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Old April 21st, 2023, 08:02 PM   #1
InvisiBill
EX500 full of EX250 parts
 
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Name: Bill
Location: Grand Rapids-ish, MI
Join Date: Jul 2012

Motorcycle(s): '18 Ninja 400 • '09 Ninja 500R (selling) • '98 VFR800 (project) • '85 Vulcan VN700 (sold)

Posts: A lot.
Blog Entries: 1
MOTM - Aug '15
Motorcycle CarPlay/Android Auto screen

A year or so ago, I bought a 7" Coral Vision CarPlay screen meant for use with older cars, specifically trying to make it work on the bike. However, it wasn't waterproof, and didn't have a second BT radio for connecting to your helmet (only Aux and FM modulator output). And the 7" screen didn't really fit well anywhere without covering the gauges. Plus it's heavy - it has a suction cup mounting arm, but it also includes a dash pad because it's meant to sit on something and just use the arm to keep it from moving around. Coral Vision's site mentioned that they were working on an "M1" motorcycle version, but I never actually saw the product become available.

I recently stumbled upon a product that matches what the M1 was described as. It seems to be one of those Chinese products that's sold under a million different brands on AliExpress and Amazon. They're about $130-$150 on AliExpress, and about $250-$300 on Amazon. I found a specific one on Amazon that was under $200, so I decided to go with that for the quick shipping and easy returns if it wasn't as good as it appeared.







So far, I love it. I haven't seen it crash (or have any other issues) in a couple 45-60 minute rides, or while playing with it at home. It works just like CarPlay is supposed to, and after you've done the initial pairing, it automatically connects to the iPhone and BT helmet when turned on. I was pretty happy with my Ram Finger-Grip setup with knockoff MagSafe for holding my phone and charging it wirelessly, but I obviously worry about it less when it's in my inside jacket pocket. Even with Waze doing GPS routing and streaming music on Spotify the whole time, it doesn't use that much of the phone's battery, so I'm less worried about the fact that it's now in my pocket instead of on the charger. **Note that wireless CarPlay does have a bit of lag compared to wired. There's just a bit of delay between pressing a button (e.g. to skip to the next song) and when it actually happens. With wired CarPlay, pressing something reacts immediately, like you're pressing a physical button on your radio.

The 5" screen is a bit small compared to my car and the Coral Vision, but it fits very well on the bike. It's waterproof, so you don't have to keep it hidden under the windscreen. It includes 1" ball mounting hardware, with one screwed to the back of the mount, a short arm, and U-bolt and bolthole balls for the bike side. I stuck the arm on my existing Ram stem mount ball. There's a thumbscrew to hold the device in the mount (with that unscrewed, it's easy to pop out). The power cable is attached to mount, which powers the actual device via spring-loaded pins. It runs on 5V, so it includes a 12V-5V regulator lead as well as a standard USB-A lead and you can choose whichever works best for you. It will also get power off the Mini USB port used for doing firmware upgrades, though you obviously can't have a power cable and USB drive plugged in simultaneously (it might be possible with some splitters, but bidirectional data + power in can get tricky). It does give you an easy way to power it when you bring it inside though.



The device's firmware does have the ability to play music from a MicroSD card or USB drive, but those ports are covered by a plate held on with two tiny screws to keep it waterproof. Maybe throw in a MicroSD with your favorite songs as backup, but you're not going to be swapping these out easily. And most people are probably going to treat this solely as a CP/AA device anyway. You can set the volume and brightness of the display, and it has day/night brightness settings, which you can set to be active at certain times. However, the device doesn't actually have a clock built-in. Every time you turn it on, it comes up as 2022/01/01 00:00. This applies whether you cut the power (i.e. wired to switched power on the bike) or use the power button. But once it connects to your iPhone via CarPlay, it actually pulls the time from there - neat!

While looking for updated firmware for it, I discovered that the Maxca brand (selling theirs as the "Xplay C5 Pro" via an AliExpress store) seems to update the firmware semi-regularly, which is much more support than I've seen from any other brand. I can't even really find a brand on mine; the box is actually marked "CarPlay Decoder" and the picture looks like something you'd install inside a car's dash to add CarPlay functionality to the factory screen (you can just barely make it out in the pic above). I've ordered a replacement C5 Pro from AliExpress to save 1/3 the cost and get better support. The UI is slightly different, but I expect it to be pretty much the same as this one in most ways. Now I'm just waiting for the boat from China to get here...
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