[PhantomTaco]

Hey folks, before I start this post I want to give a MASSIVE thank you to @Cnsheets for having been kind enough to lend me his UX999 Pro to test, many thanks bud!

The Overview

Like many of you, while I do like my EV6 a lot, there are definitely things I am not a fan of with it. One of the biggest pairs of offenders, however would easily be:

1. A lack of wireless Android Auto/Apple Carplay and
2. Android Auto only working in splitscreen mode

To give some history for those not familiar, this one is a doozy of a story. Kia's newest generation of infotainment systems (12.3 inch screens such as those found on the EV6) are a much wider format than the traditional infotainment displays used in vehicles prior (not to say they're the only ones, but rather that this format is relatively new in the auto industry). As a result, it took some time for Google in particular to implement support for this within Android Auto. What this translates into on the EV6 is what many of you have probably already seen: When you plug in your Android phone, Android Auto only takes up 2/3rds of the screen while the rest is left blank (or can be used for the "widgets" provided by Kia themselves such as range, the native maps app, a clock, etc). Kinda sucky because when you use Apple Carplay, it takes up the full screen (and looks much better to boot due to higher DPI scaling with Apple, my guess is because Apple has put more work into the backend with DPI recognition vs Android, but I'm not positive).

For some odd reason, KIA has elected to not support wireless Android Auto/Carplay in the EV6. From information gleaned around the web and on these forums, it seems as though the infotainment systems do support Wireless modes, but for some reason KIA has chosen to not implement them. This might be due to still working on configurations, being a lower priority target for their vehicles, or a myriad of other issues.

Enter the UX999 Pro: This clever little box is basically it's own headless (screenlesss) Android box complete with an 8 core Qualcomm CPU, 4GB of RAM, built in 64GB of storage, support for a SIM Card and 4G connectivity/GPS and a micro sd card slot for updates. What this clever little box does it interface with your car's infotainment system and handshakes (authenticates with your system) as an Apple Carplay Device but then runs Android. You can basically use it in two primary modes:

1. Run the native Android System as your new infotainment system, which gives you the full screen support along with a FULL ANDROID OS (vs just Carplay). The benefits here are you get access to apps like Netflix, Waze, and literally every other Android App you could download on your phone and use normally, not only those with Android Auto support. The downside to this, however, is that you need to run your Phone as a hotspot for the box (so it has access to the internet and GPS), OR buy a simcard for it so it has it's own internet connection/GPS.
2. The second mode is the one I was more interested in. The UX999 Pro (henceforth I'm just going to call it the Box) comes with an interesting app called ZLINKS. What ZLINKS does is set your Box as essentially a passthrough device for your phone. What this translates into: it can act as a wireless receiver to allow you to use Android Auto or Apple Carplay. To do this, you need to connect your phone to the system on BOTH Bluetooth and WiFi. Essentially the system uses Bluetooth to initiate the handshake to start up AA/Carplay and then uses WiFi to stream the data at a high enough bandwidth for it to work properly. Once you've connected your phone to the box, once you open ZLINKS it will spend about 3-8 seconds connecting to your phone and voila: Wireless Android Auto/Carplay

The nice thing about connecting your Android phone to the box is not only do you get wireless Android Auto, but you also get fullscreen Android Auto support! How does this look? I have videos further down, but essentially you get the same sized map as wired AA, but the widget to the side is now one being displayed from Android Auto, so in my case for instance I would have my google maps open, and beside it was Spotify.

The Hardships, the fantastic Customer Support

Now when I get the Box from @Cnsheets I was extremely excited. I quickly plugged it in, set it up, and tried connecting my phone to it. It took me a solid hour to connect because I didn't understand how to properly connect my phone to the system (partly my fault, partly because the documentation isn't great, suffice it to say you need to make sure to connect to both bluetooth and wifi). Once I did manage to finally connect it, this is what I was greeted with (This video starts with running in the base Android OS on the box itself):

Spoiler: Video

For those that can't watch videos right now a quick TLDR is: The base Android OS works absolutely fine, once I connected my phone and ZLINKS loaded up, about an inch or two of bezel appeared on either side of AA, and the screen itself was also cropped on top and bottom. Issue with this is that I could not access the "home" button to go back to all apps on Android Auto, could not reach the search box on google maps, nothing. Perhaps more annoying, though, is that there was a LUDICROUS amount of lag for finger inputs. It took 3-5 seconds at least for it to register a finger press, and often times it registered it wrong. I tried searching around for how to fix this but couldn't find much of anything outside of potentially updating the software/firmware for the box.

