2021 getting Wireless CarPlay...

cdh7917 · February 23, 2021

There is a very similar discussion about this same issue on another forum. Members reporting the same issue, but those that are not having the issue have noted that their iPhones are connected to the truck via WiFi. Bluetooth may be the limitation here.

tortiseshell · February 23, 2021

OK... So today... I jumped in my truck and viola! Carplay instantly was established with no effort. WEIRD! Because this is not what I usually experience. Running ios 14.4 on iphone 12. 2021 Silverado 2500HD, CC, Duramax.

But here's my new routine that seemed to work this time...

Turn on bluetooth on phone before I walk out of the house

Enter truck

Start truck

See what happens... today it worked. I exercised patience, let the truck warm up and the connection pretty quickly established itself.

Once thing I am noticing if I remote start the truck or activate bluetooth on the phone after I've been in the truck... no connection. So my current thinking is to have bluetooth on the phone activated prior, then enter the rig, then start it up and be patient.

Wifi was turned off. OnStar was very clear that wifi has nothing to do with a carplay connection. My data plan has expired that came with the truck. So I'm not getting that benefit.

BUT... I was surprised today by the reveal... not complaining, but celebrating. Will see what happens next time.

One thing I have noticed about headunits is they can be affected by temp. I have a suby outback 2015. I use it in the mtns all the time for skiing. It is always fussy about connections and controls on the touch surface until the car has adequately warmed the interior up.

Hoping my little trials are helpful to someone else... still experimenting. Side note... the steering wheel controls are exactly opposite of my suby... still sorting that one out as I drive... But i love the truck!

Njmurvin · February 24, 2021

I don't know how the factory wireless carplay units work. But the carplay2air units use BOTH bluetooth and wireless. They use bluetooth at startup to send the credentials to the app on your phone to connect to the wifi running on carplay2air dongle. Once the wifi connection is made, carplay starts.

tortiseshell · February 28, 2021

So... now my system is working better at recognizing my phone, even if I activate BT after starting the truck and being inside... it feels like it's learning to make the proper handshake protocol to establish wireless connection and projection. So far it keeps improving and seamlessly connecting so that's good. Not sure if there is a learning curve with the electronics, but what I tried in the past that failed is now appearing to work on it's own. So maybe just time and frequency is needed, kinda like a transmission learning shift patterns... hopefully this helpful for others and no wifi going to make this happen.

RCBob · March 1, 2021

On my iPhone 12 Pro Max, running 14.4, I leave Bluetooth and Wireless Ethernet on all the time. Wireless Car Play works flawlessly every time.

Bourbonman · March 7, 2021

On 12/23/2020 at 1:03 PM, bharris515 said:

Module swap in my 2020 today! Super easy. Love wireless CarPlay. Look up white automotive & media services to order!

Installed the 2021 unit through WAMS on my 2020 as well and everything works great.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Bourbonman

nards444 · March 8, 2021

Turning blue tooth on and off really isnt a great idea. leave it on all the time and usually stuff works just fine.

Brougham96 · April 27, 2021

Hi all,

Sorry to drag up an old(ish) thread, but I have the CPlay2Air adapter previously mentioned by some in this thread. My truck is a '20 Denali 1/2 ton.

The adapter had nothing but issues when I got it, as others have described, but I think I might have finally got it to work, so I thought I would share my findings.

I noticed that it would connect about 10% of the time when I started the truck. Other times the stereo would display "Please connect a CarPlay capable device" or something like that. I noticed after hooking up the wireless adapter, the truck would not recognize the iPhone plugged directly in to USB either, which I thought was odd.

I tried all sorts of stuff like adjusting the settings on the adapter and deleting the head unit's bluetooth profile from my phone so it wouldn't try to connect direct. Nothing worked. I thought it was odd that some people had the same issues as me while other said it worked fine for them.

I was thinking that possibly some sort of profile is saved on the head unit for the phone wired in directly via USB that may be conflicting with the adapter.

This morning, I did a factory reset of the radio, made sure not to plug the phone in directly with USB, and plugged the adapter in. It worked immediately, and now connects without issue every time. That seemed to be the fix.

So thought I would throws this out there in case anyone else bought this adapter and wasn't able to get it to work.