Retrofit CarPlay

Dell

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Hi all
Having CarPlay fitted to my car today, 2015 C204 Coupe,the unit is manufactured in Leicester with a two year warranty, will add more with pictures when I have had a play with it.
Dell
 
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Dell

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I have bitten the bullitt


After a eventful two weeks on holiday in France using or trying to use the car’s comand sat nav ,Some of the time it had me going through the middle of a field and the road did not look that new so the map must be well out of date even though I had the latest V18 update,also when trying to put in a destination half the time i could not spell all the word as the sat nav only added a few letters but not the ones I needed,and why the hell do some towns/villages have to have lue dit in front of them ,the only thing I like about it Is that it said please,so I decided to have CarPlay retrofitted,so I thought the best place to start was a google search , but all I could find was boxes from China , even the ones being offered for purchase or supply and fit by a company in the UK I am not sure that they don’t import them from China.

After about 3 weeks of searching trying doing searches using different key words I found a company by accident in Leicester they design and build and will install if you wish also with a 2 year warranty but they were out of stock,so I sent them an email and had a reply from a man called Scott who was very helpful and said they were building a fresh batch and they would be ready within two weeks and if I ordered one I would be at the top of the list ( I thought I have heard that before) so I said I did not want to pay and wait for delivery but to my shock he said I totally understand I will put your name on one and contact you when they are built.

This a copy of one of the emails he sent me.




From Integreated Automotive

Yes there is so much coming from China that are bad copies of an original design that was actually very good.


The trouble with the units on AliExpress, eBay and the like is they are not insured, 99% of them are copies and do not come with any kind of warranty, have no upgrade path and no local support.


Our product is made in the UK, we assemble, test, build wiring looms and repair our products ourselves.


Although for full transparency we do not make the main PCBs in house. We use an SBC(single board computer) from an OEM partner who we work with on the software/firmware and also work together on hardware upgrades. You cannot buy the same product anywhere else, the combination of our wireless circuit and our partners SBC is unique. We are the only company using our SBC.


We will test your unit on our NTG4.x rig before it is verified as being OK to ship. This is necessary as we add our own proprietary WiFi and Bluetooth circuitry during the build process in leicester.


We are also now designing additional products for the retrofit market in the UK.


Well he came and fitter it today see photos below B2A3C800-8B96-48CC-B384-A4D93AD26AE2.jpeg 8A03B14C-A398-44A4-9054-E5D27802E334.jpeg
Still learning at the moment but good so far
The Company is Integreated Automotive and the chaps name is Scott.
Dell
 

Srdl

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Is that touchscreen or do you have to use the original wheel controller?
 
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Dell

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Hi SrdI
Uses the original controls no touch screen
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rf065

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Do they charge extra for fitting?
 

Botus

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from what you say sounds like its wire free.... as in no cable? If so that sounds very interesting....

Most car play set ups don't add the wifi so you have to have a cable. Do Merc even make a wire free set up on their brand new cars ?
 
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Dell

Dell

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It is wired or wireless when wireless it connects with Bluetooth then drops Bluetooth and uses WiFi seems very stable so far, and if you go to WiFi setting it has connected to CarPlay WiFi.
Also he charged me £75 extra he was here over 3 hours and came from Leicester to Moreton in marsh so I don’t think that was to bad.
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Botus

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no, I think to do wireless car play BOTH elements are in use all the time. Its the lack of wifi in most car's car play set up that is why you must have the wire
 
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Once connected it is definitely only WiFi in settings under Bluetooth it’s not connected.
 

Botus

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Once connected it is definitely only WiFi in settings under Bluetooth it’s not connected.


umm, if you go back to normal non car play features on a stock set up I wonder if that reverts to Bluetooth.

Of course this box and or any other brand of car does what ever it wants. Not sure on android auto. But the gist is posh setups get a wifi connection which few cars have and or may still use the "original" Bluetooth connections for some features.
 
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Dell

Dell

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The cars Bluetooth is switched off I haven’t tried turning it on yet but it was only fitted yesterday so I am still learning, the main thing I need to sort is I have my iPhone connected to my hearing aids and phone set to route audio to them, when I get in car phone connects to CarPlay and up pops app screen, if I open map app and set a destination voice prompts come through my aids fine but as soon as I open map on car screen prompts go to car speakers even though I have app set to play voice prompts as Bluetooth phone call, that will be fine for most people but I need voice prompts to go to my aids
 

Botus

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how do hearing aids pick up the car's sounds? via the phones Bluetooth???
 
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Aftermarket CarPlay uses Aux for the sound but if I don’t turn on Aux the sound should come from phone to aids via Bluetooth and it is until I open map on car screen even though I have phone set to always use Bluetooth and app set to play directions as Bluetooth phone call.
 

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