After getting @Cnsheets permission, I went ahead and gave that a go. This got me a little further. Here's a video of the result after having updated the firmware to the most recent revision available at the time (02/09 or 02/16 I believe was the date for the update):

Spoiler: Video

Again quick summary for those that can't watch: The issue with the bezel/cropping was fixed! I was able to get to AA's main menu, set it up my screens, and open up different apps! The issue of the lag for registering keypresses, however, still persisted. The other interested issue I found was that when you use the voice command button on the steering wheel, it opened up the Google Assistant for the Box, not for Android Auto. I did not find a solution to this in the end, however "Hey Google" or "Ok Google" would be recognized and the command would go through Android Auto instead of the Box itself. Not a huge deal, and I'm pretty sure there's probably a way to set it to work with Android Auto instead of the Box. You could also hear in the video that there was significant audio chopping with Google Maps and using music streaming. This made it clear to me that there was some sort of an issue between the phone and the box in terms of the amount of bandwidth available, but also made me wonder if it was just because there was so many layers between the phone and your infotainment system at this point.

At this point @Cnsheets suggested I reach out to the manufacturer's support line, which was a WhatsApp contact. I'd exhausted everything I could (XDA, the internet, my sanity) so I went ahead and reached out. I sent them debug files, they sent me brand new firmware updates and nothing worked. While going through the settings, though, something stuck out to the developer: For some reason, the WiFi hotspot from the Box that my phone was connecting to was only broadcasting at 2.4ghz. For those not as familiar, 2.4ghz band is an older WiFi standard frequency. It has the benefit of having much larger penetration/range due to the lower frequency, but also carries less data when compared to the 5ghz band. Normally the Box would transmit the hotspot at 5ghz I was told, but on mine for some reason I could not set it to 5ghz. We tried a bunch of new firmware updates, and none of them seemed to work. In fact, the problem was so bizarre it elicited this response from the Developer:

Spoiler: Spoiler

At this point I started researching online about Android not seeing 5GHZ frequencies and came across a curious set of posts from XDA and elsewhere talking about international standards for wifi frequencies. It turns out that in different countries, different "channels" (subsets of the frequencies) are allowed to be used for 5ghz access. This had resulted in people that travel not seeing 5ghz signals in some countries where everyone else did see them. They had developed an app that allowed you to change your firmware's country code, this let them see the 5ghz bands that they couldn't see before. I sent this info to the developer and they basically said "damn...we didn't know this was a thing, let us see if we can change the band frequencies".

The Resolution:
About a week later, I heard back from the developer with a new firmware update. Installed it, and VOILA: All of a sudden I was able to select 5ghz for the wifi hotspot from the Box! I was cautiously optimistic at this point: Hopefully this was our issue and now wireless AA would work properly. I fired up ZLINKS and...IT WORKED. The system was running flawlessly. The input/audio delay was more or less on par with using wired AA, but now wireless and with fullscreen Android Auto! I spent a solid 2 or so hours driving the car and putting the system through it's paces. I tried voice commands for changing the music, sending text messages, changing the navigation, and calling people. Everything worked flawlessly. For those of you in the US, here is a link to this most recent firmware update they provided me with:

APM888.zip

If you are not having any issues, I wouldn't bother downloading this. Also, if you're using the native Android OS on the box, I wouldn't bother with it either. For those of you that are international DO NOT USE THIS. If you are encountering similar issues to what I described, you can try it, but I would suggest reaching out to the customer support about it first.

