I have been using TomTom on my iPhone as my satnav but just bought this brilliant CarPlay tablet. It's priced at £70 but there is a 20% voucher that gets applied at checkout to make it £56 which is less than half the price that these devices usually are. It allows me to run TomTom on my iPhone but have display on the large 1600x600 pixel. Other apps can be run too like BBC Sounds or Podcasts. I believe Android Auto offers similar facilities.

It runs off the cigar lighter & can connect to the car audio via Bluetooth (when I get round to fitting a GROM dongle) or FM transmitter. It is permanently connected & starts up every time the car starts. I'm so impressed with the value for money that I thought I would share the news😀.

10.26" display
4K Front Dash Cam including 64GB SD Card
1080P Reversing Camera (wired)
Car Play & Android Auto
Bluetooth
FM transmitter

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FKMRCKPJ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

After Nigel showed me his unit last week, I immediately ordered one to go in my step-daughter's Toyota Aygo. I'd promised her something like that when she passed her driving test, which she did on Wednesday, so I installed it. It was £59 with the money off voucher when I got it earlier this week. As well as being able to connect by Bluetooth and FM transmitter, it also has a line out to go into an Aux in socket of your existing stereo has one (which the Aygo does) so I used that. Unfortunately there was a continuous crackle on the audio sounding like the old mobile phone interference you sometimes used to get if a phone was too close to an audio device. I tried a better quality cable than the one supplied but that made no difference so resorted to using the inbuilt FM transmitter. Running Waze on her iPhone and it works perfectly as well as streaming music. Dashcam works well too and it even came with a 56Gb microSD card. Haven't yet tried it for hands free calls or installed the (included) reversing camera but everything else simply does what it says it does.

As may be gathered I'm pretty chuffed with my purchase. Even just having the dash cam & reversing camera for £55 looks like a good deal never mind the lovely satnav tablet.

carPlay

This is my unit - paid £44 on AliExpress. Works a lovely treat.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006640622538.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.94.6b9d1802yfnBPx

nigelbb wrote:

As may be gathered I'm pretty chuffed with my purchase. Even just having the dash cam & reversing camera for £55 looks like a good deal never mind the lovely satnav tablet.

Tech has come a long way. You may experience the occasional disconnect, which isn't a significant issue, as the phone automatically reconnects.

Gilbertd wrote:

After Nigel showed me his unit last week, I immediately ordered one to go in my step-daughter's Toyota Aygo. I'd promised her something like that when she passed her driving test, which she did on Wednesday, so I installed it. It was £59 with the money off voucher when I got it earlier this week. As well as being able to connect by Bluetooth and FM transmitter, it also has a line out to go into an Aux in socket of your existing stereo has one (which the Aygo does) so I used that. Unfortunately there was a continuous crackle on the audio sounding like the old mobile phone interference you sometimes used to get if a phone was too close to an audio device. I tried a better quality cable than the one supplied but that made no difference so resorted to using the inbuilt FM transmitter. Running Waze on her iPhone and it works perfectly as well as streaming music. Dashcam works well too and it even came with a 56Gb microSD card. Haven't yet tried it for hands free calls or installed the (included) reversing camera but everything else simply does what it says it does.

Hands-free may be a hit or miss in quality. There's on option in CarPlay so you can speak to the unit, instead of touching it i.e "swipe left, swipe right". Enable that.

That is my only complaint (other than the crackle when trying to use line in), no instructions. Step daughter asked me how she saves a clip from the dashcam and I have no idea. I have a dedicated dashcam with a red button that marks the current clip so it doesn't get over written and I would assume it has something similar but no idea how to do it. The same with displaying a split screen. At one point it was showing the sat nav map and the title of the music she was streaming, but how we got it into that state we couldn't work out.

Gilbertd wrote:

That is my only complaint (other than the crackle when trying to use line in), no instructions. Step daughter asked me how she saves a clip from the dashcam and I have no idea. I have a dedicated dashcam with a red button that marks the current clip so it doesn't get over written and I would assume it has something similar but no idea how to do it. The same with displaying a split screen. At one point it was showing the sat nav map and the title of the music she was streaming, but how we got it into that state we couldn't work out.

Poor instructions would be my complaint too. I have never had a dash cam before so hadn't appreciated that being able to save the current clip so it doesn't get over written would be useful. I have figured out how to toggle between different layouts of split screen though. I will show you how it is done when I see you later in the week.

v8vroom wrote:

carPlay

This is my unit - paid £44 on AliExpress. Works a lovely treat.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006640622538.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.94.6b9d1802yfnBPx

There are so many different models on the market that the choice is bewildering. I don't see any point in the risks of a personal import from China when the device that I purchased included a 64GB micro-SD card & next day delivery from Amazon.

On the strength of the posts here I procured one of these units - at £50 odd it seemed a gamble worth taking! I have just finished testing it with both cameras, Apple CarPlay etc and have to say that it’s quite a bargain. Straight out of the box the quality seems pretty good and the functionality spot on, once you’ve figured out how it works etc. The instructions accompanying the kit are pretty ‘thin’ to say the least.

