Aftermarket Tesla CarPlay and Android Auto Devices

[Pagemakers]

Thank you. Look forward to it.

 

[Prime56]

No issues with my Tesla Android, www.teslaandroid.com. You can make your own raspberry pi-4 setup via off the shelf parts. However if car is older than 2021, you’ll have to buy their premade bundle or make yourself a compute module 4 system with external WiFi antennas.

I am looking into this route. Just a simple pi 4b with 4gb RAM? Using SD card for storage? How are you getting internet? SIM or tethering?

 

[ElectricAnt54]

I am looking into this route. Just a simple pi 4b with 4gb RAM? Using SD card for storage? How are you getting internet? SIM or tethering?

I use a usb lte 4G modem with a SIM card. These pages should answer your pi4B / Tesla Android questions. Tip, for sim data I ended up using Google Fi for one of my daughter’s iPhone. Google Fi allows you to share the phone plan’s 65GB monthly data across 5 data only sims which they will send to you upon request. I tend to use CarPlay so most data is coming from my phone rather than sim so it works out great. My daughter is not a heavy data user as I trained her at young age to use downloads that are on her phone.

Ps - a pal I built a pi4b system for might be selling his. He had a model 3 from 2019 so he needed the premade Compute Module 4 bundle since it had stronger WiFi due to external antenna & older cars having weaker WiFi. If your car is 2022 or newer, you can use pi-4B. I’m not entirely sure if 2021 would be okay. You can ask on the project’s slack, Reddit or email the support email on the site’s website to be sure.

 

[Prime56]

I use a usb lte 4G modem with a SIM card. These pages should answer your pi4B / Tesla Android questions. Tip, for sim data I ended up using Google Fi for one of my daughter’s iPhone. Google Fi allows you to share the phone plan’s 65GB monthly data across 5 data only sims which they will send to you upon request. I tend to use CarPlay so most data is coming from my phone rather than sim so it works out great. My daughter is not a heavy data user as I trained her at young age to use downloads that are on her phone.

Ps - a pal I built a pi4b system for might be selling his. He had a model 3 from 2019 so he needed the premade Compute Module 4 bundle since it had stronger WiFi due to external antenna & older cars having weaker WiFi. If your car is 2022 or newer, you can use pi-4B. I’m not entirely sure if 2021 would be okay. You can ask on the project’s slack, Reddit or email the support email on the site’s website to be sure.

Thanks for the info. According to the manual, the USB-C ports apply approx 15W of power, so hopefully its enough for stable power to the Pi4b. I have a 2023 Model 3 RWD. It looks like you can tether your phone, so I'm going to try that. I use Visible+ (Similar to Google Fi) but I get unlimited hotspot up to 50GB at 5Mbps and then it slows down after that. I never use 50Gb anyways so it's been working good for me. Unfortunately, Visible does not offer data only sims. I have an Android phone, so won't be using CarPlay. If I'm using Android Auto primarily, do I need the dongle?

 

[pvenkat]

Yes the black screen would appear more often and was very random. Now I only took two thirty minutes drive since the firmware upgrade and wifi change and the black screen didn't appear even once. It stayed on the carplay screen the whole time. Another thing to note I was not able to use tespush url before the firmware upgrade and I was using tescarplay url. Not sure which combination fixed it :-( but will confirm this week after few more drives.

I can confirm now the frequent black screen issue has gone. I haven't had it happen for some time now.

 

[Prime56]

I use a usb lte 4G modem with a SIM card. These pages should answer your pi4B / Tesla Android questions. Tip, for sim data I ended up using Google Fi for one of my daughter’s iPhone. Google Fi allows you to share the phone plan’s 65GB monthly data across 5 data only sims which they will send to you upon request. I tend to use CarPlay so most data is coming from my phone rather than sim so it works out great. My daughter is not a heavy data user as I trained her at young age to use downloads that are on her phone.