Why I Won't Use it: The Cons
After finally having got it all running, you'd think I'm planning to buy my own (or steal @Cnsheets ), unfortunately I think that this device is not for me in the end and here's why:

1. There is no way to set bluetooth connection priority. I asked them about this because both me and my wife use the car, doesn't seem like it's possible.
2. As of yet I've found no way to make sure that the hotspot turns on automatically when the box turns on, instead I have to turn it on from settings/pulldown menu
3. As of yet I've found no way to set the screen to be properly fullscreen. What I mean by this is to have the Maps cover the full span of the screen as opposed to just having the side app split show (in my case normally Spotify)

Overall 1 and 2 are the real dealbreakers for me. If I compare the difficulty of using wired android auto vs wireless with this setup, it takes me significantly more steps to get it up and running with AA wireless using the UX999 Pro:

1. Start up the car and wait for the box to load up and make sure the other person's bluetooth isn't on so it doesn't get priority to connect
2. Turn on the hotspot from the box
3. Connect to the hotspot from the phone (With Android you cannot get it to automatically connect to a wireless network that does not have internet access)
4. Open up ZLINKS

By comparison with the wired mode it's just

1. Turn on the car
2. Plug in my phone

That being said, if you're the only person that drives your vehicle, I highly suggest picking up one of these.

I'm sorry for another one of my ludicrously long-winded posts, but hopefully people will find useful bits within.

 

[obasonip]

Now this is detailed AF! Thank you sir for the awesome breakdown

 

[Cnsheets]

@PhantomTaco Great write up and thank you very much for going through all this for the better of the community and those looking at something similar to this. Its unfortunate it doesn't tick all the boxes for your purpose but I certainly see how this will meet a lot of folks needs absent of Kia having their own wireless ACP/AA option.

Thanks again! (no video of the final firmware where everything is working?)

 

[JK-KIAEV6]

Great right up and I am sure a benefit to people looking at this device.

 

[apollo]

Solid write up. I don't think Android Auto currently supports taking up the full screen on aspect ratios like this. I was looking at screenshots of AA in BMWs similarly wide screen and it's all split screen there too.

Was the DPI/scaling of AA better through this box? I noticed that the native (wired) implementation of AA on the EV6 looks... not great as you had mentioned.

 

[YellowFE]

Not "long-winded" - you are thorough! A geek after my own heart (though as a procrastinator I probably would have taken a lot longer to get around to what you did).

Very useful info.

 

[PhantomTaco]

@PhantomTaco Great write up and thank you very much for going through all this for the better of the community and those looking at something similar to this. Its unfortunate it doesn't tick all the boxes for your purpose but I certainly see how this will meet a lot of folks needs absent of Kia having their own wireless ACP/AA option.

Thanks again! (no video of the final firmware where everything is working?)

Unfortunately no, sorry. I didn't think there was much to show and at this point I've already put it in the mailbox back to you. Suffice it to say: whatever you've seen for widescreen android auto online, the UX999 Pro will do no problem.

 

[PhantomTaco]

Solid write up. I don't think Android Auto currently supports taking up the full screen on aspect ratios like this. I was looking at screenshots of AA in BMWs similarly wide screen and it's all split screen there too.

Was the DPI/scaling of AA better through this box? I noticed that the native (wired) implementation of AA on the EV6 looks... not great as you had mentioned.

Yeah I think you are right RE: Android Auto full screen support. As for the DPI scaling, unfortunately it is the same. This is a sign of it not being an issue with the Box or car, but more likely an issue with Android Auto itself. The reason I'm positive of this is when my Uncle came over to try the car out with his iPhone (in wired mode, at the time I had not managed to get the box working yet), the DPI scaling on Carplay was perfectly crisp.

EDIT:
I'm fairly certain this is something that will be fixed by Google in the future. Now whether this fix needs to be applied client side (IE your phone) or host side (your infotainment system) I'm not certain.

