New Budget Friendly Maestro to Debut

1. #Bash2024

2. Goodbye Axxess modules 🙂

3. Hello All, I do not see a huge problem here. As BASH stated and others who use the product know, It does work and 9 out of 10 times flawlessly… Once they have the full roster of vehicle’s in play I am sure that it will be great to “lighten” the load on ALL of those other manufacturers interfaces that can be a crap shoot on working with out issue…

4. Robert & iDatalink Team,
   Do not let some naysayers get you down. I’m thrilled to have the SR and so will many other dealers across the United States & Canada.

   This release will finally allow me to remove the other two brands of interfaces from my store. We all know that iDatalink products WORK right, every time.

   For those that are complaining about stocking additional product, get your business sense up. You need to spend money to make money. If you’re worried about stocking additional harnesses, you’re doing this wrong. There are plenty of us who can & will afford to stock more harnesses.

   For those worried about margin loss, level up your sales game. I have no problem selling anything at MAP. Lots of stores sell at MAP all day, everyday. If you aren’t able to do this in 2024, there are trainings you can attend to learn how to sell. Sorry not sorry.

   This is a great product line by a reputable manufacturer. Instead of thanking them, you’re complaining. Instead of seeing the opportunity, you’re focusing on negativity. Stop that.

5. Maestro,

   Thank you for your continued innovation you provide our industry as a whole. I totally understand why you made this for the non-maestro compatible receiver’s. As a dealer who focuses on maestro compatible receivers this won’t have much effect on us. I do understand why these were developed to fill in that gap. Thank you for continuing to listen to our request and develop according.

6. I don’t understand people complaining about this. No one is making you buy it, nor are they taking away the RR or RR2. If you don’t like the margins, then continue selling what you are selling. No one is making you switch. Just like anything else, if you don’t like the margins on a certain radio brand, you don’t sell that brand. No big deal. You find one that works for your store. I don’t see a problem with having another option that you may turn to if you need to solve a problem. Maybe I am in the minority here, but I like having different options to choose from. I have also been “supporting Maestro/Idata since day 1”. I have yet to see a product that hasn’t been an innovation of sorts in our market.

   1. I don’t think you’re in the minority. I think most people are going to be happy to have a Maestro quality alternative to current data harnesses offered by other brands. Complaining about MAP pricing being low is silly when most alternatives don’t even enforce MAP and can be purchased for cost or close to it. I’m happy to see Maestro offering more options and solutions and I’d like to believe most people are.

7. Nice punishment to us retailers that have supported Maestro from day 1. Cost efficient to the customer at the expense of the dealers. But I’m sure Crutchfield will be happy.

   1. Not seeing how this is punishment… this is an alternative to PAC, CRUX, AXXESS interfaces with Maestro quality. It’s not a replacement for RR and RR2 and doesn’t masquerade as one. It’s right there in the article what features are stripped away to make it less expensive. It is annoying to stock two sets of harness for the SR and RR/RR2 and the price difference between them doesn’t make that much sense to me, but I don’t see the issue with this line of harnesses being offered.

      1. Margins at MAP are likely half or less than the alternatives you listed (notice how they haven’t mentioned what MAP is going to be yet, there’s a reason for that). I guarantee they will force you to buy the SR (and the RR and RR2) for some reason like providing features the RR and RR2 don’t cover. I’ve already seen instances on their site where the SR provides features the others don’t. Revisit this in 6 months once they’ve rolled out the rest of the bad news for the dealers.

   2. Hi Andy, we’re disappointed that this announcement comes across as a punishment. We’re hoping the SR helps you use Maestro in more installs than ever by offering an attractive solution to customers who don’t require the complete feature set of the RR (e.g. climate control, gauges, radar integration, etc) or who aren’t buying a Maestro-compatible radio. We hope you’ll be happy to use it and invite you to share your feedback with our team once you have some experience with it.

      1. I was excited about it and hoped for something like this for a long time. Then the pricing came out. Dealers know it will never be sold at MSRP and we assume the MAP is being kept secret for now for a reason. Sorry to disappoint if you were expecting us to be happy about it.

         1. MAP is not being kept secret. We started accepting pre-orders for the SR last week and already shared price lists with our reps.

            I’d also like to briefly address your other concern about being “forced” to buy the SR. There are 2 key features which are not available on the RR: Bluetooth and Maestro Programmable Outputs (MPOs). Bluetooth connectivity is required to support vehicle settings in the Maestro Central mobile app on non-Maestro-compatible radios, which is a key innovation in the SR and where we believe it will be used most often. The MPOs were added because it helps dealers integrate additional accessories which drives up the install’s ticket price. Both features are available on the RR2 if you prefer to use that solution instead of the SR.

8. On the surface I agree, but it looks like the new t-harness will be dramatically cheaper than the normal HRN-HRR’s

9. Wait, this isn’t using the existing selection of T Harness. I have to sku and stock a who set? Come on idata, uping you prices on harnesses so you could try and sell us plug and play harnesses wasn’t enough, Now you want me to carry a whole new selection of harnesses for your low cost option.

   1. Hi Cody, the existing RR harnesses don’t “line up” with the outputs on the SR and have too many connectors that would go unused. We’re sensitive to distributors and dealers having to carry additional SKUs – heck, this affects our planning and production teams, too – but just like we made a new module to serve a more value-focused install, we needed to pair it with a new line of harnesses best suited to the application.

Comments are closed.