DBud

I am having difficulty using ACP with in-car wireless wifi. When I am using Apple Car Play in the 2022 NX 250 and I connect my wireless iphone to the in-car wifi, I get a message on my phone asking, "Disconnect CarPlay ? Joining the in-car network will end CarPlay."
If I select " Join" , the car's info center will disconnect CarPlay and revert back tot the Lexus system settings . I was hoping to be able to take advantage of ATT's unlimited data usage plan of the incar Wifi to connect to my phone and ACP, but the two do not seem compatible. My Lexus tech rep said in an email, "It's one or the other while trying to use ACP and the wifi in the vehicle. With ACP being turned on, it uses your phone's data. If you try to use the car's hot spot, your phone has to switch over to the wifi and cannot use data at the same time." Huh?
The ATT trial comes with 4 GB. Its permanent plan offers unlimited data. Am I doing something wrong? Or is the Tech rep correct? Is there a way to use the in-car wifi and ACP together?

mbezzo

Hey,
You're not doing something wrong - this is a function of the tech used to make wireless CarPlay work. You can sort of think of it like this: to make wireless CarPlay work, what's actually happening is your phone and the car are initiating a "special" wifi link that you can sort of conceptualize as a a USB wired connection, but using Wifi. So, the wifi connection on your phone is "in use" to maintain the carplay connection and that connection can only be used to display the data on the screen. The car has a second wifi system that's used to provide data to other devices - and this is where the problem comes in. Your phone can't be connected to two networks at the same time. Yep, this is all complicated and hopefully I'm explaining it well enough!! But if I'm not - what you CAN do is, use wired CarPlay (you need to use the older type-A USB port, not the USB-C port as that only provides power) and then you'll be able to connect to the data-providing wireless network in your car and take advantage of that free data.

mbezzo

DBud

Thank you. You explained it well. I'll give it a try with the wired connection. Alternatively, if I do not subscribe to the in-car wifi, can I still maintain my wireless connection to ACP by upgrading my cell phone service to an unlimited data plan and connecting to it? In other words, I can use any wifi to maintain the wireless connection except the wifi attached to the car?

mbezzo

Yep! Your phone's connection to the cellular network (LTE/4G/5G etc) is maintained by a different set of radios separate from the wifi radios so while using wireless CarPlay your phones cellular data connection is still active and allows for data/phone calls to continue working. This is how we do things and it works great. I've always wondered what the value proposition was for "in car wifi". Seems it makes more sense to pay for a data plan on your phone and ALWAYS have unlimited data as opposed to only having access to data when in the car? But I'm sure it's useful to people in specific cases... just haven't found one that makes sense for us!

DBud

While watching the Lexus sponsored tutorials prior to posting this question, I noticed that they all referred to the in-car wifi as being a "convenience to your passengers." Now I see why
that seems to be the tag line. It's not for the the driver's ACP. Anyway. Thank you for the help!

mbezzo

Definitely makes sense and you're welcome! Enjoy the car!

ctripps2k

Also to use the native apps in the Lexus head unit for Apple Music and Amazon music it requires the AT&T Wi-Fi connection. I don’t think it’s really worth paying for the AT&T Wi-Fi connection because the native apps aren’t all that robust or great.

darkknightntpa

You may be running into the same problem I had trying to use Android Auto and still use the car's WIFI connection. Wireless Android Auto connects vis WIFI, so you kinda have to pick one or the other... You might want to think about using the wired ACP connection... Much higher bandwidth connection...