One thing worth mentioning on this subject I've learned over my last several weeks is that it appears that Apple has done a lot more backend work to get Carplay to work extremely well across all vehicles when compared to Google with AA. I'm not sure why that is but my best guesses are:

1. Technically has been around longer (one year, but highly doubt this is really a contributing factor)
2. Android Auto needs to be supported across a much larger array of hardware configurations (different phones) compared to AA, and this might mean they need to focus more on the baseline support vs more robust support
3. They may have more resources dedicated to rolling out Android Automotive instead of Android Auto. For those unfamiliar, Android Automotive is a fully featured native OS for the car as seen in offerings by Polestar, Volvo, and allegedly the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq

Whatever the cause, it is very unfortunate.

 

[MrFester]

Thanks for the break down Phantom.

 

[apollo]

Yeah I think you are right RE: Android Auto full screen support. As for the DPI scaling, unfortunately it is the same. This is a sign of it not being an issue with the Box or car, but more likely an issue with Android Auto itself. The reason I'm positive of this is when my Uncle came over to try the car out with his iPhone (in wired mode, at the time I had not managed to get the box working yet), the DPI scaling on Carplay was perfectly crisp.

EDIT:
I'm fairly certain this is something that will be fixed by Google in the future. Now whether this fix needs to be applied client side (IE your phone) or host side (your infotainment system) I'm not certain.

One thing worth mentioning on this subject I've learned over my last several weeks is that it appears that Apple has done a lot more backend work to get Carplay to work extremely well across all vehicles when compared to Google with AA. I'm not sure why that is but my best guesses are:

1. Technically has been around longer (one year, but highly doubt this is really a contributing factor)
2. Android Auto needs to be supported across a much larger array of hardware configurations (different phones) compared to AA, and this might mean they need to focus more on the baseline support vs more robust support
3. They may have more resources dedicated to rolling out Android Automotive instead of Android Auto. For those unfamiliar, Android Automotive is a fully featured native OS for the car as seen in offerings by Polestar, Volvo, and allegedly the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq

Whatever the cause, it is very unfortunate.

We used to have a Mazda3 that didn't originally have support for AA but there was a community led effort to get it working by copying some files over to the CMU. It worked great, touchscreen support and everything, but it suffered from the same DPI/scaling issue, but wasn't as bad as the Kia's because the screen was much smaller.

Later, Mazda released official AA support via an update and some replacement parts that allowed for a higher amperage USB port vs the 0.5A stock one. On the "official" AA, the DPI/scaling was much better and looked flawless. Sadly the touchscreen functionality wasn't available on the official release though and you could only control it via the media control knob on the center console, but it wasn't the worst.

All that to say, the only thing that changed in the Mazda was the AA server on the car... from a community compiled version to an official release and that change alone improved the appearance. So it's likely we won't see an improvement unless Kia provides an update (that itself may or may not be dependent on Google). Kia/Hyundai and Google were pretty close in the early days of AA since Hyundai was one of the first (if not the first) to implement it, hopefully that past relationship helps expedite bug fixes and improvements these days.

 

[Cnsheets]

All the more reason to use an iphone

 

[PhantomTaco]

All the more reason to use an iphone

Up until a month or two ago I had an iPhone 13 pro max. In the end though between that and the Android ecosystem I think I like Android more.

 

[Cnsheets]

Up until a month or two ago I had an iPhone 13 pro max. In the end though between that and the Android ecosystem I think I like Android more.

My personal phone is a 13 pro max. But my work phone is a Samsung S10. I get all mixed up and confused between the two.

 

[Kent EV6]

Thank you for doing all that work so we don’t have to .

 

[Logicpro8]

Great write up man! bravo! Was looking into buying one, but I would have to use CarPlay so looking into something Apple compatible, the UX999 looks great for Apple, uses SpeedPlay app to do it, looks fast enough and you have full android as well to play with . I wonder if an android box would do the same as this, I have many of those TV boxes, some very small, like tiny.

See 6:20mins in for CarPlay demo as well

 

[Cnsheets]

Great write up man! bravo! Was looking into buying one, but I would have to use CarPlay so looking into something Apple compatible, the UX999 looks great for Apple, uses SpeedPlay app to do it, looks fast enough and you have full android as well to play with . I wonder if an android box would do the same as this, I have many of those TV boxes, some very small, like tiny.

