Dongle Providing ANDROID AUTO on ES 350 With Apple CarPlay
 

I am wondering if anyone knows about this product and whether it works well. The company says it will work on a 2019 Lexus ES 350 that has Apple Car Play to do two different things: (1) Permit Apple Car Play to work wirelessly (without connecting the iPhone to the USB port, or (2) Allow ANDROID AUTO to work with a wired connection of the Android phone to the USB port on the CARPLAY2air USB dongle. It uses a combination of Bluetooth and WiFi.

CARPLAY2air wireless adapter for factory CarPlay + wired Android Auto

Here is a video from the company:

You Tube

I emailed them and they say it will do what I have listed above. Before sending them money, I'd like to know if anybody has experience with the product. Thanks for posting any information you have.

Thanks for the finding! I am interested in this thing as well and did some searches online. I found a similar but cheaper dongle below on Amazon,

If it comes with Prime then I will buy it immediately, but with the long time of waiting I'd rather wait for a review for the unit.
My best guess is somehow they find a way to bypass OEM system constraints and then install an APK on the car. So wireless Carplay and AA become available. In this case, I think it will work well for most cars and phones.

I’ve been reading reviews of this device on different car forums and the reviews are very mixed. The device is often glitchy, but that probably varies by car. A number of owners do wind up returning it. The manufacturer provides frequent updates that sometimes improves the device but often either bricks it or cause issues that weren’t there prior to the ‘upgrade’.

I was seriously thinking of ordering it, but user reviews gave me pause. I’ll wait for a brave Lexus owner to try it. I don’t think the asking price is that unreasonable. Of course my practical wife asks, “why do we even need this?”. We actually rarely use Apple CarPlay, but I think part of that is because of the inconvenience of having to physically connect and disconnect the device.

BTW, the reviews on the manufacturer’s website are very suspicious. Almost nothing but 5 star reviews that absolutely don’t jive with actual owner reviews you find on the car forum websites.

Just FYI, my parents' 2018 LS 500 got the Car Play/AA update so hopefully our 2019 ES will be next on the list. I am holding out for a Lexus update.

Hmm, my new 2019 ES300h already had CarPlay installed when we picked it up. I thought all 2019 ES models had it, no?

All 2019 models have the CarPlay, but not the Android Auto.

And this gizmo claims to make Carplay work wirelessly. Whoopee.

Well, there are rumors floating around that Apple plans to remove the lighting port in 2021. If that comes to be, I expect Android devices to follow, just like what happened with the audio jack.

Ah, that 'splains' it. :)

Kalel --

What's the "lighting port" and how will its removal affect the availability of Android Auto? Would appreciate a brief explanation.

Thanks!

John (Santa Rosa, CA)

I might be able to help explain. He meant “lightning” port, which is the only port on new Apple iPhones. They removed the headphone jack a couple of years ago. This lightning jack is the jack an iPhone uses for charging, wired headphones and Apple CarPlay. So if Apple removes the jack on future iPhones, there is no mechanism to connect to a wire for CarPlay. The question is whether Android phone makers will also remove external jacks. I believe they want to remove external jacks in order to save space, weight and make them more waterproof.

Wow, Doug. That would mean the Apple CarPlay would have to work wirelessly if the lightning port disappears. That is surely "doable" but it's another software engineering requirement that is non-trivial. Thanks for explaining!

--John

Exactly. And if Android manufacturers follow suit with removal of their physical port (I believe someone indicated some manufacturers had also removed the headphone jack recently in favor of Bluetooth), they will also need to connect to Android Auto wirelessly. The product discussed in the first post on this thread is wireless, so it would theoretically support either phone ecosystem without need for any physical ports.

Found this video:

BMW just announced they'll be updating all compatible headunits to work with apple/android wired and wireless... when is lexus gonna do the same :sad: