[StephenSmith]

If you're in the market for a new-to-you car, then I recommend looking at the model years where they switch from wired car-play to wireless car-play and buying the previous model-year.

Typically this difference of one model-year can add thousands to the cost of the vehicle, especially because wireless car-play is so coveted. The experience of wireless is fantastic, but is it worth several thousand dollars? Maybe, but herein lies the trick.

Buy a dongle. They're about $100 for a good one. They can be tucked away in the vehicle. They work almost* as good as integrated wireless car-play.

*Maybe add 5 seconds to auto-connect when you get in your car.

[SkyPuncher]

I have one wired and one wireless vehicle. I will absolutely pay more for integrated wireless. It just works flawlessly.

We've upgraded the wired one with one of those dongles. It mostly works, but has some quirks. The three most annoying:

* Phone calls result in a feedback loop for the other end. Essentially, they break the in-car noise cancellation and playback the caller audio to the caller.

* When my wife pulls in the garage, my phone will connect - even though it should have been connected to her phone.

* The USB port that connects to the head unit remains power for a period of time after the vehicle is off. Annoying when I'm in the kitchen (next to the garage) and my phone keeps trying to CarPlay.

EDIT: I'm also realizing that I believe the car with Wireless has associated each of our keys with our phones. Despite them both being paired, it will prioritize the phone last used with the key. That's pretty handy for not having to fight with pairing.

[api]

I actually prefer wired. Otherwise when I get in the car and turn it on, it pairs with my wife's phone half the time instead of mine. I also almost always want to charge the phone anyway.

[babypuncher]

I have an actual wireless carplay head unit from Pioneer in my 2011 RAV 4, but I still use it in wired mode with one of these dongles because Pioneer's implementation is so buggy as to be practically useless and they refuse to issue any firmware updates for the device.

Moral of the story: Don't buy a head unit from Pioneer. They suck ass. This is quite possibly the shittiest tech product I have ever spent money on.

[kelnos]

I haven't used wireless yet, so maybe I just don't know what I'm missing, but I kinda just don't see why I'd ever need it. I'm going to plug in my phone anyway to charge, so what's the draw?

[hypothesis]

It’s kinda convenient for short trips (thus no plugging required) because it just works: it shows up on screen immediately when you get into the car, no extra movements. Also, I think cars with wireless CarPlay are equipped with wireless charging for a convenient combo.

But boy it’s enraging to use with multiple phones when you share a car with someone. It will stay connected to other person phone, while in range, and, if you to call that person, car will ring. It’s chaos… or maybe it’s just me.

[ThatPlayer]

I haven't seen a car USB port that does fast charging, only slow 5V @ 1 or 2 amps. So if I need a charge, I'd rather use a fast 18W "cigarette lighter port" charger and wireless connection.

Otherwise my trips are usually short enough. Also my phone's dual screen addon case (LG V60) blocks the USB port.

[SkyPuncher]

Being able to simply leave it in my pocket is really nice. Particularly nice when running errands around town (in and out frequently)

Prior to switching to Apple, I was running into major issues with USB-C ports being hyper sensitive to physical positioning. Charge would always work, but Android Auto would simply drop out seemingly randomly. Didn't matter on cable. It was just something that would happen.

[jrmg]

I don’t find I need to charge - my phone lasts all day even with relatively heavy CarPlay use. I suspect it uses less power than you think it might because it doesn’t need to power the screen.

[MBCook]

I hate it. In my car (admittedly the only one with wireless I’ve ever tried) there is an extremely noticeable delay between input and action.

Tapping on the screen for the next song or pressing the steering wheel button to do the same can take a half second or more. Doing it on the phone is nearly instantaneous, just a very tiny audio delay.

Using a cable? Never any delay at all. Unnoticeable.

Between that and the fact that it can really burn battery I’m happy to plug it in every time.

[gnicholas]

The draw is that wireless charging is faster/easier than plugging, or so I understand.

[globular-toast]

Or just get a car that you can retrofit a head unit to. Could be a third party one or a better one from another model. In my VW I retrofitted a head unit with navigation and cruise control, amongst other things. Be sensible and get things like parking sensors that are hard to retrofit, but don't pay for things you can easily fit yourself.