Now the testing was completed with ‘jury rigged’ cabling and loose units. So onto the next phase of installing in as seamless way as possible. On this topic does anyone have any suggestions on how to mount the main unit to the dash top and how/where best to mount the rear facing camera?

How about this stuff for mounting on the top of the dashboard. :-

musthaveideas.co.uk/products/sumo-strip

supposed to be a reusable equivalent to double sided sticky tape. Supplier keeps popping up in my facebook feed with various "wouldn't it be wonderful if it worked" things. Weakened and bought a couple of things off them which did work well.,

Or take off the rubber tray, stick s thin steel sheet in the recess and get clever with magnets let into the base.

I've bought one. The extra discount didn't get applied for some reason but £62 still isn't bad. Wondering if this beastie might be good way to reliably connect it to the radio via FM :-

https://incartec.co.uk/Landrover/Range-Rover-II-P38A/Aux-In-Ipod-Usb-Interface/Aux-in-Interfaces/0

I'd prefer a line input but I gather it's not easy to modify the Apline radio / cassette player. Don't care about loosing the CD player tho' as I presume the car play capability means it can stream musing from the phone as well as displaying Waze. Or is stuff not as clever as I think it ought to be. Looks like 71 = too old to keep up!

Clive

It comes with a base and a sticky pad so, as the top of the P38 dash is virtually flat, it should fit on there easily enough. It has a built in FM transmitter anyway so all you need do is tune your radio to it, no need for an extra unit. Whenever switched off it defaults to 87.5MHz when switched back on though. That works extremely well on step daughter's Aygo but that has a roof mounted aerial so the distance between the unit and the aerial is less than 1m with only the windscreen glass in between. My experience with using a DAB adapter with FM output on a previous P38 wasn't as good due to the unit being at the dash and the aerial being that much further away at the rear. Every so often, I'd drive past someone else also using the same FM frequency for the same purpose and hear their signal instead.

Not only will it allow you to stream music as well as displaying Waze, it works as a hands free unit for phone calls. Seems to work reasonably well even though the mic is in the unit itself and not remote allowing you to fit it a bit closer (both my P38s have hands free in them with the mic at the top of the A post). The mic also allows you to voice control it too.

Thanks for that extra information.

Having been involved with the FM connections on other peoples cars in the past with generally less than wonderful results I may be over pessimistic on how well modern incarnations work.

Nice to hear that it comes with sticky pads but ordinary sticky pads and I don't get on that well. 50-50 between near permanent fix or off by week after next. Most annoying when there are two side by side and one hangs on and the other doesn't. I know my dash top has been silicone polished in the (distant) past. Which, even 14 plus years down the line, doesn't bode well for sticking.

I suppose that these days it's safe enough to leave add on technology on display. Old fart here recalls when leaving a GPS stuck to the screen was an open invitation to a broken window and stolen tech. Presumably nowadays its only phones the great unwashed care about.

Clive

At the moment I am using the windscreen suction mount to secure the Carplay device. I didn't want to glue anything permanent until I was absolutely sure of the location. I could just remove the rubber mat from the top of the dashboard & stick it there. I have order a couple of rolls of the magic sumo strip referenced upthread that looks very nifty & could be the solution.

Before I bought my Carplay device I used TomTom on my iPhone as my satnav. The iPhone is secured in a Brodit holder that fits over the air vents. It would be neat if I could use this Brodit holder but I think that it may be too low for the dashcam to get a decent view. I shall experiment.

Once I have fixed the device I still need to discretely run the wires so they are out of sight. I have replaced the supplied power cord that plugs in the cigar lighter with another adapter that gives me 2 x USB 3.0 & 1 x USB-C so I can still charge a phone at the same time. The Carplay device only works with the 3A USB-C supply not the 2.4A from the USB 3.0 sockets. I also intend to install the rear camera near or on the tow hitch then will need to run the wire all the way back through the car to the Carplay device on the dashboard.

The connection using the FM transmitter can be great but can be awful when you get interference. I am going to get one of those Grom Bluetooth widgets that plugs into the CD changer socket on the back of the radio.

My satnav is permanently wired and stuck on the bottom of the windscreen in much the same place as you have put the Carplay screen, just closer to the screen. You can run the wires towards the screen and the forward edge of the dashboard has a rubber on it that bears on the inside of the windscreen. That allows you to poke the wires down below that and run them to one side. For my satnav and dashcam (mounted at the top of the screen next to the rear view mirror), I installed an extra cigar lighter socket low down on the centre console side panel and ran the cable from that to a dual outlet cigar lighter socket tie wrapped to the wiring duct behind the knee panel so the two items are plugged into that. That way I can keep the cigar lighter/ashtray flap closed and not have any wires dangling over the top of the centre console unless I need to use one of the two USB sockets I've mounted inside the ashtray that is.

I've still got to mount the rear camera on the Aygo but when I do that I'll have another play with the line out (as the Aygo has an Aux in socket on the stereo) and see if I can identify why there was a constant crackle on the audio when using that. It sounded like GSM interference from the phone but that shouldn't be a problem these days with everything running UMTS and LTE. I'll try connecting my Android phone to it and see if it is an iPhone problem. If it is, that will give her the excuse she has been waiting for to replace her elderly iPhone with a newer one and just hope that cures it.