11mo ago

Has anyone found a bluetooth carplay adapter that actually survives?

I have the misfortune of being stuck doing DoorDash. It means I'm constantly plugging in and unplugging my phone from my car, at least once at the beginning and and again at the end of each and every delivery. Even with USB-C (it's an iPhone 15 Pro Max), that makes me nervous. It's also inefficient, having to fumble with the cord and the plug and the phone each and every time. And of course it's a problem when it's pouring down rain and the USB outlet gets wet.

So I've been trying bluetooth adapters for my 2021 Toyota RAV4 XLE Premium Hybrid. I've gone through three of them, now. They each worked great for the first day or so, then died. A message appears on the screen that the device could not be started in "advanced mode" and "normal mode" means the device doesn't work.

The dealer informs me that the head units which support CarPlay over bluetooth are only available in model years 2023 and newer and cannot be retrofitted to a 2021.

I'm not even seeing the problem acknowledge in a web search. But for me, it's consistent.

Does anyone know a solution?

24 comments

If you’re willing to shop on Amazon (I use Amazon only if I have to) they have a wireless CarPlay adapter that work pretty flawlessly I got mine for $100. All the steering wheel control works in my car (2017 Audi A3). There is an audio delay while watching videos but I believe that’s with all wireless CarPlay applications. I’ll link to the exact one I got. However they have one that says “upgrade” for cheaper but I do not have that one so I can’t say if it’s any better.
(TLDR) The adapter linked works just like plugging in regular CarPlay.
https://a.co/d/2evBZwn
(Edit) a few added details
- I have an older version of this one too, the 3.0. Had it for a couple years now and it’s only happened a couple times that it wouldn’t connect until power cycled or took a long time to connect. Other than that it’s been reliable.
- I'm not proud of it by any stretch but I do shop Amazon. There's a lot to say about that but the bottom line for me is that I simply don't have time to do anything else.
  I've tried units from Amazon, Best Buy, and now, a fourth, CPLAY2Air.
- I use one of these as well. Works great! As another comment said, it can sometimes take a moment to connect, other times it’s nearly instant. Paired with a wireless charger for long trips, I never have to plug anything into my jack.

I've used the same Bluetooth adapter for 10 years+
Must be something odd going on in your vehicle for them to die.

Do you really need CarPlay? I’ve been relying on phone mounts in my car for years. Now with MagSafe, I stick my iPhone on and stream audio over Bluetooth, no plug/unplug. Aside from that, viewing navigation on my iPhone allows me to move around the map so I can see what turns are coming up. The CarPlay decks I’ve seen don’t allow moving around the map on screen and only show text directions on iPhone. For me, stick-and-go is a better and seamless experience.
If you have any interest in this route, I highly recommend the Nite Ize Steelie system for mounting. Their MagSafe system works with Apple’s MagSafe charger (or without if you don’t need constant charging) with a variety of mounting options.
- In my 2017 model vehicle, Bluetooth audio streaming is awful because the quality is noticeably worse and there’s a mysterious fade-out / fade-in when one song transitions to the next making it hard to listen to continuous albums (such as Random Album Title by Deadmau5, as an example). Seriously it’s the only Bluetooth playback connection I have ever experienced where that happens and there’s no way to fix it (common complaint among owners of this vehicle). What’s more, the screen is larger and has a nice dashboard for navigation, now-playing, and turn by turn directions on one big screen making it significantly easier to control the phone while driving. Add to that the lack of distracting apps available and no chance of accidentally tapping other apps makes it feel more focused and safe. My only gripe is that despite being WiFi enabled, my vehicle does not have wireless CarPlay so I have to plug in a cable after I mount my phone. Small price to pay though, after all these years of a significantly better experience.
- Built-in car infotainment, generally speaking, sucks ass (and not in the fun way) compared to carplay and android auto. Bluetooth audio in my case will randomly drop connection and default to AM radio.
  Disclaimer: I haven't had an iPhone since the 6s so I don't know how the carplay experience compares to Android auto.

The one I have been using successfully for the last 2+ years is made by “Carlinkit”
Every now and then, it will take a long time or outright fail to pair, requiring that I power cycle it. Happens maybe every 2-3 weeks, I average 2-4 pairings per day.
Otherwise, the experience is mostly seamless.

Perhaps the voltage regulator in your alternator is throwing a big voltage spike on the 12V supply, killing your adapters. There are large capacitors made for car audio that will stop spikes. Try one of those.

