iDatalink-ready car stereo

My non Alpine 8.4 in my 2019 Bighorn Classic screws up often. Frankly, I'm sick of it. I was looking at Crutchfield at new stereos and I see this: "An iDatalink-ready car stereo is required to retain your vehicle's personalization settings menu."
Admittedly, I'm a tad behind the times when it comes to changing out the head unit. What exactly does that mean?

Just installed a iDatalink this weekend. This is typically installed with a new head unit. Once the iDataLink is flashed to you vehicle it allows you to maintain steering wheel controls and depending on the headunit, i.e. if it has a display will allow specific feature of the vehicle to be displayed e.g. HVAC controls; dual temp settings; OBD2 data: performance information as well as body information such as open door alert etc.

How do you know if you are looking at an iDatalink ready stereo? I couldn't find anything about it on Crutchfield

Anyone know?

for example, this one:

but, changing out the HU in the ram is likely a PITA, if it’s even possible.

iDatalink Maestro lets you keep your factory extras​

This Alpine offers compatibility you won't find in many other aftermarket radios, thanks to the iDatalink Maestro module (not included).

• compatible with iDatalink Maestro
  • retains factory features in a wide selection of vehicles
  • displays engine performance data on touchscreen

Ram_d00d said:

Anyone know?

Click to expand...

@Ram_d00d Do you know what "head unit" you want? Starting from a non premium sound system you can do a heck of a lot. Not having to fight the amp/pcm issue opens the door for just about any setup without a metric ton of bypass wiring. As for "idatalink ready" it doesn't quite work like that. I suspect your thinking of the "SAT ready" radio's. Any head unit you put in the truck, if you want to keep the factory radio controls will require some sort of data bridge with the CAN bus. The data bridge will depend on the head unit you want. Some may not require as robust of a bridge as an idatalink. Once you have decided on a head unit then you match a data bridge to it.

As far a Crutchfield is concerned you cannot do better if your going DIY. If you buy your head unit there they will send you the wiring diagram to mount the radio you selected. There tech support is hands down the best. Talk to one of the sales people about what you want to accomplish. They will lead you through each piece required and explain why you need it and what you get from it. I install more radios then I care to admit because I don't consider myself a "professional installer". As accomplished as I am I still rely on Crutchfield time and again.

There is a great you tube resource 5 Star Audio puts out called "Installer Diaries". In my opinion this is one of the best resources available, Dean and Fernando are "pro installers" and they teach you ever trick in the book and show you how to do it. I linked a dodge ram video for reference.

The idatalink is the interface from the HU to the vehicles system. You will need to send the HU info to the people at Idatalink and they will send you software for your idatalink to enable it to talk to the HU. Download the software to the idatalink and they you install the HU and idatalink and boom everything is happy.

When I did my pioneer a few months back with the idata meastro all that was needed was the radio, I data link maestro and wiring adapter. You program the maestro following a sequence using a pc and flash the maestro yourself. Tedious but very doable.

I had this done on Saturday. The Idatalink RR allows a lot stuff to come up on the screen from RAM. AC controls, gauges and other stuff. I also used the RAM1 kit and that comes with the antenna adpater and wiring plug that goes into the OEM plug

Also steering wheel controls still work and the cluster in the dash still shows all the sameradio info that i had like before.