See 6:20mins in for CarPlay demo as well

The UX-999 pro that @PhantomTaco tested is essentially identical to what’s shown in that video except its claimed that it’s slightly faster and uses a different firmware. I can confirm it works great with CarPlay, but it uses zlink5 instead of speed play.

 

[Manticore]

Hey folks, before I start this post I want to give a MASSIVE thank you to @Cnsheets for having been kind enough to lend me his UX999 Pro to test, many thanks bud!

The Overview

Like many of you, while I do like my EV6 a lot, there are definitely things I am not a fan of with it. One of the biggest pairs of offenders, however would easily be:

1. A lack of wireless Android Auto/Apple Carplay and
2. Android Auto only working in splitscreen mode

To give some history for those not familiar, this one is a doozy of a story. Kia's newest generation of infotainment systems (12.3 inch screens such as those found on the EV6) are a much wider format than the traditional infotainment displays used in vehicles prior (not to say they're the only ones, but rather that this format is relatively new in the auto industry). As a result, it took some time for Google in particular to implement support for this within Android Auto. What this translates into on the EV6 is what many of you have probably already seen: When you plug in your Android phone, Android Auto only takes up 2/3rds of the screen while the rest is left blank (or can be used for the "widgets" provided by Kia themselves such as range, the native maps app, a clock, etc). Kinda sucky because when you use Apple Carplay, it takes up the full screen (and looks much better to boot due to higher DPI scaling with Apple, my guess is because Apple has put more work into the backend with DPI recognition vs Android, but I'm not positive).

For some odd reason, KIA has elected to not support wireless Android Auto/Carplay in the EV6. From information gleaned around the web and on these forums, it seems as though the infotainment systems do support Wireless modes, but for some reason KIA has chosen to not implement them. This might be due to still working on configurations, being a lower priority target for their vehicles, or a myriad of other issues.

Enter the UX999 Pro: This clever little box is basically it's own headless (screenlesss) Android box complete with an 8 core Qualcomm CPU, 4GB of RAM, built in 64GB of storage, support for a SIM Card and 4G connectivity/GPS and a micro sd card slot for updates. What this clever little box does it interface with your car's infotainment system and handshakes (authenticates with your system) as an Apple Carplay Device but then runs Android. You can basically use it in two primary modes:

1. Run the native Android System as your new infotainment system, which gives you the full screen support along with a FULL ANDROID OS (vs just Carplay). The benefits here are you get access to apps like Netflix, Waze, and literally every other Android App you could download on your phone and use normally, not only those with Android Auto support. The downside to this, however, is that you need to run your Phone as a hotspot for the box (so it has access to the internet and GPS), OR buy a simcard for it so it has it's own internet connection/GPS.
2. The second mode is the one I was more interested in. The UX999 Pro (henceforth I'm just going to call it the Box) comes with an interesting app called ZLINKS. What ZLINKS does is set your Box as essentially a passthrough device for your phone. What this translates into: it can act as a wireless receiver to allow you to use Android Auto or Apple Carplay. To do this, you need to connect your phone to the system on BOTH Bluetooth and WiFi. Essentially the system uses Bluetooth to initiate the handshake to start up AA/Carplay and then uses WiFi to stream the data at a high enough bandwidth for it to work properly. Once you've connected your phone to the box, once you open ZLINKS it will spend about 3-8 seconds connecting to your phone and voila: Wireless Android Auto/Carplay

The nice thing about connecting your Android phone to the box is not only do you get wireless Android Auto, but you also get fullscreen Android Auto support! How does this look? I have videos further down, but essentially you get the same sized map as wired AA, but the widget to the side is now one being displayed from Android Auto, so in my case for instance I would have my google maps open, and beside it was Spotify.