Ps - a pal I built a pi4b system for might be selling his. He had a model 3 from 2019 so he needed the premade Compute Module 4 bundle since it had stronger WiFi due to external antenna & older cars having weaker WiFi. If your car is 2022 or newer, you can use pi-4B. I’m not entirely sure if 2021 would be okay. You can ask on the project’s slack, Reddit or email the support email on the site’s website to be sure.

so I did this, and it worked fine. My only gripe is with 832p. It makes the Android OS seem blurry compared to the screens native resolution of 1920x1200. I have 832p set in TeslaAndroid, 1080p set in AutoKit Android Auto Settings and it just seems blurry. When I use the "TesAA" app, it's a nice crisp Android Auto screen.

 

[nemodio]

I can confirm now the frequent black screen issue has gone. I haven't had it happen for some time now.

Unfortunately, I just finished a 2500 mile trip and the black screen happened MORE than before. It was extremely irritating especially if it happened when a highway exit or local turn was coming up As per others' suggestions, I manually chose 2.4, 5Gh and even specific frequencies within those bands instead of automatic. Didn't help :-(

 

[charlesoris]

Do you have FSD beta on your car?

I'm still trying to find out whether the black screen issue with the Ownice T3 is resolved with a FW update...

There a firmware update for Ownice T3 (1.8.9). I don't know if it fixes the problem with FSD.

 

[Pagemakers]

Those that were seeing the black screen of death, has this finally been fixed now?

 

[pvenkat]

Unfortunately, I just finished a 2500 mile trip and the black screen happened MORE than before. It was extremely irritating especially if it happened when a highway exit or local turn was coming up As per others' suggestions, I manually chose 2.4, 5Gh and even specific frequencies within those bands instead of automatic. Didn't help :-(

Strange. It looks like the issue is fixed for me at least... It has been fine for few weeks now. One thing to note is that I switched back to https://www.tespush.com URL. from tescarplay

 

[mborodin]

I bought recently Carlinkit for Tesla and here is my experience with this device, probably will help to someone who is using Android phones. I plugged it to the central console USB port of my Tesla 2023 MYLR and successfully setup on my Android Oneplus 8T phone and the car. Everything was working fine and I was happy that I can use Andoid Auto in my car. But what I've noticed that I can't do any phone call as the sound comes from my phone and not from my car even though my phone is connected to my car. I tried to remove "Phone calls" from Autolit_A117 BT settings and sound switches to my car's BT but after couple seconds it connects back to Autolit_A117 and sound switches to my phone. I talked to support and they replied that this is a problem with my phone and is temporarily unsolvable.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

I bought recently Carlinkit for Tesla and here is my experience with this device, probably will help to someone who is using Android phones. I plugged it to the central console USB port of my Tesla 2023 MYLR and successfully setup on my Android Oneplus 8T phone and the car. Everything was working fine and I was happy that I can use Andoid Auto in my car. But what I've noticed that I can't do any phone call as the sound comes from my phone and not from my car even though my phone is connected to my car. I tried to remove "Phone calls" from Autolit_A117 BT settings and sound switches to my car's BT but after couple seconds it connects back to Autolit_A117 and sound switches to my phone. I talked to support and they replied that this is a problem with my phone and is temporarily unsolvable.

Note to Android auto users, check out the open source Tesla Android Project. Seems to work well with Android auto. Don’t believe me though ask in the Reddit forums & slack system or read the threads. I think topic has been covered a bunch. www.teslaandroid.com . If your car is older than 2021, I highly advise buying premade kit with large WiFi antennas or making your own CM4 setup with external antennas since at some point older cars had weak WiFi antenna & responsiveness will be sluggish without those big external antennas. It fits under center storage still.

 

[mborodin]

Note to Android auto users, check out the open source Tesla Android Project. Seems to work well with Android auto. Don’t believe me though ask in the Reddit forums & slack system or read the threads. I think topic has been covered a bunch.

I know about this project, but IMHO €279,00 for the whole device I think it is too much, just to run Waze in the car.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

I know about this project, but IMHO €279,00 for the whole device I think it is too much, just to run Waze in the car.

You can make your own very easily for a bit less. The parts are “over the shelf” & the software is free / open source.

