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Mike Im late to your part of the thread besides suggestion I made above but making sure as well your using the cars data port nor just the charge port.
 
Just a tip in general for all generations of of these devices.
- Set up away from wifi networks you join with or set all such networks to manual join on your phone
- Delete all bluetooth association and carplay settings from car and phone both before begin setting up
Hi, May I ask why do you recommend this?
How does that help?
 
Hi, May I ask why do you recommend this?
How does that help?

When setting up the device for the first time, it needs to connect to your phone via Bluetooth and then WiFi. For some people, having your phone automatically connect to your home WiFi (i.e if you are sitting in your home garage) or if your phone connects to your cars Bluetooth. Both these things can conflict with setup or even normal operation. Forgetting Bluetooth or network settings for known entries will stop it. Some people even after setup have issues with their home WiFi being connected to the phone when starting
and trying to drive off.

Personally, I have none of these issues. I’ve set up 4 dongles now in my home a garage with no issues. I did not remove my home WiFi or BT pairing with the car. I get in every morning and drive off and it fires up.
 
They told me to send it back cause its not compatible, i got the blue light but it never shows anything on the screen, i tried it on my friends E300 it worked perfectly.
Unfortunately it looks like it doesn’t work on compass 😭

I also have a Compass (2020) and the same happens, at least with the firware version I have (not updated in a while).

Do you get a blue ligth on the dongle when connected to the car? All Iget is a red light that soon vanishes and it loops (looking at the UConnect settings the device appears for a while and then.. gone).
 
Thanks Larry... Yeah needing to be free of already connected Wifi is an individual thing especially because Apple does not let you set preference for what should take priority. It tries to guess what you want.

The Carlinkit uses both bluetooth and Wifi pairing to talk talk to your Phone.

As to clearing Blue tooth, carplay settings on phone and car again its individual but if your cars native bluetooth, carplay set up and or car wifi is trying to connect to your phone and your phone has existing car bluetooth, carplay set up for your car it can cause issues.

In short clean slate set up avoids issues. Now that my and my spouses phones are set up with Carlinkit we just get in and go...
 
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Just in case it helps anyone, i can confirm the 4th of March release of software works great on my older unit (not usbc), offering the following fixes from the 22th Jan release for my particular use case:
1) gps no longer gets lost on waze
2) no black screen when coming out of reverse camera
3) music track information on mmi no longer freezes after the first few

some quirks still do exist:
1) screen hangs and audio goes choppy if running google's navigation with satelite view after 20 mins or so. (i suspect my phone may have been overloaded)
2) music "next track" takes a good 3 seconds

quirks i'll happily live with for the convenience. thank you all. especially to bookemdano and ostlin

now i guess its a waiting game for the next OTA release. has anybody tried going from manual updates to OTA? wonder if its still possible or are all manual updaters forever doomed to manual updates forevermore?
 
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now i guess its a waiting game for the next OTA release. has anybody tried going from manual updates to OTA? wonder if its still possible or are all manual updaters forever doomed to manual updates forevermore?

While I guess I can't say for sure (wish I had saved some pre 01.22 updates in order to test that theory), my guess is that you will be able to update fine once they post something newer to the auto-update server. I think it's probably just a simple check of the version. If the version on the server is newer than the version on the device, then it will offer the upgrade. If the version on the device is the same as or newer than the version on the server, then it says you already have the latest version.

Time will tell, but I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Just in case it helps anyone, i can confirm the 4th of March release of software works great on my older unit (not usbc), offering the following fixes from the 22th Jan release for my particular use case:
1) gps no longer gets lost on waze
2) no black screen when coming out of reverse camera
3) music track information on mmi no longer freezes after the first few

some quirks still do exist:
1) screen hangs and audio goes choppy if running google's navigation with satelite view after 20 mins or so. (i suspect my phone may have been overloaded)
2) music "next track" takes a good 3 seconds

quirks i'll happily live with for the convenience. thank you all. especially to bookemdano and ostlin

now i guess its a waiting game for the next OTA release. has anybody tried going from manual updates to OTA? wonder if its still possible or are all manual updaters forever doomed to manual updates forevermore?

Just like to add 1.22 doesn’t do any of those anomalies for me. It’s definitely car specific.

Edit: I don’t use Waze or Google Maps. Both these notoriously have issues with CarPlay wired too. I think Apple makes it hard for them.
 
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Yeah Car or more accurately CAR AV system specific. What would be really cool is if Apple decides to make their own wired to wireless carplay adapter. Its the only way can drop USB lightening or otherwise from Iphones. In the mean time super happy Carlinkit exists.
 
Yeah Car or more accurately CAR AV system specific. What would be really cool is if Apple decides to make their own wired to wireless carplay adapter. Its the only way can drop USB lightening or otherwise from Iphones. In the mean time super happy Carlinkit exists.

