The first CarPlay adapter I tried, the Cplay2Air, is straightforward: You plug the Cplay2Air directly into the car’s USB-A smart port via the integrated cable. One tip to note is that it takes almost a minute for it to boot up from cold, so you can connect the phone only after that. Plugging in wired car play takes about 4 seconds so it seems that this unit only adds about 20 seconds of delay total.

That’s because it's a standalone Android box that you can plug directly in to take over the dashboard screen. If your car has both factory-wired Carplay and Android Auto, and you want to use wireless Android Auto, it is recommended you choose Carlinkit A2A or Carlinkit 5.

The wireless dongle is a go-between; it connects your smartphone to the dashboard via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Also, if you are not sure if it compatiable with your car, please tell us your brand model and year, We will reply you within 24 hours. dongle that I reviewed before, but it comes in a smaller, sleeker casing and it also has the limited option to update only over-the-air. A few caveats before you get started: Your phone can't be connected to other Bluetooth devices, not even the hands-free option for your car’s infotainment system—I had to delete my phone’s existing entry.The cable that comes supplied is of a similar length to the other dongles, and it is also detachable from the dongle, should you need to replace it with a longer cable or replace the original one if it becomes faulty in the future. Then when the interface for the U2-X appears on the dash, you must double-tap an icon on the lower left. It pulls more electricity than other dongles when in use, so it could drain your car battery faster if you leave it in. To use Android Auto, for once, you don’t need an app, but it does require phones to run Android 11 or higher.

I run several special projects including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys, and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, plus Best Products of the Year and Best Brands. Ottocast says the U2-Air works with 600+ car models from 2016 on, except for some Sony aftermarket head units. Tempted as I was to change this by spelunking into the settings, I learned my lesson when testing other dongles. Unlike some of the other vendors in this roundup, Ottocast has actual offices in the US, but that doesn’t mean the device arrives in the mail any faster. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.For the few drives I’ve done my music is playing by the time I’ve backed out of my parking spot and started to pull forward. It requires you to put whatever phone(s) you don’t want showing on the dashboard screen into Airplane Mode, and even then, the double tap didn’t always work in my tests. This allows the Dongle to connect to your car's "Apple CarPlay" USB socket and enable CarPlay functionality. is rated to work with the iPhone 6 on up running iOS 10 on up, and in any car with factory-wired CarPlay except BMWs. Second, Google controls Android Auto and they are always making version changes that make keeping the wireless version one big headache, not to mention all the phone brands and android versions.