrong and have to play with it for a while more, but everytime I want to navigate or use anything that uses the internet (navigation, youtube, pornhub, you name it), I need to manually open link with my phone. This is not too bad, since 90% of the time i'll just be playing music and nothing else, and will only turn it on during long road trips.


Conclusion

If you want to watch anime in your car, have oem-like gauges in your car, want girls to like you, hate your old oem unit, or pretty much any other case, try out this unit. You probably won't be disappointed, and if you are, send it back to jeff bezos for a full refund.




LINKS


Atoto A6 Toyota spec: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Toyota OEM USB harness: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Toyota OEM backup camera harness: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[DarkPira7e]

Wow thank you for this. I was working on building in a magnetic iPad holding to cover my center dash so I can " dock" my tablet there when I got in the car for datalogging with ECUtek. And for this price.. my god. Yes.

Please post updates with ECUtek as you continue using it!

[ybotspawn]

Are you using torque with this or is that a different obd app?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[degozaru]

Downloaded apex launcher onto my unit and then fiddled with some theming. I just wanted to keep it simple:

Originally Posted by DarkPira7e

Wow thank you for this. I was working on building in a magnetic iPad holding to cover my center dash so I can " dock" my tablet there when I got in the car for datalogging with ECUtek. And for this price.. my god. Yes.

Please post updates with ECUtek as you continue using it!

I tried datalogging, sending data logs, and setting a launch control RPM. It all functions perfectly. I also spent some time theming my ecutek:

Originally Posted by ybotspawn

Are you using torque with this or is that a different obd app?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is ecutek connect, the one used with their proprietary obd2 scanner/data logger/tuner


Torque should have no problem working with this unit, I think that has been documented before.

[MX-5RACER]

I'm very happy with my A6 as well. I ordered a cheap OBD2 Bluetooth dongle and connect it with the Torque app that comes preloaded. I also added in the apple/android dongle and use CarPlay all the time.

[degozaru]

Update on this:


I tried my laptimer at buttonwillow raceway and got within a tenth of my goPro's 16Hz gps. Works really well for seeing your laptimes on the fly since the screen is so big. I was able to glance at it and see right away how I was performing without having to squint at my phone screen. Great upgrade. Not to mention, I won't run out of batteries so I'll still be able to call mom and tell her I'm still alive after the track day.
The data logging feature is very good. Was able to send my tuner a couple logs throughout the day all from my head unit.
Video works well, watched some tokyo drift in traffic.
I was able to restore the stock USB function through the USB harness I bought. I also bought a backup camera harness that has come in and will be installing that soon.

[tarzan_nojane]

The Atoto A6 Pro (A6YTY721PR) for select Subaru/Toyota models is not available. Links to Amazon go to the generic 178mm wide models. The myatoto.com website shows this model as no longer available.

[suppjc]

Hi there,

I'm actually looking into buying this product for my frs. Canadian Amazon still has the same unit you bought. Did you need to solder any wires? I know close to nothing when it comes to the electronics on cars

Since it's been a few month since you bought the unit, how has it held up so far?

Thank you.


Ps. did you have to unplug the battery before installing? I've searched but barely no one disconnected the battery before installing, but just want to be sure

[aznchris]

Originally Posted by suppjc

Hi there,

I'm actually looking into buying this product for my frs. Canadian Amazon still has the same unit you bought. Did you need to solder any wires? I know close to nothing when it comes to the electronics on cars

Since it's been a few month since you bought the unit, how has it held up so far?

Thank you.


Ps. did you have to unplug the battery before installing? I've searched but barely no one disconnected the battery before installing, but just want to be sure

Technically, you never have to unplug batteries including car batteries when working on electrical, but it's just more of a safety thing. I usually don't unplug batteries unless there are exposed metal/solder points/PCBs that I can touch or if there's liquid nearby. Honestly, if you are ever unsure, better safe to unplug the battery than be sorry.

(I personally don't unplug the battery for stock head unit unless I am running thick power wires from an amp to the battery)

[degozaru]

Originally Posted by suppjc

Hi there,

I'm actually looking into buying this product for my frs. Canadian Amazon still has the same unit you bought. Did you need to solder any wires? I know close to nothing when it comes to the electronics on cars

Since it's been a few month since you bought the unit, how has it held up so far?

Thank you.


Ps. did you have to unplug the battery before installing? I've searched but barely no one disconnected the battery before installing, but just want to be sure

It's been holding up well. I've used it for navigation, data logging, watching youtube in the parking lot with to-go food, and track-timing with harrys lap timer. Everything works super well.


I got tasker on my phone which will automatically turn on a hotspot for my head unit to connect to when I turn on my car. I don't have to take my phone out of my pocket for any of this. I just get in my car and turn it on and everything I need is at my fingertips.


