Hello fellow Jazz owners. This is my first post here, I've just joined.
We've recently inherited my wife's late grandfathers 2016 Jazz SE. We were already a fan of the Jazz, having had our 2012 Jazz for about 3.5 years now and it's been a great car. So we are most grateful to have ended up with a second Jazz in our household.
The 2016/GK3 Jazz has been great so far in terms of comfort, improved throttle response and handling over the 2012/GE6. The differences are noticable.
However, what I have noticed on the 2016/GK3 is that I find the Android based "Display Audio System" to be "finicky" to use and not terribly intuitive to use when driving.
The simpler, "no display" radio in the 2012/GE6 is intuitive - it has buttons. It allows one to keep their eyes on the road and feel the radio buttons. Whereas, the 2016/GK3 requires one to "look at the radio" to operate it.
I know this is the way most modern cars are going now, however, I've not owned any modern cars (2012 Jazz was the newest car we've owned until the GK3 came along) and I would certainly prefer to have a radio with buttons over a touchscreen.
My other car that I am about to put up for sale is a 2006 Audi A4 and I've had this set up to control bluetooth music using the buttons on the original LCD matrix display radio via an interface box.
On the 2012/GE6, I've simply connectd a Bluetooth receiver with a large control knob that allows to easy control of music without the need to take my eyes off of the road.
My questions are:
- Has anyone downgraded their Honda radio from the "Display Audio System" to the "Colour Audio System"?
- If so, is there any meaningful disadvantage to downgrading?
- Are there any issues that would prevent the radio from being downgraded?
(for me I would see this as an "upgrade" as my preference is for a simpler car radio, with buttons)
Having looked through the user manual, it seems that there may only be a slight variance in files types that are recognised from a USB drive - other than that, it seems there is no real disadvantage to downgrading.
Android 4.0.4 seems quite useless in 2026, so I do not feel as though there would be any downside to losing the Android OS given that no modern navigation apps would run on this OS anyway - even if there was a way to sideload or a hack to install additional apps (I use the paid TomTom GO app, which requires Android 7.0 onwards).
The intention would be to connect my phone to the "Colour Audio System" via Bluetooth (or USB cable if it carries audio and allows music control) and to continue to use my phone for navigation/audio as I have done to date:
- Car audio for sound
- Music control via interface control knob/button - no need to touch the phone when driving.
If the Colour Audio System can receive audio input via USB and also allows for music control via the steering wheel and radio buttons, then even better.
I may also use a USB drive with audio files loaded from time to time. Again, it looks as though there should be no barrier to doing this with the downgraded "Colour Audio System".
Any experiences welcomed. Many thanks.