[hunter2_]

Android Auto: I use the Motorola wireless dongle in a VW. It's great when only 1 phone is paired, but my wife and I share the vehicle in question. It allows multiple pairings (despite the instruction manual hardly mentioning that ability, if at all) but it's finicky as hell. Half of all attempts at swapping phones end in unplugging the thing and using a cable, to the point where I'm thinking I keep wireless AA for myself (driver 90% of the time) and have her use a vent mount with only BT audio (driver 10% of the time). Connection handshake delay before visible feedback is about 30 seconds, which makes troubleshooting an extremely latency-riddled nightmare. But the other half of the time, it's as simple as selecting the desired phone in the Bluetooth menu of the car. Once connected, the experience is identical to wired AA.

This problem didn't exist at all before going wireless.

[bdcravens]

Some of the dongles function as Android tablets as well, allowing you to run pretty much any Android app (like Youtube, Netflix, etc without any restriction, though not all apps are safe and may even be illegal while driving)

[dap]

I am not sure if this would be a problem with wireless as well, but I've had very inconsistent experiences having Carplay start at all using a dongle. I'd say right now it works about 70% of the time, and about 25% of the time when it doesn't, I can get it working by unplugging and re-plugging after the car is on. The rest of the time I have to stop the car and start it for it to work. This all started about a year ago though. (2022 RAV4 Prime, multiple iPhone and iOS versions, genuine Apple lightning cable, both with and without an extra Lightning->USBC dongle.)

[hedgehog]

In my experience it's over cable CarPlay is reliable if the head unit is already booted and the phone is unlocked when plugging in. If either of those things aren't true then no guarantee the phone will connect after the booting / unlocking finishes (I use and recommend the setting to disallow accessories when the phone is locked).

[wil421]

The wifi dongle audio quality was reminiscent of the old iPod FM Transmitters that would plug into the cigarette lighter. Not to mention the annoying delay.

[MBCook]

Really? I never had any audio issues, but wireless is built in. So I don’t think it’s an inherent issue.

The delay though… ouch.

[jamesfmilne]

Agreed, I bought a 2017 VW Golf recently, it has wired Apple CarPlay.

Bought a dongle for £55, works fine.

Love having a car with a steering wheel with real buttons, and climate controls with real knobs.

It feels like around 2018 is the zenith of Human Machine Interface in cars and it's all been downhill since, as they cram everything in a fucking touchscreen.

[calfuris]

It seems to be on the upswing, at least for some manufacturers. I went from a 2017 CRV to a new one recently and they replaced the touch-based steering wheel volume adjuster with a physical wheel and moved the only thing that I ever wanted to use the touchscreen for while driving (HVAC mode control) to a physical button. The only controls that are stuck on the touchscreen are ones that a reasonable person would never want to try to change while driving.

[definitelyauser]

I've tried a few dongles and have had nothing but bad experiences.

"Kinda works" for a while, with a noticeable delay when changing songs etc.

Actually pondering replacing the infotainment system itself to get wireless airplay.

[luhn]

I thought the audio delay was because of a crappy dongle too, but when I rented a car with built-in wireless CarPlay it was exactly the same.

[axxl]

The delay happens with integrated systems as well apparently. My brother's car has it built in and he confirmed my adapter is the same.

[dboreham]

In my experience wireless car play is a nothingburger -- you end up plugging in your phone to charge it anyway. If it's not plugged in, the wireless interaction draws so much power that you need to plug it in. Stable configuration is therefore: plugged in. (yes you can sometimes have the combination of wireless CP and wireless charging, but wireless charging also sucks).

[lostmsu]

I almost never plug my phone in the car, and I have wireless android auto dongle. Might be an iPhone issue.

[MBCook]

Wireless CarPlay = heat.

Wireless charging = heat.

Both = furnace.

[albumen]

When I looked into this previously, the delay seemed pretty significant, not just upon auto connect. Can you recommend your dongle?

[spike021]

I've had a Carlinkit 3.0 for two years connected to a standard $400 or so Pioneer head unit with CarPlay and it works fine.

Initial connection is a bit slower than wired, maybe 20 seconds or so, but it's up and running by the time I'm moving my car.

There's very small amount of input lag for stuff like skipping songs or pause/play. I'd say that lag is almost exactly the same as when I used to only use bog-standard Bluetooth to connect to a head unit with my phone so I think that's just the downside of a wireless connection-- wired doesn't have this lag.