Sirus

[Kid Mike]

Can I install a Sirus radio unit into my Lexus 2002 SC430?

Thanks

Mike 

[1990LS400]

It looks like VAIS still sells aux-in kits for your car:  https://vaistech.com/

You could stream SiriusXM from the SiriiusXM cell phone app by either connecting your cell phone directly to the aux-in or adding a bluetooth adapter to the aux-in and streaming wirelessly.  SiriusXM sounds quite nice when streamed from its cell phone app.

This aux-in would allow you to stream whatever you want from your phone ... Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, etc.

[Kid Mike]

If I do it this way will I not use much of my cellular data?

[1990LS400]

43 minutes ago, Kid Mike said:

If I do it this way will I not use much of my cellular data?

Yes, streaming audio from a cell phone uses cellular data.  The amount of data used varies depending on application and how much it is used.   I don't remember how much data the SiriusXM cell phone app uses since the last several vehicles we've purchased have had built-in sat radio.

You could also buy a separate SiriusXM tuner and likely output its audio to a cable that would plug into the VAIS aux-in jack.  But why bother at this point.  Sat radio isn't really from satellites in many areas anyway but instead is broadcast from ground based repeaters..   

The money you spend on installing a separate SiriusXM tuner is better applied to a more robust data plan in my opinion.  Unlimited data plans or data plans that provide a massive amount of data  are fairly common and inexpensive these days.  When I was daily streaming Pandora from my cell phone to my modified radio in my 2000 LS400 10 years ago, I doubt that it ever took more than 1 or 2 GB of data per month. 

I haven't used the SiriusXM cell phone app in several years but from what I remember it sounded better than sound from a built-in SiriusXM receiver.  In my current daily driver (2022 Porsche Cayenne), 99% of what I listen to is streamed from the Internet.  We even listen to local radio stations on the Internet based TuneIn service when we travel out of our home area. 

Steaming from a cell phone opens up all sorts of possibilities.  For example, I burned my entire music collection from CD's to my cell phone.  Doing that requires a decent amount of storage on a cell phone but not that much compared to how much storage many modern cell phones have.  My current aging Samsung S10 phone has 512GB of built-in storage and a 512GB removable SD card for a total of one terabyte.  I doubt that my personal music collection takes up even 5% of the total storage.

Another cool aspect of doing everything from your phone is that it's portable.  You can stream from your phone to other vehicles, wireless Bluetooth speakers or just listen to the audio (including SiriusXM) with earbuds.  

As you can see, once I get started on this stuff, I have a hard time stopping!

[Kid Mike]

Great info

thanks K M