Testing out the AutoABC Carplay Motorcycle Display

[Ridefreak]

Anybody running a Carplay display on their bike?

A Chinese company recently contacted me and asked if I wanted me to try one of these out. I've been asked before to do that stuff and I normally don't but this is something that's been discussed on here and I want to see if it can replace my GPS on the bars. So I'm going to test it out and do a video of what I think. I wanted to mention it here to see if any of you have experience with one of these and what did you think of it? My idea is to leave my pricey cell phone in my pocket or tankbag where it's safe from damage but be able to take advantage of the smartphone based Nav software. Most of these units rely on the processing power in the phone including it's GPS receiver to provide data to it's 5" touch screen.

Link

I did some research and these are basically android phones in a ruggedized water resistant case (according to the manufacturer). This one uses a stripped down version of android 6.0 that links to a phone wirelessly and starts up Android Auto or Apple Carplay automatically. Any of the carplay aware apps should run through one of these. That being said the number of carplay apps is limited, for navigation I've been using Gaia, there's the typical other options like google maps, apple maps and waze. I also downloaded a music app that's carplay aware so I can listen to offline MP3s stored on the phone for when there's no cell signal. I can still control the music and phone with the sena that's redundant. I mainly wanted the display for navigation but it can be handy if you're stopped and want to scroll through the map, browse a music library or call someone from your contact list. Ideally my phone will come out when I need to take a pic, otherwise it'll be put away.

This is one of the more basic versions of wireless carplay out there, there's others that can hotspot into the phone or a access point and download apps and data directly to the device.

I don't like the mounting system, it's stout enough for a street bike but it's not what I'd use on a dual sport, sits up too high IMO. The sun visor is a nice touch, I use one on my montana and it helps.

The manufacturer should have gone with a typical ball mount, much simpler IMO. The mount that came with the unit wasn't going to cut it for offroad. I had some stuff laying around and it wasn't hard to come up with something more appropriate.

It's made of durable plastic and feels solid but anything goes in a serious crash and I don't plan to test that.

So far all I've done is some couch testing. Boot up is slow, 40sec from the time the key is turned on to when everything is connected and running. I can live with that if everything is automatic and it has been so far. I've seen where connecting two bluetooth devices to a phone at the same time can be problematic, with this I was able to connect the Sena and this carplay box to a google 8 phone with no issues, once it's set it's automatic from then on. The carplay function opens up whatever apps were open when it was powered down so everything resumes including music with no user intervention.

They claim 1000 nits brightness, I haven't been able to test it in the sun yet so I can't comment on that.

The power cord is decent quality with a power connector that's attached with 2 screws and the cord has a built in 12V to 5V DC regulator and fuse. They claim IP67 water resistance.

There's enough power wire to run back to the the bike's battery if needed. If the power source is nearby the screen like mine is you'll have to bundle some cord.

I measured the power draw and it's pretty low, 211ma.

There's 4 buttons, only 2 are used in this version, one is the unit's power switch, the second is the home key, that kicks you out of carplay to the underlying OS for setup and connections, once it's setup you'll rarely need to go there. This unit communicates via Bluetooth 5.0. The box and the manual that this came with it was for a similar but different version of this device and were typical Chinese directions. I requested the correct manual and received the same incorrect version. It wasn't difficult to figure out. The screen is a touch screen but it won't do 2 finger functions like zoom. Also some of the features in apps are limited when they are used through carplay. I can start/stop a track recording and create waypoints from the screen, other more in-depth functions require they be done from the app on the phone itself. I used Gaia through car play to the stereo screen in my truck on a overlanding trip and it worked well for following tracks on a topo map in the truck.

So far:
The Good

• Powers up automatically and connects with the phone and resumes whatever was running with no user intervention.
• Uses very little power.
• It's not impossible to mod the mount to something much better.
• Quality seems good, it's not cheap feeling.

The Bad

• The mount isn't really appropriate for anything off-road and it could be improved.
• Boots up kind of slow; 40sec.
• Power cord can't be shortened easily and it's min length is about 4'.

Anyway I thought I'd share the details of one of these with you guys, I'm hoping it works for my DS bike. I've got a good mount figured out and that was it's main drawback that I could tell. When our weather gets a little better I'll take it out and navigate some and see how bright it is.

