Our family of five people mover, 2018 Chrysler Pacifica, while it has been a well equipped bliss, lacks some top of the line features. It has potato-grade screen with wired CarPlay support, but the more we use it, the more cables stop working. Can’t do nothing about the display, but I surely can improve smartphone experience!
Let’s be honest… Since most of the car manufacturers have long moved to heavily integrated multimedia units, it would be near impossible to upgrade it. It might be MAYBE possible to replace with a transplant from a newer Pacifica, but the complexity and cost of that would be abysmal.
As I can live with a mediocre screen, the cables have been the most irritating piece of the puzzle. Every time I get a new cable, it nearly stops working after some time. You have to fiddle with it, turn it around, etc. to make it work.
There’s also a new factor to consider. As I have switched to a USB-C iPhone, we would need more cables and constantly switch them.
The only reasonable way was to go wireless. Fortunately, there is an easy solution for that.
Quick sweep of ecommerce platforms unveiled a shitload of made-up brands of dubious quality wireless CarPlay adapters. Some of them are a big box on a cable, promising superior connectivity, some of them try to hide in plain sight by being small and not protruding to much from the USB port.
In the end, basing my choice on Polish ecommerce platform reviews, I’ve ordered something called Ottocast Mini 2 in 1. It does support both CarPlay and Android Auto. And don’t get fooled by the price on the website. I’ve got it for half of the listed price.
The installation couldn’t be more tivial. You stick it into the CarPlay enabled USB port and that’s it.
It looks like it’s sticking out, but the top part of the center console is hovering above it, so there very little chance to knock it out by accident.
The car unit detects it automatically and displays a prompt with the device’s Bluetooth name.
The iPhone has automatically detected wireless CarPlay and it was as easy as confirming you want to connect to it. I’ve tested it multiple times and it’s as seamless as it can be. I get in the car, start it and it does connect automatically right away. I could swear it is not slower than using a cable. Damn, with all the cable issues I’d ever risk calling it quicker.
It even has a trick up it’s sleeve, that most of the cheap adapters do not offer. It will remember up to two devices and allows to switch between them with a click of a button. That part we yet need to test, but I’m sure it’s going to be just fine.
The touch input is instant, precise, responsive and no different to a cable connection. But of course for the price, there has to be something annoying. In this case it’s a little bit of noticeable lag when switching songs.
Now, for the ultimate solution, I’ve got a run of the mill MagSafe puck and just left it there. It will work well with both my Wife’s and my own iPhone and mitigates the issue of swapping the cables every time we switch seats.
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