Wireless Carplay

Has anyone used a device/dongle to setup CarPlay wirelessly?
TIA

 

Yes. I use the Superior Tek 3.0 on Amazon. The Carlinkit 2.0 was laggy and had issues, not sure if they fixed these issues in 3.0.

 

I use the Carlinkit 3.0 and its been pretty much flawless.

 

I have the CarlinKit 3.0 and it still takes a minute or so for Android Auto to get connected and running. Even then, it randomly disconnects, but that could be because I installed it behind the center dash kick panel with the cord somewhat strained because it is about an inch shorter than it really needs to be. Replacing the cord this week.

Is the Superior Tek really a quicker boot-up device? I'd pay for that if the connection is reliable too.

 

I'll have to time it but it is quicker than my Carlinkit 2.0. I had lag, screen lock up, audio issues and crashes with the old device. Superior Tek has been holding up well and less glitchy overall. The only issue I'm finding is if I am on a call when the device connects; Carlinkit had the same issue but would crap out shortly after connecting.

 

I recently experienced wireless CarPlay in a friend's 2022, and so now I want it in my 2021. I really wish they would make a kit or something official, from either Toyota or Apple, to add whatever hardware is needed to convert to a fully wireless system. I really don't want to deal with compatibility issues from these 3rd party adapters.

 

I guess I should pay better attention. I see the Superior Tek is only for Apple Carplay. I think I'll stick with the CarlinKit for a while. Maybe a longer USB cable will help with my random disconnect issue. I can probably live with the relatively slow startup as long as it stays connected.

 

OK, I caved in and bought the Carlinkit 3.0/ 4.0 Wireless Apple CarPlay adapter. It arrived today.

Appears to connect to my 2021 head unit fine. Scanned the QR code and checked that no firmware updates are pending. But then it just hangs on Connecting...

I poked around the settings and tried all permutations of connecting/forgetting it (both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth).

Has anyone else experienced this? iPhone 14 and iOS 16.2.

 

Yes. The instructions for the new version are convoluted. The company contacted me on Amazon after I returned the unit. The written instructions don't cover how to connect it based on what they emailed me.

 

I just received mine and once I connected with Bluetooth, it has worked well…so far. It’s only been 3 days.
Are you able to connect with Bluetooth? Also, I needed to acknowledge the Wi-Fi connection to the device as well.

 

@clarkritchie here is what I got from the vendor:
Thank you for purchasing a wireless carplay adapter from us recently on Amazon. We apologize for the bad experience that our products have caused you. For this product, Bluetooth is verification and WiFi is the transmission channel. When connecting the device, the mobile phone's Bluetooth and WiFi cannot connect to the signals of other devices except our products. Please make sure your original car's bluetooth is turned off and don't let your phone connect to your car's bluetooth. If your model is a built-in factory wired Apple carplay, your model is compatible with our product. Please try the following solution:

1.Insert the product into the car navigation machine,search the WiFi signal of the product box.
2.Mobile phone connected to the device's wifi
（1）First click the settings.
（2）Click on WLAN to find the wifi name of the device.
（3）Enter the password (12345678) and click connect.
3.Then open your phone own's browser and enter the URL: 192.168.50.2.
4. Click the white circle button to enter the “Advanced” interface, and select “Frame”, Manually adjust the input “20”. (As attached picture) Looking forward to your reply.

 

Does yours blink green and then go to solid green?

My phone says I'm connected, and my phone's name appears on the HU, it just never advances past that Connecting...

Thinking the LED on the device should change from blinking to solid; mine just continues to blink as if it's still connecting even though iOS says I am connected.

 

Mine blinks green when connects. I will say that I cannot use the trucks Wi-Fi when connected to the device. It’s one or the other

 

Thanks so much @Saltyhero13, but sadly there was no luck with Advanced/Frame = 20 here. Will continue to tinker until their support comes online after the holiday...

 

I got it to work by downgrading to the 2022.07.29.1635 firmware.

Then, I upgraded back to the current firmware (which is something like 2022.09.XX.XXXX) but ran into the same issue. I'm concluding that the version is buggy.

So I downgraded it again, and it seems to connect fine. However, now my core temperature is dangerously low after ~20 minutes outside in this weather. I will make up some excuse to run to the store here in a bit and report back later.

