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BeyondtheTech

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 20, 2007
2,146
715
I was given an Apple TV and was thinking about placing it in my car for the kids to watch on the overhead entertainment system. I was thinking they could AirPlay movies and games on their iPhone or iPad instead of having them tethered with an HDMI cable and the pricey Lightning-to-HDMI connector.

I know that AirPlay discovery is now available over Bluetooth, but the streaming is still over a Wi-Fi network. If I were to just throw in a cheap router in the car, how would I go about configuring it so the iPhones or the Apple TV would still be able to surf the internet over their own cellular connection? Wouldn't a Wi-Fi connection on the iPhone assume that there's internet being provided and thus cause internet connectivity to fail?

Anyone else get a similar setup working in their vehicles, and how?

Thanks.
 

iMarvin

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2011
284
13
On the internet!
I use an airport express to stream audio in my car, i use my cellular data but still am connected to the router. You have to type in your ip manually and leave the gateway out, that way your phone will still be able to communicate over wifi but the data will be drawn from cellular.
 
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Southern Dad

macrumors 68000
May 23, 2010
1,545
625
Shady Dale, Georgia
I have ATV in one of my conversion van. I had to also put a Belkin router in, as well. The ATV and iPad are then on the same network. The iPad stays in a bracket up front for adult control.

If we want to stream (Netflix) we have to turn off the router and link the ATV to my MyFi.
 

BeyondtheTech

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 20, 2007
2,146
715
Great answers both, thank you. Can you provide any more detailed steps or screenshots how you set up the router and the iPhone?
 

jlm70

macrumors newbie
Apr 21, 2012
12
8
Italy, Milano
Airplay Car Setup: iPhone 6 + ATV3 + Airport Express + Musical Fidelity DAC + HDMI/Composite converter.
Problem: streaming video from iPhone6 4G connection to ATV3 (audio is streaming ok).

I currently have, in my Audi car, an AppleTV v3 wire-connected with an Airport Express. I use the hdmi ATV video-out connection (converted to composite video) to connect to the car video AUX, while I use the ATV optical-out to pass the audio to a professional DAC (Musical Fidelity) and then to the car audio AUX. The iPhone is in wifi with the Airport Express and I removed the gateway infos from iphone wifi connection setup (so I can keep on using the iphone 4G connection together with the active airport wifi connection).
All is working ok, and I can stream Spotify from the Internet to the car. Perfect and excellent quality. And I can see the music cover art on the car video, through the ATV.

The problem is that I cannot stream videos from iPhone to AppleTV via wifi: the iPhone can stream videos from the 4G connection to its own screen (youtube, vodcast,...), but as soon as I connect it to the Airport Express (wifi) and then activate Airplay (on ATV), the video stops. I can see videos stored in the iPhone through the ATV, but cannot stream them directly from the web - while audio streams perfectly from Spotify. Quite strange.

Does anyone ever had my same problem and solved it?
Thanks in advance
 

priitv8

macrumors 601
Jan 13, 2011
4,038
641
Estonia
Can it be that as soon as you connect wifi the iPhone starts to routa all internet traffic over wifi? At least that is how it seems to operate out of the box. There have been posts here how to configure iPhone so, that it still maintains internet connection over the mobile network while connected with a wireless basestation.
Also, AFAIK, iPhone 6 and atv3 (later edition), should be capable of peer-to-peer wireless networking. Can this help?
 

gleep52

macrumors newbie
Nov 28, 2011
7
0
Has anyone accomplished this yet? I'm looking to do this same process. I'm hoping to do things wirelessly 100% so I can just put my phone in it's holder and drive. I imagine the startup time to the ATV (and possibly router if needed) will be an annoyance. To my knowledge there isn't a way to split traffic (airplay wifi and cellular data for 'net), so I'm curious if anyone else has accomplished this project yet?

I have the hotspot feature on my phone - so I figure that's an easy way to get the phone and ATV to communicate with internet, but I'm not sure how reliable that is, how fast that'll drain the battery, and if that's the correct approach...

I use Carmen - music visualizer for my audio playback and GPS Drive by Motion-X for my GPS needs... both have a full screen airplay second screen feature so both screens are useful.
 
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