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Retrofit CarPlay

mrmullad

Member
SUPPORTER
Joined
Dec 24, 2012
Messages
34
Location
UK
Car
2018 B Class 180 exclusive plus
Hi all
Having CarPlay fitted to my car today, 2015 C204 Coupe,the unit is manufactured in Leicester with a two year warranty, will add more with pictures when I have had a play with it.
Dell
 
Hi all
Having CarPlay fitted to my car today, 2015 C204 Coupe,the unit is manufactured in Leicester with a two year warranty, will add more with pictures when I have had a play with it.
Dell
Very interesting!

Does you car have COMAND (NTG4.7), or Audio20?

And does the Apple CarPlay unit has the touchscreen glass that fits over the original display, or is it operated by the selector wheel?
 
Hi mark jay
I have NTG4.7 and it uses all the original controls in car no touch screen everything still original ,still having a play at the moment
Dell
 
I have bitten the bullitt


After a eventful two weeks on holiday in France using or trying to use the car’s comand sat nav ,Some of the time it had me going through the middle of a field and the road did not look that new so the map must be well out of date even though I had the latest V18 update,also when trying to put in a destination half the time i could not spell all the word as the sat nav only added a few letters but not the ones I needed,and why the hell do some towns/villages have to have lue dit in front of them ,the only thing I like about it Is that it said please,so I decided to have CarPlay retrofitted,so I thought the best place to start was a google search , but all I could find was boxes from China , even the ones being offered for purchase or supply and fit by a company in the UK I am not sure that they don’t import them from China.

After about 3 weeks of searching trying doing searches using different key words I found a company by accident in Leicester they design and build and will install if you wish also with a 2 year warranty but they were out of stock,so I sent them an email and had a reply from a man called Scott who was very helpful and said they were building a fresh batch and they would be ready within two weeks and if I ordered one I would be at the top of the list ( I thought I have heard that before) so I said I did not want to pay and wait for delivery but to my shock he said I totally understand I will put your name on one and contact you when they are built.

This a copy of one of the emails he sent me.




From Integreated Automotive

Yes there is so much coming from China that are bad copies of an original design that was actually very good.


The trouble with the units on AliExpress, eBay and the like is they are not insured, 99% of them are copies and do not come with any kind of warranty, have no upgrade path and no local support.


Our product is made in the UK, we assemble, test, build wiring looms and repair our products ourselves.


Although for full transparency we do not make the main PCBs in house. We use an SBC(single board computer) from an OEM partner who we work with on the software/firmware and also work together on hardware upgrades. You cannot buy the same product anywhere else, the combination of our wireless circuit and our partners SBC is unique. We are the only company using our SBC.


We will test your unit on our NTG4.x rig before it is verified as being OK to ship. This is necessary as we add our own proprietary WiFi and Bluetooth circuitry during the build process in leicester.


We are also now designing additional products for the retrofit market in the UK.


Well he came and fitter it today see photos below 87113007-E709-4FA1-A400-5FFFEB7E6CC5.jpegEF2AD358-A057-4E06-84CC-F4679A80CFFF.jpeg

still playing with it at moment but good so far.
Dell

The company is integrated Automotive Leicester and the chaps name is Scott
 
That looks nice and original, I'd be interested in this myself. Keep us posted with any updates and if you wouldn't mind sharing the pricing as well
 
That’s looks ideal. Any idea if it’s available for NTG 4.5?
 
Had a look on their website today for anyone wondering. £445 is the price and looks like most systems are compatible
 
Hi,
I am bit confused as their web site states they can do it for NTG.5.X, but my understanding is if you have NTG.5.X you can get it activated by the dealer or third party with access to the online STAR system for half that price.
What would this system offer over the OEM upgrade?
 
Hi,
I am bit confused as their web site states they can do it for NTG.5.X, but my understanding is if you have NTG.5.X you can get it activated by the dealer or third party with access to the online STAR system for half that price.
What would this system offer over the OEM upgrade?

