I was a little leery of the Chinese CarPlay options, so I saw a mentions of this kit from Hamilton Motor Company, and ordered it when they had 10% off for Black Friday.
https://www.hamiltonmotorcompany.com...86ac1d9a&_ss=c

I was out of the country for a month, so just got around to installing it this week. I followed their video with no issues up until they said to unplug the LVDS cable from the blue connector on the back of the screen. Although my car is the exact same as the one used in the video, I didn't have a cable plugged in there at all. I did notice that the car in the video looks as if someone's been in there before (lots of gouges in the dash around the screen and radio), so I guess the setup was just different. The installation video is here -
I stopped there and contacted Hamilton. After some initial confusion as to what was different, it turned out I just needed ignore the video from that point on and just follow the wiring diagram they had provided. That also threw me off as it was for a Land Cruiser, so I had ignored it at first. Once we figured that out, it only took another 15 minutes to connect the remaining cables and power it up.

The system works very well. It's a wireless connection, and you can swap back and forth between CarPlay and the Lexus software by holding the "talk" button on the steering wheel for three seconds. The backup camera works in both softwares, so that's nice.

I tested out Google maps and Spotify today, and they worked seamlessly.

I would definitely recommend this CarPlay option.

 

Wireless apply car play, need to look into this. Thanks for sharing!

 

I went from Grom to Hamilton. Hamilton is a MUCH better unit. Works flawlessly whereas Grom was always buggy.

 

what’s the difference? It seems like they both do the exact same thing.

 

See my post in a different thread. When I made this post I hadn't installed the Grom unit into my wife's Highlander. Now that it is installed I realize how much better the Hamilton unit is. The Grom unit will just randomly switch the screen from the factory radio display to the Grom page. So annoying. Never, not one issue with the Hamilton unit. So thankful for them.
Apple Carplay - Hamilton Motor Co - ClubLexus - Lexus Forum Discussion

 

Looks great! Thank you for posting, I'm so glad I waited and didn't buy the grom. This is exciting, I plan to do those when after I paint my dash.

 

interesting.. I never had an issue with the Grom unit. Happy Hamilton fixed it for you!