My complaint is that the bluetooth connection seems unstable sometimes so data logging might disconnect after a couple minutes, or not at all... depending on how lucky you are. It may be the placement of my antennas.


I did not have to solder anything. I did have to re-pin the harness to get my backup camera working, which is doable.


Technically you should be disconnecting the battery, but I did it with it on anyways.

[suppjc]

Originally Posted by aznchris

Technically, you never have to unplug batteries including car batteries when working on electrical, but it's just more of a safety thing. I usually don't unplug batteries unless there are exposed metal/solder points/PCBs that I can touch or if there's liquid nearby. Honestly, if you are ever unsure, better safe to unplug the battery than be sorry.

(I personally don't unplug the battery for stock head unit unless I am running thick power wires from an amp to the battery)

Thank you for your comment!

[suppjc]

Originally Posted by degozaru

It's been holding up well. I've used it for navigation, data logging, watching youtube in the parking lot with to-go food, and track-timing with harrys lap timer. Everything works super well.


I got tasker on my phone which will automatically turn on a hotspot for my head unit to connect to when I turn on my car. I don't have to take my phone out of my pocket for any of this. I just get in my car and turn it on and everything I need is at my fingertips.


My complaint is that the bluetooth connection seems unstable sometimes so data logging might disconnect after a couple minutes, or not at all... depending on how lucky you are. It may be the placement of my antennas.


I did not have to solder anything. I did have to re-pin the harness to get my backup camera working, which is doable.


Technically you should be disconnecting the battery, but I did it with it on anyways.

Hi, thanks for your comment. I just found out your comment was posted 3 minutes ahead of my previous comment, so I didn't notice.


I actually got my unit today and plugged in the obvious ones using a separate harness they included for toyota, and it worked... sorta.

It sounded completely missing the low end base and quite a bit of midrange, and found out one of the pin (connector?) from the 28 pin connector is plugged into the factory amplifier, which I should have connected somehow onto the headunit, which I didn't know. The harness came with the head unit was pnp except it didn't have a 'connector' for 28-pin. Hope this makes sense.

As you mentioned you didn't need to solder anything but re-pin for your back up camera, which is also part of the 28 pin connector, I'm gonna have a look and see if I can figure out to revive the low end sound. If I can't find a way without buying another harness or a bit of spending, I might end up returning the unit. I never knew harnesses are that expensive


Again, thanks for your comment.

[MX-5RACER]

Originally Posted by suppjc

Hi, thanks for your comment. I just found out your comment was posted 3 minutes ahead of my previous comment, so I didn't notice.


I actually got my unit today and plugged in the obvious ones using a separate harness they included for toyota, and it worked... sorta.

It sounded completely missing the low end base and quite a bit of midrange, and found out one of the pin (connector?) from the 28 pin connector is plugged into the factory amplifier, which I should have connected somehow onto the headunit, which I didn't know. The harness came with the head unit was pnp except it didn't have a 'connector' for 28-pin. Hope this makes sense.

As you mentioned you didn't need to solder anything but re-pin for your back up camera, which is also part of the 28 pin connector, I'm gonna have a look and see if I can figure out to revive the low end sound. If I can't find a way without buying another harness or a bit of spending, I might end up returning the unit. I never knew harnesses are that expensive


Again, thanks for your comment.

When I installed my A6, I had to de-pin the connector for the amp turn on and move it to the correct pin for the BRZ.

Similar to this, but this is not what I used to verify mine:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...light=atoto+a6

[suppjc]

Originally Posted by MX-5RACER

When I installed my A6, I had to de-pin the connector for the amp turn on and move it to the correct pin for the BRZ.

Similar to this, but this is not what I used to verify mine:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...light=atoto+a6

Hi there, I think I came across your post about ur experience too.
At the moment I pulled out the unit and put back the oem one, seriously considering returning the unit.

I found out that their Toyota Harness was almost pnp but the wire for Amp on was not connected to anything. I’m guess that was the only way to make the harness universal for many people but doenst work for our platform.

I’ve looked up several posts regarding wiring diagram, and then found out even that is all different among different model years. The OEM unit I have is a pioneer unit with a touch screen on 2015 scion frs. Right now, I can’t tell which one is the amp on cable.

I played with the atoto unit little more, but it was quite laggy, add on mic is terrible somehow, and Carplay by a separate dongle was unstable. At this point, I’m considering buying something like sony Ax1000 from Crutchfield. As far as I heard, they prep the harness pretty much pnp. I’ll loose the option to utilize my obd, but can’t sacrifice the overall usability especially when it comes to the Carplay and its stability.

Ps. You mentioned you de-pinned the amp on. Would you know where I can watch the video tutorial? At least I’ll get to know the process.