ERD0C

I am looking to pull the trigger on an aftermarket Apple CarPlay setup. The top 2 that have caught my eye are Grom VLine 2 and Beatsonic.

the ultimate goal: seamless wireless CarPlay

GROM has native wireless CarPlay, but has a lot of features I don’t need (android OS) that makes it clunky. I have read for some people it boots to the android OS and you need to manually load CarPlay 👎. I like that you can perform firmware updates to the device, which can’t be done to the Beatsonic. I don’t like that their customer service is reportedly terrible. Very difficult to return item if needed. Supposedly buggy.

Beatsonic just updated their device to work with the 2013 RX 350, but it is only wired. Supposedly you can plug in Cplay2air / carlink to make the device wireless (which is a must if I were to purchase Beatsonic — but I can’t confirm if the wireless dongles are compatible). Excellent customer service. Have had difficulty identifying how buggy the device is.

Anybody have any experience with either of these devices? Any recommendations? Appreciate your help

djovaniii

I have a grom unit and I am happy with it.
I have tried my GF Iphone it worked fine. As for not always starting Apple Carplay ,Grom also has the USB, so this way I am sure it will always load.
I just don't understand why people use Apple Carplay or AA on grom....
You can have waze and spotify on it running totally fine w/o killing your phone battery, or loose connection if you leave someone in the car at the petrol station.
Plus a custom launcher it looks so much better than both AC or AA.
Anyway a lot of people have Beatsonic, and it seems like a decent device.
So if you are going to use just Apple Carplay it might be a better option.

Alexbenz

Why do you say this? The whole wyze and spotify part.

ERD0C

Thank you for the reply. It sounds you are quite happy with the GROM. My wife and I have Apple CarPlay in our other car so it would be nice to have consistency across both vehicles. Have you noticed any bugs in your system? Or anything you wish you knew before installing it?

I’m a little annoyed that the beat sonic is actually more expensive even though the GROM has more features, including wireless CarPlay

djovaniii

Yeap, there are bugs.
I haven't used other units, so don't know how is it in comparison.
The most annoying is that not always show the grom interface when the car start. I can hear the music, but need to reverse, or switch to radio and back to grom to see the interface.
The Audio is not so loud, as from the stock headunit, but I have no complaints about the quality.
You cannot see the climate control when changing the temperature on the RX, so need to switch to the factory interface to see it.
Same for the volume, but that is not a problem for me, as I can see it on the HUD.
I haven't noticed anything else, that irritates me.