Car play wireless via usb?

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Hi all,

Does anyone have any experience with a wireless usb dongle for car play, as I'm aware of some units knocking around advertised on the internet and various social media sites.

As it is I have wired but it's just a little tedious having to link it that way, more so when I get a call out to work and I'm in a rush. Would just rather jump in the car and drive off, linking via wireless would be preferable.

Can anyone point me to one decent one at all please?

Thanks in advance
 
Using a CarlinkIt 4 in our CX5. I tried a few before settling on this one. Most of the cheapo ones can only deal with one phone whereas the CarlinkIt can deal with several that you can switch between.
It's been solid. No complaints.
 
I went for one off the rainforrest. Not sure if your still not allowed to post links, but it's this one here:

Screenshot-5.png


I have it in my Golf R. You can connect 2 phones to it, but I'm not 100% sure just how seamlessly you can flick between them when they are both in the vicinity. My wife doesn't often drive the Golf, but when she does I aint usually near it so haven't had a problem so far. But it does work great. Not really had any problems with it, and I am generally connected not long after starting the car. In the Golf it boots from unlocking the door I think, so it is often connected same time as stereo boots up anyway.

It was recommended as a better alternative on another forum, and I must say, I have not been disappointed. There are a couple that look very similar. They are maybe the same, I dunno? Sure I was one for £40 instead of this one at £60. Came with a USB C adapter too.
 
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Hey guys, thanks so much for that.

At least I now know that they're not kind a thing that's a con, some of the adverts I'd seen wasn't so sure.

I'll take a look at the one mentioned.

Cheers
 
Don't forget that wired car play is nonetheless using a higher quality (lpcm 48/16) data stream than wireless (re-encoded as aac)... so personally wouldn't want to make that sacrifice for the sake of plugging a cable in,
unless really short trips .... plug will also charge the phone efficiently;
I've been trying the bmw & audi music systems over the last couple of weeks .(vlc player on iphone, or a usb key with 256kb aac being my preferred methods)
supposedly some itunes native aac music can be passed bit perfect without initial iphone decode , and re-encode for wireless transmission (which would save power/resources on the iphone, kinda ironic if you are using less efficient wireless charging with wireless) but I've not seen how you ensure that.

new car is going to be 4cylinder rip 6 ... so want to have something good to listen too


Developing CarPlay Systems, Part 1​

CarPlay is a smarter, safer way to use your iPhone in the car. Learn how CarPlay works and how to design your car's infotainment system to work seamlessly with iPhone. Understand best practices for a great user experience that integrates CarPlay with the car's native system
Click to expand...
image.png
 
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Rilot said:
Using a CarlinkIt 4 in our CX5. I tried a few before settling on this one. Most of the cheapo ones can only deal with one phone whereas the CarlinkIt can deal with several that you can switch between.
It's been solid. No complaints.
Click to expand...
I've been using the same one in my DS3 for a couple years and it works great.
 
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I’ve got a few days off work starting tomorrow so I’ll have more time to look into all
Of those mentioned, appreciate all the info guys.
 
I have a Carlinkit CP200-CCPA dongle that I bought back in 2020 for my Audi S4. For the most part it works fine but it's not without bugs! The issues I've seen may be the dongle or just some odd compatibility with Audi's infotainment. I'm not sure. I haven't tried any other dongles.

The main one is that the CarPlay screen or "App" that you look at and interact with on the display sometimes minimises like when you press a button on the infotainment system to open something else and can't be re-opened until you disconnect/re-connect the dongle from the USB port and wait for the phone to re-connect. This only happens at random when the parking sensor screen pops up, but not every time. There's something about the parking sensor screen that has like a 1 in 5 chance of killing the CarPlay screen. When it happens CarPlay is still connected and working but you have no way of seeing it or interacting with it. Frustrating when you're using it for satnav as you can't see the map!

The other marginally less annoying bug is if you get a call while listening to music or a podcast or something via CarPlay and decline the call using the car controls, CarPlay is unable to output sound anymore despite songs and podcasts still playing. I don't know if this is an iPhone or CarPlay specific bug or again something to do with the dongle I have (likely!). A few times I've been able to fix it by flicking between radio and back to CarPlay but most of the time it also requires the dongle to be disconnected/re-connected and wait for the phone to re-connect.

The last bug that is more minor but still annoying is if my phone doesn't auto-connect like it does 90% of the time. Usually because I'm not fully in range of the wifi while closing driveway gates or something. When this happens it seems the menu and controls to manually connect a phone get's jumbled up. By default the selector is on the phone so in theory you just need to click the Audi's rotary selector wheel to start the connection but it does nothing until you rotate the selector to another menu option and back again to the phone. But oh the fun doesn't end there....depending on which way you decide to rotate the onscreen selector, clicking the rotary wheel down to connect with the phone when it's back on the phone will not trigger the phone connection, but instead rotates the selector again to the next menu option. You can quite easily spend a couple of minutes just trying to get the selector in the right place and doing what it should.

For a lot of journeys none of these things are an issue but when they crop up it's just bloody annoying. As a heavy user of CarPlay I think I'll be looking for full wireless integration on my next car to avoid having to use a random dongle in the hopes that I won't see these niggles.
 
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cokecan said:
I have a Carlinkit CP200-CCPA dongle that I bought back in 2020 for my Audi S4. For the most part it works fine but it's not without bugs! The issues I've seen may be the dongle or just some odd compatibility with Audi's infotainment. I'm not sure. I haven't tried any other dongles.

