CarlinKit 5.0 Wireless CarPlay & Android Auto Adapter,Online Update,Two Channel Connection, Plug & Plug, for Cars with OEM Wired CarPlay & Android Auto(2016-2025)

This is a pretty compact device and makes it so that I can use apple play without plugging your phone into the car directly. It is just one less wire I have to worry about. I am able to now just pop my phone into the wireless charger and it works. This works well for my truck but there are some hiccups. Depending on the person this can be annoying. For the most part, I am able to connect my apple iphone to my dash without needing to plug in. The cable is relatively short so you are able to cable manage easily. This device can just remain plugged in at all times. This is great as I do not have to unplug and replug my phone in when I leave and come back. That being said, the instructions to connect and use the device were okay. For the most part, it is pretty straight forward on what you need to do. The LED indicators definitely help when setting up and trouble shooting. It turns red means no connect, green means solid connect, blue means searching for bluetooth. It is a nice thing to have. The light does stay on so that may not be what someone may want but you can just turn the device over. This device is essentially just trying to pair it via bluetooth and connect your device to your car without needing a direct cable. The cables that are provide for powering the device are okay and you can replace it as needed. It does not have to be a super long cable as you do not need to press anything to power the device on. The overall build of the carplay adapter is simple and compact. For the most part, it does connect every time. It does have moment where it actually disconnects and I have to basically unplug it and plug it back in. It says no delays once connected but it does take time to connect to your actual airplay in comparison to just connecting your phone directly to it. It can be a bit annoying if you are on a time crunch. Also if you turn your car on and off right away it sometimes does not even connect at all which is a bit annoying. That being said, you are able to use your GPS and play music. Again this does require a phone connection of some kind to work. It is not it's own separate until with it's own OS. This device does not work with android unfortunately. I am able to answer my calls and such without much issue Overall I think this is a good device to have if you want to be able to do carplay without always needing to plug your phone in. I really enjoy the fact I can just start my car and it will connect automatically without me having to plug in my phone. The down side is that it does take time to connect when you start your car when compared to say just plugging in my phone directly. There 10 second delay there. Regardless, it is just one less wire for me to grab. Also I can now charge my phone wirelessly on the charge and not have to worry about figuring out a way to connect my phone to the wire and onto the holder. The connection is solid most of the time but I do get some disconnects and errors from time to time. The device is pretty small and does not get super hot which is great for storing. It does not have a built in battery so it does require you to plug into the car at all times. It will automatically shut off when you turn the car off. It also does not require a very long cable.

I purchased 2 of these devices; one for my 2018 Chevy Camaro and one for my wife's 2016 Buick Encore. For the Encore it unfortunately did not work at all so I returned it for a refund since the vehicle has to have carplay. I did reach out to the tech/sales and 48 hours later there was no response. For my Camaro, it took a few tries before getting it to connect for the first time. After doing so I followed the directions to update the software. Being able to carplay from my Iphone 13 wirelessly is a nice tough for once. Especially since my wired carplay doesn't always work. There is about a 2 second lag when skipping forward on music or restarting a song. Other than that it works great. However, this device has the same features as the wired carplay, it does not allow for video playing on the screen or true screen mirroring. The reason for the 4 stars and not 5 is because this devices only works/connects half the time. I got in my car today, 09/27/23 a total of 5 times from the car being completely off and it only connected twice. I unplugged the device, waited at least 10 seconds and plugged back in and still no connections. I might return the second device since it can't connect than more than 50% of the time the car gets turned on. If you're a person that doesn't care about trying to have movies/shows playing on your car's screen, then this device is for you. It gives you the same features as a wired carplay connection which is pretty awesome if you don't always want to take your phone out of your pocket or purse/bag or don't need to charge your phone and just want carplay features present. It's also great for getting rid of additional charging cables if you happen to have some form of wireless charging in your car.

I had high hopes for this unit based on several youtube review videos. Bought this on Prime Day, and finally got an opportunity to try this out on my new head unit. Spent about an hour trying to get my phone to connect to this unit. My phone kept tossing up notifications like it was connecting and then disconnecting - I was not able to get Android Auto open with this unit connected. Including deleting most nearby/local connection and even hopped in my car to get away from any other interference from my home. Spent another couple of hours doing web researches. I didn’t bother with trying to get firmware updates and trying to figure out how to get this installed (no local WiFi connection was established and I didn’t have a spare usb drive - I shouldn’t have to have this) Complete waste of time! Don’t bother with this unit. I bought a Motorola MA1 at 7:00pm and had this sitting on my door step 12 hours later. This Motorola unit immediately connected (zero issues connecting and worked (so far).