Completely agree, I wish Apple would make a dongle. I don’t think it’s gonna happen though.
 
Ok, just making sure it wasn’t the unit.

That is really strange how you don’t even get power from your port. Wired CarPlay works fine from this port right?
I tried it again and saw the red LED. It was pretty faint. So in the end the same red LED in both original and USB-C versions.
 
CPlay2Air vs Carlinkit 2.0 (not USB-C) -

Are there any differences between these adapters? As I know both of them use the same software. Which one is better and why?
 
CPlay2Air vs Carlinkit 2.0 (not USB-C) -

Are there any differences between these adapters? As I know both of them use the same software. Which one is better and why?

They are the same exact device. I would avoid ordering from cplay2air and order direct from carlinkit.
 
They are the same exact device. I would avoid ordering from cplay2air and order direct from carlinkit.

I completely agree, but I will say this if it doesn't work, the CarPlay2Air will sell on ebay in minutes at a premium and the Carlinkit exact same device will sit and sell for $30-40 less. I have sold both. I point this out, because unless you get a Carlinkit Amazon Prime, returning is a bitch and involves sending back to China at your cost and maybe a restocking fee, so it's much easier to sell on eBay lower 48 states.

The only thing I can think of as to why the CP2A sells stronger is because they do have a nice simple website with only one product and no grammatical errors, so people probably think the opposite where the CP2A is the original and the Carlinkit is a knock off.
 
I completely agree, but I will say this if it doesn't work, the CarPlay2Air will sell on ebay in minutes at a premium and the Carlinkit exact same device will sit and sell for $30-40 less. I have sold both. I point this out, because unless you get a Carlinkit Amazon Prime, returning is a bitch and involves sending back to China at your cost and maybe a restocking fee, so it's much easier to sell on eBay lower 48 states.

The only thing I can think of as to why the CP2A sells stronger is because they do have a nice simple website with only one product and no grammatical errors, so people probably think the opposite where the CP2A is the original and the Carlinkit is a knock off.
Interesting. I will say this, in both macrumors and 9to5 mac on safari on my iPhone, I get LOTS of display ads for CP2A, I've never seen an ad for Carlinkit
 
I completely agree, but I will say this if it doesn't work, the CarPlay2Air will sell on ebay in minutes at a premium and the Carlinkit exact same device will sit and sell for $30-40 less. I have sold both. I point this out, because unless you get a Carlinkit Amazon Prime, returning is a bitch and involves sending back to China at your cost and maybe a restocking fee, so it's much easier to sell on eBay lower 48 states.

The only thing I can think of as to why the CP2A sells stronger is because they do have a nice simple website with only one product and no grammatical errors, so people probably think the opposite where the CP2A is the original and the Carlinkit is a knock off.

I agree with you, CP2A comes across as being in the US and you are buying from somebody in Delaware. I went with them because of that, and in the end I was screwed by that when my adapter didn't work.

Here's their nice returns email.



Thanks for the information. It's a downside that you need to return the item. No worries, let me provide you a complete steps on how to do it.

Very important details to put on your return:

1. Do not forget to put your name as this is very important to identify and process your return.

2. Kindly attach the tracking number, otherwise we will not be able to locate the returned package/shipment.

The return address is below:

Alex

JinRong Dasha

Huicheng District

Huizhou City

GuangDong Province

China

Postal: 516000

Phone: +8618379715520

Furthermore, the shipping fee cost is non-refundable.

Some little or gentle reminder, the item must be in the same condition when you received it and a restocking fee of $25 will be charged only if there is no fault on our side. Otherwise, you won't get charged of this at all.
 
I would avoid cartoplay air Bad Service. Higher Price. No benefit technically. It has to come form china and be returned to china too. Carlinkit prices are lower. Understood about ebay. By from somewhere with a return policy and go with the OEM carlinkit. I saw someone post here a couple of messages ago for another rebrand copilot. And of course ctoplay air has not bothered to start selling the USB-C version.
 
Has any used this on an Audi TT, Carlinkit say it isn’t compatible which seems odd given all the other Audi’s it does work with, tempted to give it a try anyway?
 
Wish i saw this thread before buying! I bought a CPlay2Air unit last week and it arrived yesterday - it seems to work fairly well in my Ford Fiesta with Sync 3.4 - it connects within 5/10 seconds - only 2 minor issues is some apps seem to have a blue ring around them which is used for a physical control which my car dont have - and skipping music there is a noticeable 2/3 second delay - not used it for a phone call yet.

I didn't even know Carlinkit was an alternative let alone the original device! Is the hardware in the Carlinkit 2.0 USB C unit better than the CPlay2Air unit which may be quicker? I havent checked the firmware on my Cplay2air unit yet to see if there is an upgrade.
 
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