CarPlay Carlinkit 2.0 Wireless CarPlay Adapter Review

[BleedingMe]

I wrote a comprehensive review about the Carlinkit 2.0 Wireless CarPlay adapter, see here.

Feel free to ask questions or share your experience with this adapter..

 

[papahemi]

Wow, that's a thorough and helpful review. Thank you! Been considering buying one for my 2018 Acura MDX. The latency issues you mention make it seem not worth it though. Would love to hear some other experiences.

 

[MaxSto]

Would somebody, who is a iOS beta tester, please test if the adapters, which enable wireless CarPlay, like carlinkit, still work with the new iOS 14.6 software, which supports lossless audio?

I fear that Apple changed something with the Bluetooth codecs so it does not work anymore.

Thanks in advance!

 

[BleedingMe]

The latency issues you mention make it seem not worth it though.

Just some additional notes... The delay is already quite high for wired CarPlay with the VW MIB2 audio system. Wireless CarPlay obviously adds some more milliseconds on top. The ITU recommends <150ms for one way (300ms RTT) but states that up to 400ms (800ms) is still acceptable. With the adapter we are a bit above this "limit". It is in my opinion more a problem of the system than the adapter itself.

I fear that Apple changed something with the Bluetooth codecs so it does not work anymore.

CarPlay does not use Bluetooth for audio. Wired CarPlay uses LPCM, Wireless CarPlay uses AAC-LC for media. The iPhone will for sure perform the necessary transcoding. They would otherwise break any CarPlay implementation.

 

[MaxSto]

CarPlay does not use Bluetooth for audio. Wired CarPlay uses LPCM, Wireless CarPlay uses AAC-LC for media. The iPhone will for sure perform the necessary transcoding. They would otherwise break any CarPlay implementation.

I will hope so…

 

[rafael_gomes]

Very nice review, ordered mine. Will double check before return time expires.

Thanks for sharing

 

[BleedingMe]

@rafael_gomes

Looking forward to your verdict.

 

[Thand]

Don't buy this product, I did purchased it, my device keeps freezing and even rebooting from time to time. I've tried everything to fix it (changing usb cable, updating firmware). It is simply faulty, and the important part is there is no warranty/support for this product. The manufacturer is refusing to refund or replace it, same goes for the seller. It is not reputable Chinese company. Stay away from them.

 

[BleedingMe]

It's been holiday time last week. So we have been driving around in our SEAT Leon Sportstourer FR for about 1000km with trips of up to 3 hours. We have been navigating (Google Maps) and listening to music (Apple Music, Spotify) via Carlinkit 2.0 adapter. There hasn't been a single hangup or reboot using FW 2021.08.24.1817. Only one time did I have to replug the adapter due to audio becoming a bit choppy, probably because of buffer underruns due to the media delay being set to its lowest value of 300ms.

So the thing is pretty stable. The only thing that I would like to see improved further is media and phone call lag.

Rount-trip time when calling an echo test number is around 700ms with VW MIB2 wired CarPlay integration. The adapter adds another 300ms, resulting in 1000ms. ~500ms delay per direction is quite a lot. So there is some talking over each other every now and then which is indeed a bit annoying.