The Hardships, the fantastic Customer Support

Now when I get the Box from @Cnsheets I was extremely excited. I quickly plugged it in, set it up, and tried connecting my phone to it. It took me a solid hour to connect because I didn't understand how to properly connect my phone to the system (partly my fault, partly because the documentation isn't great, suffice it to say you need to make sure to connect to both bluetooth and wifi). Once I did manage to finally connect it, this is what I was greeted with (This video starts with running in the base Android OS on the box itself):

Spoiler: Video

For those that can't watch videos right now a quick TLDR is: The base Android OS works absolutely fine, once I connected my phone and ZLINKS loaded up, about an inch or two of bezel appeared on either side of AA, and the screen itself was also cropped on top and bottom. Issue with this is that I could not access the "home" button to go back to all apps on Android Auto, could not reach the search box on google maps, nothing. Perhaps more annoying, though, is that there was a LUDICROUS amount of lag for finger inputs. It took 3-5 seconds at least for it to register a finger press, and often times it registered it wrong. I tried searching around for how to fix this but couldn't find much of anything outside of potentially updating the software/firmware for the box.

After getting @Cnsheets permission, I went ahead and gave that a go. This got me a little further. Here's a video of the result after having updated the firmware to the most recent revision available at the time (02/09 or 02/16 I believe was the date for the update):

Spoiler: Video

Again quick summary for those that can't watch: The issue with the bezel/cropping was fixed! I was able to get to AA's main menu, set it up my screens, and open up different apps! The issue of the lag for registering keypresses, however, still persisted. The other interested issue I found was that when you use the voice command button on the steering wheel, it opened up the Google Assistant for the Box, not for Android Auto. I did not find a solution to this in the end, however "Hey Google" or "Ok Google" would be recognized and the command would go through Android Auto instead of the Box itself. Not a huge deal, and I'm pretty sure there's probably a way to set it to work with Android Auto instead of the Box. You could also hear in the video that there was significant audio chopping with Google Maps and using music streaming. This made it clear to me that there was some sort of an issue between the phone and the box in terms of the amount of bandwidth available, but also made me wonder if it was just because there was so many layers between the phone and your infotainment system at this point.

At this point @Cnsheets suggested I reach out to the manufacturer's support line, which was a WhatsApp contact. I'd exhausted everything I could (XDA, the internet, my sanity) so I went ahead and reached out. I sent them debug files, they sent me brand new firmware updates and nothing worked. While going through the settings, though, something stuck out to the developer: For some reason, the WiFi hotspot from the Box that my phone was connecting to was only broadcasting at 2.4ghz. For those not as familiar, 2.4ghz band is an older WiFi standard frequency. It has the benefit of having much larger penetration/range due to the lower frequency, but also carries less data when compared to the 5ghz band. Normally the Box would transmit the hotspot at 5ghz I was told, but on mine for some reason I could not set it to 5ghz. We tried a bunch of new firmware updates, and none of them seemed to work. In fact, the problem was so bizarre it elicited this response from the Developer:

Spoiler: Spoiler

At this point I started researching online about Android not seeing 5GHZ frequencies and came across a curious set of posts from XDA and elsewhere talking about international standards for wifi frequencies. It turns out that in different countries, different "channels" (subsets of the frequencies) are allowed to be used for 5ghz access. This had resulted in people that travel not seeing 5ghz signals in some countries where everyone else did see them. They had developed an app that allowed you to change your firmware's country code, this let them see the 5ghz bands that they couldn't see before. I sent this info to the developer and they basically said "damn...we didn't know this was a thing, let us see if we can change the band frequencies".

The Resolution:
About a week later, I heard back from the developer with a new firmware update. Installed it, and VOILA: All of a sudden I was able to select 5ghz for the wifi hotspot from the Box! I was cautiously optimistic at this point: Hopefully this was our issue and now wireless AA would work properly. I fired up ZLINKS and...IT WORKED. The system was running flawlessly. The input/audio delay was more or less on par with using wired AA, but now wireless and with fullscreen Android Auto! I spent a solid 2 or so hours driving the car and putting the system through it's paces. I tried voice commands for changing the music, sending text messages, changing the navigation, and calling people. Everything worked flawlessly. For those of you in the US, here is a link to this most recent firmware update they provided me with:

APM888.zip

If you are not having any issues, I wouldn't bother downloading this. Also, if you're using the native Android OS on the box, I wouldn't bother with it either. For those of you that are international DO NOT USE THIS. If you are encountering similar issues to what I described, you can try it, but I would suggest reaching out to the customer support about it first.