If you can have it activated it would mean you I imagine, have the pre-wiring installed so this would be no benefit
 
Hi,
I am bit confused as their web site states they can do it for NTG.5.X, but my understanding is if you have NTG.5.X you can get it activated by the dealer or third party with access to the online STAR system for half that price.
What would this system offer over the OEM upgrade?

It's for cars that cannot have car play or android auto by updating the software, like C Classes from around 2015-17, and they are NTG5*
 
Hi all
Having CarPlay fitted to my car today, 2015 C204 Coupe....


...my understanding is if you have NTG.5.X you can get it activated by the dealer or third party with access to the online STAR system for half that price...

The OP has NTG4.5 Gen3 (aka NTG4.7), which does not have native support for Apple CarPlay.
 
...and at rate, even if the OP had a W205 with NTG5*2 instead or a W204 with NTG4.7, on the C-Class Apple CarPlay is only available from the 2019 facelift onwards.
 
That’s looks ideal. Any idea if it’s available for NTG 4.5?
My Mercedes is NTG 4.7 so as 4.5 and 4.7 are essentially the same then yes it is available
 
Just a quick update the system seems to be very stable I haven’t found any problems yet apart from trying to get map app to play sound to my hearing aids but that won’t be any problem for most people as they don’t need hearing aids.
 
At Last a UK made offering that will be a load better than those Chinese offerings :-)

Time to have a chat with these guys ;-)
 
At Last a UK made offering that will be a load better than those Chinese offerings :)

Time to have a chat with these guys ;-)
If you think it's a good product, put me first down on the list to get it fitted to my S205.
 
[QUOTE = "Alfie, post: 2800453, member: 2456"] Finalmente un'offerta fatta nel Regno Unito che sarà un carico migliore di quelle cinesi :)

È tempo di fare due chiacchiere con questi ragazzi; -) [/ PREVENTIVO]


News ?
 
At Last a UK made offering that will be a load better than those Chinese offerings :)

Time to have a chat with these guys ;-)

If you think it's a good product, put me first down on the list to get it fitted to my S205.

And if you could also please ask them about availability of Android Auto at the same time... ;)
 
Although I know this thread is a few months old, I thought I would add to it since I got the install done yesterday.

Everything works great except for the few quirks listed below. If you can live with them, then you should get it installed.

Model: Mercedes AMG C204 (C350 AMG Sport Coupe)
COMAND NTG 4.5/4.7

Quirks

1. You will lose access to the Music Interface access point in the central glove compartment if you have it fitted.

This sucks but I guess most of the adapters are so old now it isn't really a problem for when reselling the car. I had my old iPod classic connected in there with tons of music on it but now it no longer works. SD card reader and 10 GB hard drive still work so music can be loaded onto it by those who don't wish to CarPlay or Android Auto. I have not found an adapter that allows a connection to the new lightning connection used on iPod nano or touch models so really, I can't see anyone every buying this car for that reason!

2. The buttons to skip forward and back in the centre consul don't work for CarPlay. You need to use the control knob and press left or right for previous or next track.

Guess this is a little annoying but not something that isn't over come easily with time as I get accustomed to using the control knob to change tracks instead now.

3. The steering wheel controls control the audio tracks in CarPlay mode.

This is slightly annoying as anyone who owns these Mercs knows that those buttons are used to change the display information for the Driver Display in the centre of the speedometer. Left or right changes between "trip, tel, audio" etc and up or down changes the options within each menu screen.

So if I am in trip mode and the central display is showing my speed, down shows mileage info and up shows MPG and mileage since last reset. So the screen will still change but the tracks change as well depending on which way you press. So yeah, it is annoying.

Have spoken to Scott and he is going to look into it to see if the steering controls can be configured to be ignored. This will only happen in 2020 since we are now at Christmas.

Workaround: Exit CarPlay as audio continues playing in the background. Then change screen info. The tracks do not change. Once info obtained, go back into CarPlay.


Conclusion
Worth the upgrade if you plan on keeping your Merc for a few years. If not, I wouldn't bother as most cars nowadays come with CarPlay installed so your next car likely has it already!
 

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