I have a Carlinkit 2 in my MX5 ND, Though like the Subaru it is listed as unstable,it does reboot soon after I plug it in, overall it works well.Short journey, phone in pocket, long journey, drop on a MagSafe charger.
CarlinkKit_2.0_Vehicle%20Compatibility%20List_CC.pdf

 

I have about a month of experience now with CarLinkit 3.0 bought on Amazon. I am not really sure what the difference is between 2.0 and 3.0 but I can tell you how it has worked in my 2019 Grand Touring.

First, the instructions are lacking and about what you'd expect from a cheaply produced part sourced from China/HK/Taiwan. The unit itself is fine and comes with a short cable. Folks on Amazon said it would need to be updated several times before it would work but mine was at the latest version when I installed it.

I have two ongoing issues with it and one is obviously the unit and one might be the Mazda:

First, sometimes it just won't connect. I've found that if you do ANYTHING with the infotainment, the unit gets scared and doesn't connect. So I don't touch it at all -- meaning I don't mess with the big **** or anything. Even still, sometimes the BT/WiFi just don't connect. I have to unplug and re plug the carlinkit in order to get this to work.

Second, and more frequently, it does connect but the screen is black. It is working but not sending any video. Even audio works. To fix this, I have to hit the star button next to the control **** which sends the infotainment back to the mazda menu. Then I can go to Apps and select CarPlay and everything is fine. Once connected it works great and is rock solid, touch screen and all. But it's the connecting that's flaky.

I tried to reach out to their support and they told me they only support units bought direct from them so I better contact Amazon. LOL, not gonna hold my breath.

At this point I think I might try and send it back.

 

I just installed the CPlay2air in my 2021 CX-5 Carbon Edition Turbo. So far it's working fine. My problem is that I can't figure out how to get back to the Mazda infotainment home page. CarpeDiem mentioned that some CPlay2airs "disabled the screen". That may have been what he meant by that. I also have a CPlay2air in my Chevy Colorado and I can get to the Chevy Home Screen by pushing the "Home" button. In my CX-5 pushing the "Home" button brings me to the Apple Car Play Home Screen (all the icons).
Is there anyway to get to the infotainment home page?

Thanks,
Pat.

 

The star button does it for me

 

Thanks for your reply. Very strange. I just checked my car and the * button now does but also the music symbol button. Neither one worked yesterday?

I'll keep checking. Thanks again.

Pat.

 

It has been about a year now. I am curious as to how well the CPLAY2air dongle has worked over time! I have bought the Ottocast U2-Air and the DriveLink Wireless Adapter and they both have NOT worked at all. Black screen, no music, just frustrating. I have the same 2018 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring, so I can imagine your experience with it would be very telling to how mine will go.

 

Hi, NewMazdaDriver_41! Since I posted that bit about the wireless carplay dongle I had bought, I've used it every day for a year. Because I keep hoping something better will come along, I did buy two other units to try a couple weeks apart, and neither worked nearly as well. I don't remember which ones they were, they all look alike to me, but I did end up back with the original unit and I'm totally happy with it. I will say it usually takes 30-60 seconds to 'boot up' and occasionally it fails, but it keeps trying until it does connect. I don't think I mentioned in my original post, but 2018 Mazda CX5 did not have Apple Carplay available when it first came out, but Mazda promised they would make it available as an after-kit, which they did, perhaps around the time the 2019 came out, since the 2019 is the first year that Carplay was available to order. I believe the upgrade, dealer-installed, was between $400-500. When I bought my 2018 last year, I actually was looking to have the upgrade installed when I realized that the previous lease owner of my CX-5 had already done the upgrade, so all I had to do was buy the dongle and plug it in. For the reasons I listed in my original post, I do love having it be wireless so I never have to take my phone out of my pocket. All of the Apple interfaces work just fine (texting, navigation, Siri, Apple Music, etc.), though learning to navigate using the Mazda's infotainment system has a learning curve. Long story short: I would buy the unit again, and if you don't love it, you can always send it back. Good luck!

 

All of these carplay wireless adapters are made in China because they hacked carplay to be able to make their products. They are not apple supported at all, none of them have stable connections, and all have some kind of lag. Save your money on that garbage and just plug your phone in if you want consistency and reliability.

 

MotoChooc, I agree that these all seem to be cheap Chinese units, many or most of which are almost identical other than branding (or lack of). I'd love to buy a well-built state-of-the-art American-made unit if someone would make one, and I'd happily pay a higher price, but bottom line...for me, it's worth the 1-second or so lag time and the occasional failure to connect for the convenience of not having to plug my phone in every time I get into my car.

 

Agreed. My 2018 Sonata had wireless charging but wired carplay. As a result, I never once used wireless charging.

I had a rental car a couple years back that had both the wireless Car Play and charging. That was really nice no cords to putz around with just drop it in a little phone holder and it charged up and did what it had to magically.

I don't know if other people are like me or if I'm just hard on phone cords in the car or what but I used to go through 3 or 4 a year. They'd just quit working. Now that I'm working from home and not driving nearly has much I've finally had a cord last me 6 months.

I was really hoping last year when I was shopping for my CX5 that it would have wireless. CP but no such luck.

Some of the cars I looked at had wireless CP *or* wireless charging but not both. It seemed like if you're going to use CP having one and not the other really makes no sense, at least on a trip longer than a few minutes.

Now if I had to choose between Wireless CP and Charging... If I had my choice and could get a stable wireless carplay setup, I'd get that in a heartbeat just because wireless charging retrofits are out there and not hard to install. From my reading last year though it sounded like the wireless CP dongles were hit and miss as to working. Some of the actual Wireless CP enabled cars sounded flaky as well. I shrugged and decided to just not worry about it -- sounded like the technology needs a little more work.