 

[charlesoris]

I bought recently Carlinkit for Tesla and here is my experience with this device, probably will help to someone who is using Android phones. I plugged it to the central console USB port of my Tesla 2023 MYLR and successfully setup on my Android Oneplus 8T phone and the car. Everything was working fine and I was happy that I can use Andoid Auto in my car. But what I've noticed that I can't do any phone call as the sound comes from my phone and not from my car even though my phone is connected to my car. I tried to remove "Phone calls" from Autolit_A117 BT settings and sound switches to my car's BT but after couple seconds it connects back to Autolit_A117 and sound switches to my phone. I talked to support and they replied that this is a problem with my phone and is temporarily unsolvable.

Have you considered trying out Ownice T3? It may solve the issue with the Carlinkit.

 

[mborodin]

Have you considered trying out Ownice T3? It may solve the issue with the Carlinkit.

I'm looking at it as alternative to Carlinkit but can someone confirm that phone calls work fine with Android phones on Ownice T3?

 

[charlesoris]

I'm looking at it as alternative to Carlinkit but can someone confirm that phone calls work fine with Android phones on Ownice T3?

I don't have an Android phone, but you can contact Ownice sales dept. with any questions via email or WhatsApp.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

I know about this project, but IMHO €279,00 for the whole device I think it is too much, just to run Waze in the car.

Also Tesla Android does more than just run Waze.
1) Android Auto via “head unit reloaded” app. You get whole android auto ecosystem. Waze & other nav is in it.
2) Apple CarPlay via Autokit app + the cpc200-ccpa carlinkit dongle. So you get that whole ecosystem. Waze & other nav is in it. Although dongle supports Android Auto, it has same limitations you noticed in carlinkit’s other product so people use solution mentioned in #1.
3) Run Android OS native apps downloadable from Google Play store or others like YouTube, Apple Music (playing lossless codec + stream music via WiFi, no Bluetooth)., VLC for all sorts of music playback & video. And lots more.

 

[timeshifter]

3) Run Android OS native apps downloadable from Google Play store or others like YouTube, Apple Music (playing lossless codec + stream music via WiFi, no Bluetooth)., VLC for all sorts of music playback & video. And lots more.

As you know I was an advocate of that solution and used it for a long time. But I moved away from it as the T2C was simpler and met my needs.

Might be interested in trying it again. I've still got the hardware.

Can you run YouTube TV on it natively? (Note that I'd never watch TV while driving and I mean it, anyone who does should be prosecuted). It would be nice to have. I looked into earlier in the dev cycle and don't recall that it worked.

More importantly: does Michael have a good solution now for powering the device in a way that you don't have to think about it? My frustration with all of these solutions is that I never found a way to set it and forget it. Those lucky enough to have the tow package can tap a line that powers a device like this seamlessly - it starts when drive, etc.

 

[ElectricAnt54]

As you know I was an advocate of that solution and used it for a long time. But I moved away from it as the T2C was simpler and met my needs.

Might be interested in trying it again. I've still got the hardware.

Can you run YouTube TV on it natively? (Note that I'd never watch TV while driving and I mean it, anyone who does should be prosecuted). It would be nice to have. I looked into earlier in the dev cycle and don't recall that it worked.

More importantly: does Michael have a good solution now for powering the device in a way that you don't have to think about it? My frustration with all of these solutions is that I never found a way to set it and forget it. Those lucky enough to have the tow package can tap a line that powers a device like this seamlessly - it starts when drive, etc.

Regarding YouTube tv , one person on Reddit recently reported it worked but video playback was too choppy. I’ve never tried YouTube tv. if you try it, my suggestion is first set tesla android resolution to 640P and see how it is.That lower resolution helps a lot in my car (HW3 Intel atom slow processor) for viewing regular YouTube. If YouTube tv lets you download content locally try that as playback source since the 4G lte usb modems kinda suck speed wise. I’m considering getting a travel router with 5G sim to plug in to the cm4 b rpi-4b Ethernet port. I hear All video playback is improved on hw4 ryzen based vehicles and very good in the plaid with steam video gaming.

Regarding power, nope. Nothing automatic other than tapping in to the tow package power line. I have tow package in my Y but still have not tried using that power source. I finagled a usb-a to usb-c using two cables connected together one which had a power switch and this worked great with my rpi-4B but causes my cm4 system to be totally unstable. So I use a pure usb-c to usb-c cable and just found one with a power and ordered it.