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Comment by s0rce | Hacker News Reader

Do people do that? I just use my phone beside the old useless infotainment. Honestly, I wouldn't buy a new car that used an in-house infotainment specifically because they go obsolete quickly (<5-10 years) and cannot be economically (or at all) to the latest tech. Carplay seems to be long lived.

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You don’t like paying $300 for a map update? On my car, Nav + traffic was $3k. CarPlay was $300 and I get multiple map choices like Waze or Google maps. Only infotainment that comes close is Tesla yet map data is always out of date with construction road closures.

My vehicle (a mid teens Volvo) doesn’t support CarPlay or AA. Its infotainment system gets its data from 3G, so it doesn’t get data anymore. Music is through Bluetooth, which works well enough. Navigating means using the clunky in-car nav with no traffic data or a phone with the volume turned way up.

It’s far from ideal but at least I have zero expectations for my next car.

I replaced the head unit on my car from the same era with an aftermarket Sony XAV-9000ES unit that has wireless carplay support. It takes about 10 seconds to connect after powering up the electronics but is otherwise seamless. Full steering wheel controls too (volume, next/prev track, pause/resume, mute). No car info, but the car is old enough to have a proper gauge cluster.

There are also dash-mounted "carplay screens" that are both much cheaper and much easier to install but lack integrations/require hacky solutions to get, say, audio out.

Why don't you use bluetooth to navigate with your phone?

No degradation at all for me over seven years. It’s a game changer. Car still feels new

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