If you've used one of these types of carplay devices on the MC I'd be interested in what you thought of it good or bad and it might help me test this out better.

 

[Simmons1]

I have seen these but don't know anyone that has tried one.

I will be interested to see how it works for you.

 

[Ridefreak]

It cleared up around here and I was able to test out the Carplay display on a ride. To prep for this I made up a 10mi track in basecamp following a network of various dirt roads out in the desert. I purposely threw in a lot of turns on different roads to see if I could follow the track without needing to stop and zoom in on the gps. Sometimes that's is needed with the garmin when multiple trails come together. I can't really say this is better in that regard because I was on dirt roads and not trails but I was able to roll the entire track by glancing down at the display occasionally. It's at least as good as my montana for following a track out in the desert. IMO the gaia's basemap with it's shading looks better and easier to interpret than Garmin's.

The music aspect of the carplay doesn't really add much to the Cardio's intercom I use but it works well together. I can now change sources on the bike's dash, pause, start, music, switch between sources like Pandora, MP3s, Audiobook or podcast. I don't listen to the latter but I like listening to music when I dual sport ride, not much wind noise so it's easy to hear and it sounds good.

It was readable in direct sunlight without squinting at it, about the same as my montana. I didn't adjust the line size or color on the track I used which would have improved it's "glanceability".

Glanceability: Ability to glance down at the GPS without stopping and determining if you're still on track before riding into a tree.

A feature I found useful was the ability to add a shortcut to the carplay screen. Dialing a contact with a touch of an icon when I'm riding isn't difficult, I'm not talking scrolling through a phone book, just touching an icon. Could be the wife or someone on the ride, to me it makes it easy to reach out w/o stopping and digging the phone out.

To sum it up, I look at this as an appliance, a dash with some tech upgrades. I always have my phone with me on rides but as I've mentioned, I don't want it mounted on the bars, this makes that possible. It's biggest benefits in my opinion are its purpose built design (ruggedness and power wiring) compared to a phone. The other is it's fully automatic startup. If I had to pull my phone out to make all this happen I wouldn't be a fan, the automatic aspect is a big one for me. As it is now I can ride up, turn off the bike and walk away. Come back out and start it up and ride away and everything starts back up where I left off. The phone remains in my pocket the entire time.

Could it be larger or brighter? Yes on both counts but this is screen is slightly larger than my montana so it's a little bigger than I'm used to. It's biggest drawback is their mount, I ditched that so it's not an issue but if you're wanting to go this route plan on modifying that to fit your bike better, it's not hard to come up with something. Time will tell if it holds up but I'm going to keep using it which says allot.

 

[Simmons1]

Sounds pretty neat, thanks for the update.

 

[Ridefreak]

The manufacturer contacted me to say they are running a 30% off sale before christmas so it ends up being about $100 with shipping.

 

[Simmons1]

The manufacturer contacted me to say they are running a 30% off sale before christmas so it ends up being about $100 with shipping.

Are you still using yours?

 

[Ridefreak]

Yes, I just finished shooting some video for a short review I'm doing on the unit, I intended to do it out on a trail but our weather is crappy right now. I don't have much different to share outside of what I mentioned but I'll link to the vid when I'm done. Like I mentioned initially, I was interested in one of these anyway so this review worked out nicely.

I also follow a carplay thread at the other site and I'm not to impressed in some of the ones allot of riders are using, there's pages of discussion on updating firmware and SW version numbers. Many of the ones they mention are more capable versions of these devices and can run apps directly like a GPS program and even surf the web in a browser. The aren't necessarily reliant on a separate phone except for data or or voice conversation. Depending on what your doing like internet, through a hotspot on the phone. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's nice, someone can jump in at the appliance level or go full geek and have almost 100% phone capability right on the bars in a rugged case.

That more capable ones have some appeal but I already have enough stuff that's subject to software updates, version compatibility etc... and most real phones update automatically. Quite a few of those android carplay devices are going through version issues and require the owner to update through a sometime tedious process. It's still a bit of a free for all in this segment. No doubt carplay by itself can seem a little limiting esp if the app someone uses isn't ported to car play. I found it to be the preferred app when I'm driving in my truck and riding really isn't much different.

