Upgrading to Wireless Carplay & Android Auto

[@Lewis_Standing]

I have the same problem on my kona, this is interesting. Especially if streaming apps would work in the screen for charging or waiting for kids clubs etc

[@UpsideDownFork]

Yep, exactly what we used it for. The KZbin and Disney+ apps work really well.

[@chillax411]

I'd recommend reuploading with some blurring and muting in certain sections to avoid doxxing yourself. Great vid though!

[@stevept1504]

As a fellow MG5 owner I think I may be missing something that's perhaps obvious to others. You plug this into the car's USB port to save having to plug your phone into the car's USB port and then it'll give you all the functionality of your phone and it only costs £220 plus shipping.

[@warpcode]

Whilst your phone sits there draining it's battery and not being charged too

[@UpsideDownFork]

@stevept1504 Well, it does give more functionality than plugging your phone in, but point taken. As I highlight in the video, only you can decide if this offers you value for money or not.

[@UpsideDownFork]

@warpcode so it's ideal for short trips where you want to jump in and out of the car quickly and don't want to mess with cables. Long journeys and you might want to be charging, sure.

[@robynrox]

That's better than I thought it would be. I probably won't buy it as I'm happy to plug my phone in for long journeys and I don't use android auto for short journeys where I know where I'm going and all that. I was surprised to see Disney+ and Netflix and they are cool, for sure, but for me, only if they use your existing phone data plan, and also I can just use my phone itself if I'm parked up. Mind you, it's entirely possible that my Leaf E+ doesn't have the capability to run those anyway; I don't know a great deal about android auto and if there are different versions with different capabilities or anything like that. Good to know about it though!

[@UpsideDownFork]

Thanks for commenting. With this device, your car just becomes the screen really. The little puck is doing all the hard work, so any car with wired apple carplay / android auto can benefit from converting to wireless if so desired and also get all the other standalone features and apps as shown in the video.

[@alslad]

When I bought my 5 it had the DAB dongle due to chip shortage issue. It has since been fixed but the quality of the dongle remedy was so poor I bought a Picasou Pro 2 AI box that I could run DABZ on and it has been fantastic. I also run a music player that supports playlists etc (which the inbuilt media doesn't), plus I run TomTom as satnav from it that is much better and more responsive than the the MG offer and has live traffic and speed cameras

[@UpsideDownFork]

Thanks for sharing

[@janhenkins]

Hello! Thanks for this excellent video. I'm tentatively in the market for something like this, but I do have to admit to a little bit of sticker-shock - $185 isn't cheap (even though it's not exorbitant either). So let's see if I can build some value... If you don't mind I have a few questions : (1) How did you find the GPS reception when the unit is tucked into the little phone pocket resting on it's side? (2) My main use-case would be to use A Better Router Planner combined with a VLink+ ODB dongle (I would argue that this is an essential addition to any MG5 model for long journeys), which works quite well via wired Android Auto on my phone. Is this a scenario that you have tried out with this unit?

[@UpsideDownFork]

Thanks for the comment! I agree, it's a premium price tag, fortunately it does deliver. GPS signal in the little console pocket was excellent. No drop outs. Sorry if I didn't show very well that there are 2 sides to this device. Anything that you can currently do with your phone through wired android auto will now work exactly the same but wirelessly. If you want to run it solo without your phone then in theory ABRP + OBD Dongle should work but it's not something i've tested, still not yet needed ABRP myself. Does ABRP require data on the move? If so, you will need to insert a sim card or use your phone as a hotspot. If you just need the data connection when setting off then you may have good enough home wi-fi signal on your driveway for this. The item is currently with a friend who's testing it's capabilities in their MG4. Once I get it back I can try that scenario for you.

[@janhenkins]

@@UpsideDownFork Excellent news about the GPS capabilities! ABRP does indeed need data to update traffic and weather info on the trot, but the OBD connection is in my opinion just as important because it then updates itself on your power consumption and battery SOC. This enables ABRP to dynamically update the route plan if needed (like Tesla). I'm happy to use my phone as a hot-spot for this device, since my phone has 5G and I have an unlimited data-plan. Back to ABRP - it is not perfect yet, but it is very close. While it can download info from Google like how busy a road is as well as things like weather-related conditions, it still cannot get road closure info via the Google API. Last week-end I fell foul of this, because on my way back south via the M40, the south-bound lane was closed around Banbury. This forced me to abandon my route plan, but ABRP refused to recalculate because it did not know about the closure - it insisted on trying to force me back to the M40. Waze and Google Maps of course knew about the closure, and re-routed me with no issue after I had a (rather expensive) charge at Osprey in Banbury. £0.89 per kWh - that's definitely one to avoid in future! After reporting this to ABRP, they responded that this is a known issue and they are busy sorting this out as quickly as they can. So yes, and eventful trip with many things learned: * ABRP is excellent but needs work * Osprey is really taking the mick with their pricing * If your car supports it (us MG5 pre-facelift SR owners cannot without some major investment), make sure you use the open Tesla Superchargers where-ever you can.

[@gmuzz]

The elite version is $120 cheaper and has the same functionality. Yes it is less powerful but that's a bit pricey difference.

[@UpsideDownFork]

I'd like to test them side by side to evaluate if the jump in RAM from 2GB to 8GB and the significant upgrade from a QQCM2290 to a SM6225 are worth that premium. 11nm vs 6nm, 4 cores vs 8 cores etc etc. The geek bench scores of 127 vs 380 for single core and 404 vs 1532 for multi core suggest that there's a huge performance difference.

[@darrenadams2640]

How good it is is irrelevant to me as its an absolute extortionate rip off price. Also, where does the Artificial Intelligence come in? Worse still, no 5G even though its far from new, max 256Mb memory card, and a 2 generation old Android version. And it only gives wireless Carplay if you car ALREADY has wired Carplay! Total junk!

[@UpsideDownFork]

I can tell it's not for you 😂 Just to clarify the memory card capacity is 256GB, not 256Mb. Android version is only just 2 generations old by a few weeks. Only a tiny handful of devices have 15. How would you expect it to give you wireless carplay if you don't already have wired carplay?