Hey all-
Not necessarily off road gear, but this is my 1st post, and my 1st (very minor) mod to my shiny new 2023 GX 460. The dealership is within sight of a Best Buy, so I swung over and checked out what they had.
Aluratek - Wireless Adapter for Apple Car Play (Model AWCPA01F). $89.99
Rexing - Wireless Car Play Adapter for iPhone (Model BBY-CPW-1). $129.99, but I found an open box for $116.99
I honestly haven't read the board policies, so just to be careful I'm not including URL's to retailers in here, but you can google it. FYI: These are also available from Amazon (cheaper) and the respective manufacturers websites (more expensive). But, as mentioned, these were on the shelf, and I wanted wireless CarPlay "like now", so I wasn't shopping for price. I decided to buy both and see which one worked better for me.
Anyway... to the review:
The Short Take:
Wireless CarPlay does work. They sounded the same. Rexing had reconnecting issues with my iPhone 13. Aluratek worked better for me, but due to the device form factor, it needs an adapter / extension cable (on order) to hopefully be able to close the console door.
The Long Take:
For reference, I have a plain old iPhone 13 on Verizon, and that's the only phone I've tried connecting. I drove a few miles home and tried setting these up in my driveway.
I tried the Rexing first:
It came with the device and 2 USB cables. The device was roughly 3x2x0.5 inches with a USB-C socket. The 2 cables were 1) USB-C to USB-A and 2) USB-C to USB-C - both roughly 1 ft long.
Following the instructions was relatively easy, though I did need to zoom in with a cell phone camera even with my reading glasses. It took about 2-3 minutes to get everything up and running and listening to Spotify thru CarPlay. The cable was flexible, so the device was able to sit in the console that contains the USB outlets, but the door was not able to close due to the wire sticking up unless you buy a 90 degree USB-A adapter. I did some quick A/B testing -vs- wired CarPlay, and couldn't hear a difference. Please try this for yourself if you're an audio snob, or you can go down the rabbit hole and hijack this thread to talk about audio compression algorithms and bit rates.
The annoying thing was going back to the wireless device after comparing to wired, I had to manually select the device on the phone. I assumed this was from unplugging mid-song while also unplugging the device, re-plugging wired, then unplugging wired and re-plugging the device. ...more on this later.
Next, I tried the Aluratek:
This comes with a fixed mounted USB-A connector, about 4" of kind of rigid cable, and the dongle that is roughly 2x2x1/4 inches. The cable cannot be removed from the dongle. When plugged into the USB outlets in the accessory console, it sticks up to about the shifter with the dongle kind of floating in the air. Very annoying, but you can bend it a bit. It comes with a small 1" round pad of 3M 2 sided tape, but the wire is so rigid that there's nowhere to use that.
Setup was similar, about 2-3 min and then jamming some tunes via Spotify. It sounded about the same. Given the annoyance of the oddly erect wire, I decided to keep the Rexing. Since the store was still open, I drove back to return the Aluratek. I plugged the Rexing back in, noticing the same re-connect issue, but again assuming it was due to all the messing with it I'd been doing.
On the way to the sore, I thought "Oh, Crap, I didn't try calling", so I called someone and ended up sitting in the parking lot chatting until 8:01pm when I realized that the employees were closing the security grating over the doors. So I hung up, turned off the car, and ran to the entry to ask if I could just return this 1 thing. Denied!
Rexing Re-connect Issue:
Back in my car, I start the car, and the Rexing again refuses to automatically reconnect to my phone. I had to take the phone out of my pocket and choose to connect to the Rexing. It even had trouble correctly displaying the "Connecting" message with overlayed text making it hard to read on the Lexus screen. This raises my suspicions, so after getting home I again sat in the driveway doing more testing and tried multiple times switching between the 2 units. This issue happened every single time with the Rexing. Every time I switched to the Aluratek, it automatically connected after a few seconds (and a kind of simple "connecting" screen with text on a black background.
So... it turns out that the long phone conversation and the store closing was a blessing in disguise.
I went into the house and pulled up the Rexing website to see their support page & FAQ's. It basically said "yep, this can happen regularly and is totally normal" (paraphrasing). So, since the Aluratek was re-connecting as expected, I did not try contacting Rexing support, but they do actively reply to bad reviews on the Best Buy website. It may have been just that unit (which again, was an open box), or an issue specific to iPhone 13.
My verdict: Aluratek Wins!
I've since ordered a pair of 90 degree 8" USB-A cables (one to the right, one to the left) from Amazon for $8. I should get them Friday night, so I can update the thread to see if the console cover door will close or not. I've attached a photo so you can see how un-flexible the wire is and how it sits in the console when plugged into the USB outlets and I bend it so it's at least not.
The only other really odd thing with the Aluratek is that the iPhone displays that it is not connected to the device thru Bluetooth or WiFi, even though it's clearly working, and you can control CarPlay from the Phone and the Lexus screen.
I've seen a few YouTube reviews that basically say all these cheap Chinese AirPlay connects start to suck after a few weeks, so I'll also post an up date if that starts to happen.
