I've been futzing with my Grom for a few days now, still having issue with sound from the right channel. Support from Grom has been good with timely emails to aid in troubleshooting. They haven't really offered anything I wasn't able to find on the internet to test, but as stated, they are still talking to me with 3-4 emails exchanges per day. One reason I ultimately went with Grom is because of the continued support to updating the product and how most people online say they had good technical support for installation. I mean, in reality you are buying about $80 worth of Android computer and $500 worth of support with this product. To put the support of the product in perspective. Two years ago the Grom didn't support Carplay/AA at all, then it supported the wired version, then wireless but with tethering compromises, and now a fully baked solution that is easy to implement and hands off after that. How many products out there get that much update without forcing you to buy new hardware to make use of new features.
Update on my audio from the left only issue:
So turns out it wasn't a huge mystery. I got in my car today and it was working, but after a few minutes stopped working. So then I pulled the Grom out of the glove box and powercycled it. At the time I had the balance fully to the right channel. I clearly heard the audio come in and out while moving the Grom around. So at this point I knew it was just a wiring issue. I found that there was a certain place that I could put my finger on the connector and it worked perfectly.
The only thing i find confusing about this, is that the Grom appears to be using the USB input on my stereo to provide audio. That would seem to me that it's sending data digitally to the head unit. That logic doesn't' really jive with only one side being affected when I touch the connector out of the Grom. I wonder if there is a small ADC wrapped up in the wiring harness that converts an analog output from the Grom unit.
My other issue of the screen losing connectivity randomly still exists, but it's only a minor nuisance. It seems to either be tied to a one time occurrence per trip, or possibly related to flipping through settings. But if I don't mess with stuff too much, it seems to only happen once within first minute or two of being in car and then doesn't happen again. I was in truck for about 1.5hrs yesterday afternoon and it didn't fail again after the first time. It literally only takes 2 button clicks to resolve.
General thoughts:
After a few more days of using it, assuming i can work out the audio issue, I'd say I'm pretty happy with it. Even if I only use the Carplay part from here out, that provides me updated maps and the ability to stream audio easily on a more modern interface with little fanfare. The wireless Carplay works great. All i do is turn my car on and the phone connects and Carplay interface loads to my screen.
Future:
I haven't worked out the phone call settings yet as far as whether to let my phone continue to sync to the truck or to do the calling through the Grom. I'd prefer to not install the Grom Mic, so I suspect it will go whichever way works best for that. I also haven't even installed GApps yet. I'll do that this weekend when i have some time and then possibly try to mess around with using a new launcher. As easy as Carplay is, most of the people on the Facebook group have abandoned Carplay and are using the native Android as the control plane. I loaded and logged into the native Pandora app and it is more feature rich than the driver focused (dumbed down) Carplay interface. I get worried that if i get too deep into native apps and launchers that they will become unsupported as time passes and it will be wasted effort. I believe the Grom is somewhat modular inside the box (you can purchase a replacement core from them), so I wonder if at any point, they will be able to offer an updated core with new OS once the hardware is too old to keep up with modern apps.
