Hello, Steve Allison and the NosillaCastaways. This is Father john, calling from beautiful Northern Wisconsin. And being a priest, I’ve always had to do a lot of car work for my three parishes. So my problem to be solved.
I am in and out of my car throughout the week. My car has CarPlay but plugging my iPhone in is not always fun, or easy. I think it’s a real pain. And so the answer to my problem was wireless CarPlay.
I really like my present car and I don’t want to spend mega dollars on a new car with wireless CarPlay, or gut my integrated audio system in my car. So what to do? Enter the CPLAY2air adapter. It’s a small box about three inches by an inch and a half by a half inch with a two and a half inch cord. It plugs into the USB of my car that my normal iPhone would plug into.
In about a minute’s worth of installation, I have wireless CarPlay. Now, I keep my iPhone in my pocket, get into the car, start the car and within 10 to 15 seconds, I hear the wonderful voice of Allison Sheridan and many others proclaiming their wisdom as well as having navigation and the rest of CarPlay, without touching my iPhone. It’s wonderful.
Some questions I had were about the syncing time to get into the car. Nope. It just works. How does it work?
The adapter has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth hardware. It connects with the Bluetooth and sends the Wi-Fi credentials to the phone, then disconnects from the Bluetooth network. It works solely on Wi-Fi from that point on.
It works with any iPhone after iPhone 5. It pairs with the last iPhone used in the car so it will pair with any iPhone. Setup is easy and you can update the unit by going on the website with your iPhone. CPLAY2air was a bit expensive when I purchased at $159, but it works with nearly any car that has CarPlay as part of the audio system.
Their site lists 36 different brands of cars and the years that have built-in CarPlay as part of their audio system. I have gone to Amazon and they have others that work with Android head units. I don’t know what that is, and they don’t say that they’ll work with my car.
Before closing I just went to their site and the CPLAY2air unit is now only $129. You can get this fantastic product at https://carplay2air.com. Again $129 now, it saves a massive amount of headaches.
[Transcribed by otter.ai]
Hi Father John, thanks for that review. Like you, I was really interested in having a wireless CarPlay connection for a car that I just purchased in February but only had wired version. Having to connect/disconnect every time was a royal pain. Ironically, I found and was looking at this same device a few months ago. One thing I saw – and what kept me from pursuing – was statements from the company that the BT connection between the device and iPhone must be the ***ONLY*** BT connection when you enter the vehicle to get the seamless connection. I wrote to the company and inquired if that meant that it would NOT work if I also had my phone paired to an Watch on my wrist. The response was quite vague and wishy-washy, so I stopped there. Sooooo … maybe YOU have some experience on this point. Any chance you routinely wear an Watch and the CPLAY2AIR connects no problem? Fingers cross you say YES 🙂
Dear Craig,
I have my Apple watch on BT with my iPhone and have had no problem with CPlay2Air. I checked it out 2hours ago and looked on my iPhone to make sure that AppleWatch was on BT. The CPlay2Air unit only uses BT to set up the WIFI connection and then turns off. It just works!
Fr. John
Stay Healthy and Stay Holy
SH SH
I ordered and received the gadget. Over the course of the past several days, I have tried multiple times to love it. I installed it as instructed, and it worked — once. After that, if it worked at all, it was only after fiddling for several minutes each time I tried to use it. I’m currently awaiting a message from the company so I can return it. It’s simply easier to plug and unplug than to go through what I’ve had to do to make this work — sometimes. By the way, the company was much more responsive *before* I purchased the item; when I was trying to return it, they waited until I told them I was going to contact my credit card company before they finally sent me return instructions. In addition, there is not only a $25 restocking fee, but the postage to China is not inconsiderable — and that is also the buyer’s responsibility when returning.
This is awful, Sandy! This is the second time in a week I’ve heard of someone buying something that turned out to ship from China and they have a restocking fee AND you have to pay the shipping back. I’m so sorry this didn’t work out for you. I really think you should work through your credit card on this (same advice I gave the other person.
I understand things to wrong with products, and I expect that from every company, but it’s how you’re treated when things go wrong that matters.