 

I have a Kenwood DNT 1007XR Head Unit I replaced my factory unity with. I still have a boot up lag (10-20 sec) and the whole unit will randomly reboot. Phone disconnects and the Head Unit restarts. I have better operation with Apple Car Play than I did with Android Auto...

 

OK, so this Carlinkit 4.0 does seem to work just fine after downgrading to that 2022.07.29.1635 firmware. The total startup time, from the moment I press the start button to having Car Play be up and operational, is about 28 seconds. That's acceptable to me. There's a slight lag when swiping around the Car Play UI but it's not bad, maybe ~200ms. I used Siri to send some text messages, and all of that worked as expected.

The unit's LED strip blinks continuously which, at night, is right on the cusp of being annoying to me. I adhered my unit to the center console down where near your right knee rests so it's sort of tucked away. But still, the green blinks were sort of catching my eye on my drive home in the dark just now. So I'll have to move it or just cover the LED strip with electrical tape.

I will note that my truck's battery was dead this morning, which has never happened. That is probably due to me having the ignition in the on (start) position while I was fussing with that firmware yesterday morning in the cold. So we'll see what tomorrow brings... and/or I'm about to experience the bad OEM battery treatment.

All in all, after one afternoon of use, I'm happy with it. It's pretty great just to leave my phone in my pocket, and just get in and go. Time will tell!

 

OK, so it's been two weeks.

I will say, this thing works fine 98% of the time. iMessage, maps, etc. all seems to function as you would expect.

The 2% of the time that Carlinkit goes sideways is not enough of an annoyance for me to want to get rid of it. The worst case seems to be that you have to toggle Wi-Fi on your phone or pull the USB cord to reboot the device. For me, this only happens when I'm doing something, i.e. Carlinkit doesn't just randomly go bananas while driving.

An example of when it didn't work right is last night when I grabbed my phone while at a long stop light to peck out a quick iMessage reply. I used the iOS emoji screen animation feature (where you long press the send button to throw confetti on the screen or whatever) and Carlinkit instantly switched my music from SXM to iPhone music. I was digging that song, so I went back to SXM by pressing buttons on the head unit, but Carlinkit wanted none of that, so it switched me back to iPhone music. This process repeated itself.

I've seen similar behavior when opening Spotify -- once open, Carlinkit insisted that I continue to listen to Spotify no matter what. No amount of button pressing would allow me to return to SXM.

Of note, Carlinkit removed my positive but fair and balanced less-than-5-star review, which is disappointing. Maybe because I called out their Customer Service as being unresponsive.

So do not expect their customer support to be responsive.

Carlinkit seems to default CarPlay to the last open app when you start the truck.

Note that as per above, I had to downgrade the firmware so maybe some of this was fixed in the newer version but alas, it doesn't connect for me so...

Anyhow, hope that's helpful for future readers.

Good luck!

 

If you have factory CarPlay, Carlinkit allows you to use that without plugging your phone into a USB cable. Carlinkit does not add CarPlay to a non-CarPlay head unit. Hope that helps.

 

OK, here's a minor update after a month of use.

I commented above that it works 98% of the time. I think I need to downgrade that remark ever so slightly, I'll go with 95% today, as I've now seen it crash outright a few times, each of which required a hard reboot.

Their support eventually got back to me (which took multiple weeks due to the holidays and Chinese New Year) and said that if the downgraded firmware worked, I should just continue to use that. Whereas I was hoping for a little troubleshooting help with their current firmware as there are a ton of settings in the system. And, you know, generally speaking, if a newer version of something contains bug fixes, I sort of want those bug fixes. Oh well.

I still like and use the thing, but it's definitely imperfect. YMMV.

 

I bought the Carlin kit off Amazon after reading on here, it’s glitchy at times, but still like it better that having to plug my phone into it.

 

I have the Teeran Carplay kit in 3 vehicles. Works perfectly, super fast / easy set up, starts up super fast, no perceptible lag, and no drop in sound quality.

Teeran CarPlay Wireless Adapter for Factory Wired CarPlay 2024 Upgrade Plug & Play Dongle Converts Wired to Wireless for Cars from 2015 & iPhone iOS 10+

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBG4QRPX

 

Finally broke down and bought the new style charger. 100% upgrade over the useless oem charger. Couldn’t be happier with it