Pioneer Ships New Floating Radios

Pioneer Electronics is shipping its largest radios to date. The 9- and 10- inch NEX floating radios first shown at CES in January are now available under Pioneer’s NEX series, as well as two new radios with standard 6.8 inch screens.

The new NEX radios are among the industry’s first AV decks with built-in Amazon Alexa. When the radio is connected to a WiFi hot spot, users can access Alexa through the radio for questions and commands such as:

• Alexa, what’s the weather?
• Alexa, add apples to my shopping list
• Alexa, close the garage door
• Alexa, play radio on Pandora

The new models are also capable of interfacing with an ESCORT or K40 radar detector through an iDataLink Maestro RR2 interface.  And they can work with new Metra interfaces.

Models are:

• DMH-WT8600NEX (10.1 inch; $1,200) / DMH-WT7600NEX (9 inch; $1,000): An all new floating display configuration, allowing a large display to be installed using a universal 1-DIN chassis
• DMH-WC6600NEX (9 inch; $900): A modular design that combines a large touchscreen display with a hideaway control unit that installers can tuck into separate compartments of the vehicle
• DMH-W4660NEX / DMH-W4600NEX (6.8 inch; $600): A traditional 2DIN chassis for universal application in most vehicles on the road in the U.S.

All five models are SiriusXM ready and feature Hi-Res Audio playback capability, FLAC file playback, 13-band graphic equalizer, time alignment, 4V RCA preamplifier outputs (front/rear/subwoofer), and Bluetooth audio streaming and hands-free communication.  The decks offer a rear camera input, and an HDMI video input. All models except the DMH-W4600NEX have built-in HD Radio.