Not necessarily off road gear, but this is my 1st post, and my 1st (very minor) mod to my shiny new 2023 GX 460. The dealership is within sight of a Best Buy, so I swung over and checked out what they had.
Aluratek - Wireless Adapter for Apple Car Play (Model AWCPA01F). $89.99
Rexing - Wireless Car Play Adapter for iPhone (Model BBY-CPW-1). $129.99, but I found an open box for $116.99
I honestly haven't read the board policies, so just to be careful I'm not including URL's to retailers in here, but you can google it. FYI: These are also available from Amazon (cheaper) and the respective manufacturers websites (more expensive). But, as mentioned, these were on the shelf, and I wanted wireless CarPlay "like now", so I wasn't shopping for price. I decided to buy both and see which one worked better for me.
Anyway... to the review:
The Short Take:
Wireless CarPlay does work. They sounded the same. Rexing had reconnecting issues with my iPhone 13. Aluratek worked better for me, but due to the device form factor, it needs an adapter / extension cable (on order) to hopefully be able to close the console door.
The Long Take:
For reference, I have a plain old iPhone 13 on Verizon, and that's the only phone I've tried connecting. I drove a few miles home and tried setting these up in my driveway.
I tried the Rexing first:
It came with the device and 2 USB cables. The device was roughly 3x2x0.5 inches with a USB-C socket. The 2 cables were 1) USB-C to USB-A and 2) USB-C to USB-C - both roughly 1 ft long.
Following the instructions was relatively easy, though I did need to zoom in with a cell phone camera even with my reading glasses. It took about 2-3 minutes to get everything up and running and listening to Spotify thru CarPlay. The cable was flexible, so the device was able to sit in the console that contains the USB outlets, but the door was not able to close due to the wire sticking up unless you buy a 90 degree USB-A adapter. I did some quick A/B testing -vs- wired CarPlay, and couldn't hear a difference. Please try this for yourself if you're an audio snob, or you can go down the rabbit hole and hijack this thread to talk about audio compression algorithms and bit rates.
The annoying thing was going back to the wireless device after comparing to wired, I had to manually select the device on the phone. I assumed this was from unplugging mid-song while also unplugging the device, re-plugging wired, then unplugging wired and re-plugging the device. ...more on this later.
Next, I tried the Aluratek:
This comes with a fixed mounted USB-A connector, about 4" of kind of rigid cable, and the dongle that is roughly 2x2x1/4 inches. The cable cannot be removed from the dongle. When plugged into the USB outlets in the accessory console, it sticks up to about the shifter with the dongle kind of floating in the air. Very annoying, but you can bend it a bit. It comes with a small 1" round pad of 3M 2 sided tape, but the wire is so rigid that there's nowhere to use that.
Setup was similar, about 2-3 min and then jamming some tunes via Spotify. It sounded about the same. Given the annoyance of the oddly erect wire, I decided to keep the Rexing. Since the store was still open, I drove back to return the Aluratek. I plugged the Rexing back in, noticing the same re-connect issue, but again assuming it was due to all the messing with it I'd been doing.
On the way to the sore, I thought "Oh, Crap, I didn't try calling", so I called someone and ended up sitting in the parking lot chatting until 8:01pm when I realized that the employees were closing the security grating over the doors. So I hung up, turned off the car, and ran to the entry to ask if I could just return this 1 thing. Denied!
Rexing Re-connect Issue:
Back in my car, I start the car, and the Rexing again refuses to automatically reconnect to my phone. I had to take the phone out of my pocket and choose to connect to the Rexing. It even had trouble correctly displaying the "Connecting" message with overlayed text making it hard to read on the Lexus screen. This raises my suspicions, so after getting home I again sat in the driveway doing more testing and tried multiple times switching between the 2 units. This issue happened every single time with the Rexing. Every time I switched to the Aluratek, it automatically connected after a few seconds (and a kind of simple "connecting" screen with text on a black background.
So... it turns out that the long phone conversation and the store closing was a blessing in disguise.
I went into the house and pulled up the Rexing website to see their support page & FAQ's. It basically said "yep, this can happen regularly and is totally normal" (paraphrasing). So, since the Aluratek was re-connecting as expected, I did not try contacting Rexing support, but they do actively reply to bad reviews on the Best Buy website. It may have been just that unit (which again, was an open box), or an issue specific to iPhone 13.
My verdict: Aluratek Wins!
I've since ordered a pair of 90 degree 8" USB-A cables (one to the right, one to the left) from Amazon for $8. I should get them Friday night, so I can update the thread to see if the console cover door will close or not. I've attached a photo so you can see how un-flexible the wire is and how it sits in the console when plugged into the USB outlets and I bend it so it's at least not.
The only other really odd thing with the Aluratek is that the iPhone displays that it is not connected to the device thru Bluetooth or WiFi, even though it's clearly working, and you can control CarPlay from the Phone and the Lexus screen.
I've seen a few YouTube reviews that basically say all these cheap Chinese AirPlay connects start to suck after a few weeks, so I'll also post an up date if that starts to happen.