The main one is that the CarPlay screen or "App" that you look at and interact with on the display sometimes minimises like when you press a button on the infotainment system to open something else and can't be re-opened until you disconnect/re-connect the dongle from the USB port and wait for the phone to re-connect. This only happens at random when the parking sensor screen pops up, but not every time. There's something about the parking sensor screen that has like a 1 in 5 chance of killing the CarPlay screen. When it happens CarPlay is still connected and working but you have no way of seeing it or interacting with it. Frustrating when you're using it for satnav as you can't see the map!

The other marginally less annoying bug is if you get a call while listening to music or a podcast or something via CarPlay and decline the call using the car controls, CarPlay is unable to output sound anymore despite songs and podcasts still playing. I don't know if this is an iPhone or CarPlay specific bug or again something to do with the dongle I have (likely!). A few times I've been able to fix it by flicking between radio and back to CarPlay but most of the time it also requires the dongle to be disconnected/re-connected and wait for the phone to re-connect.

The last bug that is more minor but still annoying is if my phone doesn't auto-connect like it does 90% of the time. Usually because I'm not fully in range of the wifi while closing driveway gates or something. When this happens it seems the menu and controls to manually connect a phone get's jumbled up. By default the selector is on the phone so in theory you just need to click the Audi's rotary selector wheel to start the connection but it does nothing until you rotate the selector to another menu option and back again to the phone. But oh the fun doesn't end there....depending on which way you decide to rotate the onscreen selector, clicking the rotary wheel down to connect with the phone when it's back on the phone will not trigger the phone connection, but instead rotates the selector again to the next menu option. You can quite easily spend a couple of minutes just trying to get the selector in the right place and doing what it should.

For a lot of journeys none of these things are an issue but when they crop up it's just bloody annoying. As a heavy user of CarPlay I think I'll be looking for full wireless integration on my next car to avoid having to use a random dongle in the hopes that I won't see these niggles.
Click to expand...

Good shout re that info from your past experience, exactly some points you've made is why I asked on to these forums which can be invaluable at times. Tbh 90% of my journeys are short distance to/from work either myself or my wife (car share) similar, and I'd hazard a guess like you say a wireless connection ie this way would be ok, longer journeys probably best plugged in and charge phone same time.

Thanks again guys for all your invaluable info, makes a difference for decision making.

Av8
 
It's all good. I'm sure these read as worse than they actually are but it hasn't been enough to make me go and buy another dongle or connect my phone each time with a cable. Like you I wanted convenience where it just auto connects wirelessly and it certainly ticks that box (99% of the time :rolleyes:). The parking sensor thing generally won't be an issue while I'm out an about unless I'm close to another car or object and even then it's like 1 in 5 chance. I'd say it only happens when I'm in traffic and usually because someone has got really close behind me or a pedestrian has walked past a sensor to trigger it. I generally don't get many calls while I'm driving so I don't see that issue that often and even if I was that irked by it I could just divert all calls to voicemail when in Driving focus mode.
 
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Sorry for the hijack.

Mrs' car has Android Auto (she has a Pixel phone) but it only connects via USB.

The issue is that the USB doesn't supply enough power to charge the phone and operate the AA functions (GPS etc). Consequently her phone battery drains significantly on longer journeys.

If I bought an AA USB-Wireless adaptor, would it work or would it conflict?
 
Using AA/CP in wireless mode generally going to use more power as it's using the base-band chip to send data wirelessly - has she tried using the 2-d maps, too, which may use less power (for rendering) than 3-d
 
jpaul said:
Using AA/CP in wireless mode generally going to use more power as it's using the base-band chip to send data wirelessly - has she tried using the 2-d maps, too, which may use less power (for rendering) than 3-d
Click to expand...

She uses it for more than just maps, often using Spotify or a Audible. The USB port only supplies 2.5w so for large power devices it's practically useless.

With the wireless AA option she would be able to use the 20w wireless cradle she has to charge the device, sadly you can't use wireless and wired charging at the same time nor can you chose to disable one, it defaults to the wired.
 
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maybe impractical - but, in theory, can you use one of these if you have high power, efficient, cigarette charger (maybe I'll need once myself even)

Belkin Connect USB-C Data + Charge Adapter​

e: ok this one would only work for an IOS device Up to 100W USB-PD passthrough power for Mac and iOS devices


I've got a further problem with Carplay ... at least for music playing the equalizer in the car seems to be defeated when in car play , so you need
a system wide eq app on the iphone
https://www.soundguys.com/best-eq-apps-73891/ like 'Boom' I'm not going to pay £15pa for this !
VLC player I am trying on iphone seems to have a bug where it does not remember it's eq setting on the iphone.
maybe one of the iphone default eq's will do though ...
 
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Thanks all for your advice/experiences with different branded CarPlay dongles/boxes etc, went with a unit off a Black Friday deal just a small usb unit bit like a thumb drive. Tbh very surprised with it and happy so far over the last few days of use since getting it, very little lag on startup going to CarPlay bonus for me not really having to do much even when the wife gets in the car as CarPlay prioritises over her phones connection haha. (£24.99 can't be sniffed at tbh)
 
xs2man said:
I went for one off the rainforrest. Not sure if your still not allowed to post links, but it's this one here:

Screenshot-5.png


I have it in my Golf R. You can connect 2 phones to it, but I'm not 100% sure just how seamlessly you can flick between them when they are both in the vicinity. My wife doesn't often drive the Golf, but when she does I aint usually near it so haven't had a problem so far. But it does work great. Not really had any problems with it, and I am generally connected not long after starting the car. In the Golf it boots from unlocking the door I think, so it is often connected same time as stereo boots up anyway.

It was recommended as a better alternative on another forum, and I must say, I have not been disappointed. There are a couple that look very similar. They are maybe the same, I dunno? Sure I was one for £40 instead of this one at £60. Came with a USB C adapter too.
Click to expand...

Got my dad a similar one for his car and it worked well
 
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