CarlinKit 5.0 Wireless CarPlay/Android Auto Adapter,New Upgrade,Two Channel Connection, Plug and Plug, Online Update, For Cars With Wired CarPlay/Android Auto(2016-2023)

Product Information

This is CarlinKit’s latest wireless adapter which takes a leaf out of its previous wireless adapters and improves on its hardware and software. CarlinKit are also calling this adapter 5.0, however this adapter connects a little differently to their 3.0 and 4.0 wireless adapters and it doesn’t allow conversion from CarPlay to Android Auto in exactly the same way as the previous models.

It has to be concluded that with the CarlinKit 5.0, Android Auto has the edge over CarPlayeven when being used with a mid-range Android phone with limited Wi-Fi capabilities. Web Interface & OTA Updating Compatible with OEM wired CarPlay and wired Android Auto cars. Convert original car wired CarPlay to wireless CarPlay, and convert original car wired Android Auto to wireless Android Auto. CarlinKit 4.0 and 5.0 effectively support Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) with link speeds up to 866 mbps (with 2×2 MIMO on 80 MHz wide channels) as per Apple’s recommendations, also enabling the WMM Quality of Service mechanism for improved VoIP latency and input reaction times. I wonder whether it is really all that wise to use an 80 MHz wide channel. Considering that CarlinKit adapters are USB 2.0 Hi-Speed only, I don’t think that a ~800 mbps wireless link will have a considerable impact on the application’s performance. Wireless CarPlay is in fact designed to work on a 20 MHz channel in the 2.4 GHz band. CarPlay and Android Auto both use a peer-to-peer connection, not transferring a hell of a lot of data (a maximum of 10-11 mbps for Wireless CarPlay ). A 20 MHz channel on the 5 GHz band is much less prone to interference while at the same time not messing with the application’s performance which can actually be proven by switching to channel #165 which effectively limits bandwidth to a quarter (~200 mbps). Maybe a 40 MHz channel would be a good compromise between minimizing interference and maximizing throughput with link speeds of up to ~400 mbps, also being in the ballpark of USB 2.0 Hi-Speed. It has to be considered though that for phones not supporting multiple spatial streams (MIMO), maximum link speed will be limited to ~200 mbps on a 40 MHz channel. Compared to the Carlinkit 4.0, the Carlinkit 2air adapter supports Carplay and Android Auto natively and Carlinkit 2air does not have to convert between Android Auto and CarPlay protocols, which enables faster connections and smoother navigation. You should buy Carlinkit 5.0 if... Power consumption measured at around 1.2 W while navigating and playing music, being about 30% more than the 0.9 W of the 2.0 however. The discrepancy may very well be due to different Wi-Fi modules/modes being used.

Service Support

How does it handle on the road? Carlinkit proves to be a simple and effective solution . The operation is similar to the previous one and, during our tests, we did not notice any particular slowdowns or disconnections. Only on the occasion of continuous and deliberate disconnections did we notice a slight drop in pairing performance. Ottocast says the U2-Air works with 600+ car models from 2016 on, except for some Sony aftermarket head units. Its boot time is rated at 18 seconds, and it defaults to 5GHz Wi-Fi. This model only works with iPhones running IOS 10 and up. Unlike some of the other vendors in this roundup, Ottocast has actual offices in the US, but that doesn’t mean the device arrives in the mail any faster. Audio also sounded good to me, wheel controls worked just fine, its GPS passthrough kept up with my car’s location, and calling and audio recording sounded good enough to me with calling delay being significantly reduced. Podporovaná vozidla: automobil s továrním připojením CarPlay nebo kabelovým připojením Android Auto The 5.0 2air features yet another major industrial design upgrade, probably being the most modern one among CarlinKit’s wireless adapters due to its more edgy nature with the LED nicely sitting behind a CarlinKit logo. At least to me it is the most visually pleasing one with its matte finish. Many people may hide the adapter behind the car’s fittings though. So they couldn’t care less about its look.

Automatically identify the connection and enter the carplay or Android auto navigation system, making travel one step faster The search ended with Carlinkit 4.0. Once you connect the device, you are greeted with a login screen and you have to connect the Bluetooth from your phone to this device, after that just follow the prompts on your phone and voila, you are connected! Making phone calls through the CarlinKit 5.0 adapter works in principle . There is some talking over each other every now and then which however also happens with the factory-fitted wired CarPlay . Some factory-fitted head units with integrated Wireless CarPlay , some of which only operate in the low bandwidth and interference-prone 2.4 GHz frequency band, are said to be lagging so badly that making phone calls isn’t feasible at all. One other neat quality-of-life feature is that the Carlinkit 5.0 2air is non-intrusive. Therefore, the wireless adapter/dongle itself doesn’t interfere with the rest of your car’s functions. The rest of your infotainment system, as well as your other car controls, such as the pre-included voice assistant or your steering wheel controls, remains the same as before. Performance-wise, the Carlinkit 5.0 2air continues to impress. Then there are a handful of configuration switches which are meant to tweak the experience or work around compatibility issues with integrations of certain car and head unit manufacturers. Unfortunately some of the used terms are either poorly translated or not very intuitively chosen (e.g. Category which is more like an Audio Compatibility Mode ).

Business Inquiry

The Android Auto dongles induced hairpulling during setup, starting with the Carsifi. Admittedly, I was somewhat hampered by testing with an Android device (a Google Pixel 4) with no cellular data plan—that would have made the firmware updates and accessing the help files via the Carsifi app a lot easier. But even after the updates, I still had to experiment with settings, finally turning off Carsifi’s “Intercept AA protocol,” before it would work in my 2018 Honda. From the Cplay2Air interface on the dash, you can choose between different iPhones if multiple people have them and are all vying for control. Then the screen switches over to CarPlay. Your iPhone treats this as a new instance of CarPlay, so if you have the icons pre-arranged, you’ll have to arrange them again in Settings > General > CarPlay.