At first I was bothered about the fact that this unit requires both wifi and bluetooth to connect. I was thinking how am I going to connect to wifi if I want to in order to listen to non-downloaded music or to browse on the internet as I often do while parked and listen to music everyday. However, I don’t know if it’s the phone or the unit but I have had zero issues connecting to the internet in all of the same places I always have. It seems that your phone must connect to nearby hotspots in the background, or I have my own wifi in my car because as long as I’m in it when I look at my wifi in settings it always shows that it’s connected to the unit. Furthermore, I had read that many of these dongles have issues of longevity of connection, or not always connecting. Well I have an Alpine ilx-207 aftermarket stereo and when I received this unit I connected it to the usb on the stereo, followed the two step instructions and tossed it in my glove compartment, and it connects every single time without fail! I love it! I have Wireless Apple CarPlay without having to purchase a much more expensive head unit for only $85! By the way, the Alpine ilx-207 is the best car stereo I have ever had!! And I’ve had quite a few. I have tried Pioneers, Kenwoods, and Sonys! None of them come close to the natural true to life sound as the Alpines. Nor do they have as much control over the sound with Time correction, crossovers, and best of all a parametric equalizer! The ilx-207 is no longer available new but the ilx-650, 670,407, and the best of all ilx-507 which is wireless CarPlay and Android Auto? are all incredible systems. There are more available as well that have floating screens but I prefer to just have the 7 inch screen. If you already have had an alpine you already know but if not, Try one! The first thing I look at when I buy a new used car is whether or not I can put my aftermarket Alpine in it because there are some vehicles that you can’t put an aftermarket stereo in due to the odd shapes and sizes that stereos in cars are coming out with today. Anyway, if you don’t have get one!

I’m using this with an iPhone 12 on a ‘21 Mazda CX-5 that came with (wired) Carplay. Setup was simple and worked without problems out of the box. 80% of usage so far has been trouble free. Some of the annoyances have been: music starts playing on my phone speaker when starting the car; music continuing to play on my phone after turning off the car (with no audible noise from my phone); initially listening to the radio and then having Carplay automatically come on as the phone connects; no easy way to turn the unit off when not in the car (the indicator lights for trying to connect seem to stay on even when the car is turned off); and most recently unable to pause music that’s playing when making a phone call through Carplay. Overall I think it’s worth it if you are looking for wireless Carplay and aren’t getting in and out of your vehicle a ton.

After watching multiple videos about the various Carplay wireless adapters, despite the mixed Amazon reviews, I picked this one. I’m giving it 5 stars because it is working. I almost gave it 4 due to issues getting it connected the first time. My issue seemed to be caused because my iPhone was already paired with my vehicle’s radio and this seemed to be preventing the pairing of the box. When I unpaired my phone, it connected. If that’s in the instructions, I didn’t see it. So far, I’ve had it three days, it is working without issue. I can stream Pandora and tell Seri to send a text. I can listen to Audible and answer a call. Apple Maps works as does Google Maps. I was worried it wasn’t going to work while plugged in to my USB in my console under my armrest because it is a metal box. No issues. There is some lag on the screen but it is negligible. To get rid of the cord a millisecond of lag wasn’t an issue for me. I have it set to the 5gHz channel and I set the connection delay in the settings to 5 seconds. It hasn’t dropped connection yet or required me to pair it again. I’m very satisfied.

I’ve had this product for over a year. Initially, it was terrific. It would automatically connect and I rarely had an issue. For the last six months, it is completely sporadic. Some days it connects with no problem other days it will spend hours attempting to connect and never make a connection. I’m not found the secret sauce, between rebooting my phone, restarting my car, I was hopeful there might be an updated version that it may be compatibility with newer, iPhone upgrades, but there are no updates and there are no other versions. I would happily purchase a different brand, but unfortunately, I don’t know of another one that is more consistent. I’m not saying don’t buy it, I’m just saying before warned, it will make you want to blow your brains out. Especially, if it works seamlessly in the beginning, it will insidiously lol you into an expectation and leave you stranded without the ability to track your navigation on long trips or take phone calls via Bluetooth.. if it would automatically switch back to my traditional phone, Bluetooth, that would be super helpful. But once this begins to have a problem, he must completely remove the car link device for your car to respond consistently to your built-in Bluetooth.

Set up was easy and this connects in less than 10 seconds after opening car door (jeep wrangler jl running android auto) to my phone (android, pixel 8) and to wife's iPhone. No audio delays, no issues with maps, all working perfectly. The only hiccup is when we both get into car at same time, seems to confuse the device and delay connection a bit. Not an issue for us as we just momentarily turn Bluetooth off on one phone when needed. I'm not sure native wireless Android auto handles this any better. Overall, excellent. I couldn't believe how well it worked out of box. And I can't believe we waited a year messing with cords to get this. Well worth the price.