Parrot RNB6 with Android 5.0 Lollipop ties with CarPlay and Android Auto

Even though Parrot is famous for drones and audio products, its new car infotainment system, the Parrot RNB6 is being demoed at CES 2015 and it seems like a comprehensive system to have in-car. We’ve just talked about Nvidia’s infotainment system powered by the Tegra X1 CPU and the Parrot RNB6 might be a veritable competitor to that. The system involves a 2-DIN unit made up of a 7 inch display, audio amplifier and wide-angle dash camera.

If that’s more or less gibberish to you, or you don’t really drive that much, these innovations might not seem all that interesting. Nonetheless, the system contains great hardware and its software permits pairing with both Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto, which is a rare thing to see. Usually, infotainment systems go with one or the other, taking sides and quarreling and whatnot, but the Parrot RNB6 seems to understand that users value versatility more than exclusivity.

The Parrot RNB6 has a 7 inch IPS Pro touchscreen with a 720p resolution for your viewing pleasure, as well as 4 x 55-watt audio amplifier and a great wired wide-angle 1080p dashboard camera. What’s best about the system is that it runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop, which means you can get as much Material Design on your dashboard as you can get. Naturally, with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay pairing, you get a boat-load of features to use when driving or just plain sitting in your car enjoying your new infotainment system.

The software within Parrot RNB6 actually runs a tweaked, personalized version of Lollipop which includes functions like parking assistance, media playback, navigation, telephone functions, parking sensors, dash cam controls, air control, on-board diagnostics for determining tire pressure, parking sensors, air-conditioning and even voice control for most of these features. You can customize audio presets, too, so that you can get a 5.1 surround sound effect when driving, as if you were in the middle of the car. Pretty neat right? I think surround sound is one of the best inventions of the century, but that’s because I think I’m a little deaf, so don’t listen to me that much.

Even though the Parrot RNB6 infotainment system is not available yet, nor do we know how much the whole shabang will cost once it hits consumer markets, it seems like a neat setup to have in the ol’ modern cars of the past decade. The whole system looks well put together and seems to be filled with everything you would like to have on a future-proof vehicle. You can check out the presentation below so that you can get an idea about how it works and what it can do.