Why I Won't Use it: The Cons
After finally having got it all running, you'd think I'm planning to buy my own (or steal @Cnsheets ), unfortunately I think that this device is not for me in the end and here's why:

1. There is no way to set bluetooth connection priority. I asked them about this because both me and my wife use the car, doesn't seem like it's possible.
2. As of yet I've found no way to make sure that the hotspot turns on automatically when the box turns on, instead I have to turn it on from settings/pulldown menu
3. As of yet I've found no way to set the screen to be properly fullscreen. What I mean by this is to have the Maps cover the full span of the screen as opposed to just having the side app split show (in my case normally Spotify)

Overall 1 and 2 are the real dealbreakers for me. If I compare the difficulty of using wired android auto vs wireless with this setup, it takes me significantly more steps to get it up and running with AA wireless using the UX999 Pro:

1. Start up the car and wait for the box to load up and make sure the other person's bluetooth isn't on so it doesn't get priority to connect
2. Turn on the hotspot from the box
3. Connect to the hotspot from the phone (With Android you cannot get it to automatically connect to a wireless network that does not have internet access)
4. Open up ZLINKS

By comparison with the wired mode it's just

1. Turn on the car
2. Plug in my phone

That being said, if you're the only person that drives your vehicle, I highly suggest picking up one of these.

I'm sorry for another one of my ludicrously long-winded posts, but hopefully people will find useful bits within.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Excellent post, had to be long, and well worth the read. I'm in exactly the same boat, and you have saved the entire community a lot of pain and suffering experimenting with the options.

 

[dc30307]

That being said, if you're the only person that drives your vehicle, I highly suggest picking up one of these.

Thanks so much for this write-up! I am the only person who will be driving my car, so the lack of being able to set a priority isn't a concern for me. But if I I understand correctly, wouldn't #2 (Hotspot not turning on automatically) still be an issue for a single user? You have to manually turn it on every time you start the car? That's not required for the straight AA wireless solutions, like AAwireless, is it? If someone doesn't care so much about the ability to run NON-AA apps, and just wants to run AA wirelessly, the advantage of the UX999 box is the ability to to use the full width of the screen, and the advantage of AAwireless is it starts up and connects automatically? Do I have that right?

 

[Cnsheets]

Thanks so much for this write-up! I am the only person who will be driving my car, so the lack of being able to set a priority isn't a concern for me. But if I I understand correctly, wouldn't #2 (Hotspot not turning on automatically) still be an issue for a single user? You have to manually turn it on every time you start the car? That's not required for the straight AA wireless solutions, like AAwireless, is it? If someone doesn't care so much about the ability to run NON-AA apps, and just wants to run AA wirelessly, the advantage of the UX999 box is the ability to to use the full width of the screen, and the advantage of AAwireless is it starts up and connects automatically? Do I have that right?

Yes. If you have no desire to run non-AA apps from the boxes built in Android, then there is no need to hotspot. You only need to hotspot to give the box a source of data. The alternative to hotspot is adding a sim to the box. Otherwise AA through your phone works perfectly fine with no need to hotspot or sim.

 

[dc30307]

If you have no desire to run non-AA apps from the boxes built in Android, then there is no need to hotspot. You only need to hotspot to give the box a source of data. The alternative to hotspot is adding a sim to the box. Otherwise AA through your phone works perfectly fine with no need to hotspot or sim.

Oh, ok, then I think I misunderstood. I'm weighing a UX999 device vs. a regular wireless AA dongle (like AAwireless). So you're saying that IF you're using a UX999 as just a conduit to get wireless AA (2nd "mode" in the 1st post), it will start up automatically just like an AAwireless dongle. The intervention at start-up is only needed if you want to use the added functionality of using apps directly on the box? When @PhantomTaco said he found no way to automaticlaly turn on the hotspot, I thought he was talking about turning it on on the box. But it sounds like you're talking about turning on hotspot on the phone, to give the box a source of data. If THAT'S the case, I think turning on hotspot automatically should be pretty easy, depending on the phone.