Do you have an aux input? I had good results with aux input Bluetooth in the past.
- This isn't about playing music. This is mainly about CarPlay for navigation, dealing with text messages, etc. I am extremely reluctant to replace the head unit: First, it would be expensive--a problem with what these gig companies pay. Second, I would lose some of the interface to the car itself.
  
  I just got to thinking... by "interface to the car itself" did you mean stuff like Bluetooth phone, steering wheel buttons, and backup cameras or is it more in-depth stuff like car settings and monitoring? I know the phone calls, steering wheel buttons, and backup cameras can be tied to aftermarket stereos. I'm not sure if they have figured out anything more yet or not.
  
  I found this that supposedly fits your car and does wireless CarPlay, but unfortunately the cost and interface with the car itself is still going to be a problem. I do wish modern cars left the car interface, A/C controls, and stereo separate. This along with privacy concerns and reluctance to spend on a new car is what keeps me driving very old stuff.
  https://www.crutchfield.com/p_130DMT3800/Pioneer-DMH-WT3800NEX.html
  
  Sorry I misread. I’ve been using an Ottocast one for over two years. I had to do the advanced config portion, you can find out how to do in the manual, to get it to work perfectly. Haven’t had an issue since.

Check out the AAWireless dongle. It's mainly for Android, but its beta version seems to have CarPlay support.

It may not be possible with a car that new depending on if the stereo does other things than just audio, but you may want to consider an aftermarket Pioneer, Kenwood, etc. Our car is so old that it's stereo did nothing but audio so replacing it was easy, but yours might be more difficult. You could always check with a car stereo shop and see if it is possible with your car.
- This isn't about playing music. This is mainly about CarPlay for navigation, dealing with text messages, etc. I am extremely reluctant to replace the head unit: First, it would be expensive--a problem with what these gig companies pay. Second, I would lose some of the interface to the car itself.
  
  Yea new cars (since early 2000's) integrate the car control system into the head unit. I hate that crap

EDIT: Wait I’m sorry I see I misunderstood what you are asking about. I assumed you didn’t have a CarPlay screen. Disregard.
Original post:
So I haven’t tried these yet, but I’ve been watching a lot of videos about them. I’m not sure this would work for you, but I’m eying one of these for my 82 truck that still has its factory tape deck:
LAMTTO 9.26" Wireless Car Stereo Apple Carplay with 2.5K Dash Cam, 1080P Backup Camera, Portable Touchscreen GPS Navigation for Car, Car Stereo Receiver with Bluetooth, AirPlay, AUX/FM, Googel, Siri
To me, for 100 bucks this beats the heck out of replacing an otherwise decent head unit or just using Bluetooth. It can connect to a line in, then your phone connects to the device with wireless CarPlay.
You may need to confirm that your lighter loses power when the ignition is turned off, otherwise you may have to wire in to keyed power somehow, or remember to unplug it when you exit the car, but that’s really the case with any of these devices I imagine.
Aside from line out, it has a built in fm transmitter or will connect to a cars built in Bluetooth if you have that.
Again, I haven’t gotten one of these yet, but based on reviews I’ve seen, this seems to be the best one to get so far.

It's been a few weeks now and I think I understand the problem better. It's not solved.
First, it appears to really be that they mean it when they say to disconnect all connections when connecting the phone to the adapter. In my case, this is impractical: I have a smart watch, a smart ring, and smart glasses, and I have them for reasons. And I am frequently stopping and restarting the engine, which of course restarts the adapter (and I wondered if the power cycling was inducing premature failure).
What I'm seeing now is that the problem is occasional and unpredictable. This misled me as to the source of the problem. I thought it was the adapter. But it turns out that if I just wait five minutes, the longest five minutes ever, after getting the message, the adapter will try again to connect to the phone and probably succeed.
It happens I wound up renting a 2022 Jeep Compass for a couple of weeks. The head unit in this car, though clearly not top of the line, was capable of CarPlay over bluetooth. This seemed more robust, more reliable, but not entirely so. I don't have any idea how to account for this difference. Glitches still happened.
What I notice is that whether it's the head unit or an adapter, wifi is unavailable while connected. I infer that this connection uses both bluetooth and wifi and that part of what the initialization process involves is handshaking to establish both connections. I suspect that it's the wifi that's problematic, but I often start my car at home, where there are multiple wifi signals, including more than one that my phone knows about, without incident. So it's not just that my phone is already connected to wifi. There's more to it but I don't know what.
In the long term, I'll probably give in and upgrade the head unit. The display on the Jeep Compass was much improved over the one in my (one year older) RAV4. I noticed it was much easier to navigate with this display and that's important. But the mounting bracket that should (and probably does) work with my car has not been confirmed to fit. So it seems I have to wait.

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