I was just out in the garage to make a video of the device and it's been sitting on the bike for 2 weeks untouched. I of course did allot of bluetooth things with my phone during that time, when I fired the bike up 40 seconds later everything connected and started playing/navigating and I hadn't touched anything but the starter button on the bike. Simple is good.

As for buying one. I looked and it's right at $100 shipped with the discount right now. That's a little pricy to give something a try out of the blue. I'd be hesitant in the same circumstances sight unseen. And lets face it this is a company I know nothing about but they do deal with the usual pay systems. It'd be easier to swallow if they were on amazon where allot of that stuff lives. I will say after getting to see it, feel it and feel it's heft I'm glad for the chance to use it and knowing what I do now it'd be worth the $100 to me easily.

 

[Simmons1]

Thanks for the additional detailed information.

I keep thinking about trying one, but I am still pretty happy using my old Montana on dirt and XT on streetier stuff.

 

[Ridefreak]

I was looking at the XTs when this popped up.

Thanks for the additional detailed information.

I keep thinking about trying one, but I am still pretty happy using my old Montana on dirt and XT on streetier stuff.

I was looking at the XTs when this popped up, they're a nice gps. I would say this is a pretty decent choice for someone who doesn't own a GPSs or has an old one but has a decent phone they are thinking about mounting on the bars and is ok using the car play interface.

 

[Ridefreak]

As part of the deal for getting a free AUTOabc unit to test out I had to do a video for these guys which I didn't mind. For any of you who think it's a good deal being given something in trade for doing a video it's not, for what I can buy one of these for I was working for about $5/hr making the vid. I'm not complaining but it's not like they hand you one of these and you whip out a video.

Let me preface this and say I definitely don't consider myself an influencer and hate to even talk on camera but I owed them this and to be fair, I just talked about the reasons it appealed to me. It's in no way a comparison between brands or how to operate one of these. Just my thoughts on why I like it and I do like this model, it's going to stay on the bike as long as it holds up. Unfortunately the vid is a little short on specs since I didn't see most of them till a couple days ago when one of these showed up on Amazon.

I did the video in 1080P which I'd forgotten how bad it sucks, sorry about that. I might replace it with a 4K version, I haven't don't a 1080P video in years.

 

[DesmoDog]

I've gotten pretty attached to carplay in my Jeep and have been thinking about an interface for my bike for a while now. I just ordered one of these, for under $100 there's not much risk. It seems like it should simplify all the different bluetooth connections I try to make with my helmet now.

I'm expecting a lot. If the results are less than spectacular I will be writing a very stern reply to this thread!

 

[Ridefreak]

I'm following a thread that discusses these on the other site, seems like many of the guys over there are buying a particular version sold by quite a few different resellers. Their's is obviously different then the one I tried out, more functions and capabilities like cams, remotes and TPMS. The reason I mention that is there's quite a bit of discussion around them having to update the software to get various functions to work right and it appears to be hit or miss with a lot of miss. Much of the discussion is centered around getting them to work. To me if you get something like this and then have to fiddle with a somewhat complicated software update process from manufacturers that often aren't aware of the issue and/or don't even provide the updated software to fix it then it's not a product ready to be sold. The riders are often resorting to using a SW version from another manufacturer's site or files that others are sharing. To me that'd have been a show stopper if the one I received suffered the same issue I'd likely would have ditched and mentioned it on here and in the video. These aren't like updating your phone or computer, you have to find a newer version of the sw build that hopefully addresses the problem, install it on a bootable SD card then boot into a new Linux image and hope you got a version compatible with the unit you have. I mess with Arduinos and raspberry Pi's so I know the depth of that black hole. To me when you need to do that to get it something to work right that's a product that's not ready for the public. It's all too uncommon these days even with well supported devices. These aren't well supported devices and it's not a simple update plus the resources to do so are questionable. Before buying one that has all the bells and whistles do your homework and cross your fingers.

Another important thing to know is Carplay really needs a good phone that's bluetooth 5.2, 5.2 allows the device to have 2 simultaneous connections; Phone 2 Carplay and Phone 2 intercom. The alternative, the carplay device pairs with both the phone and also with the intercom, which rarely works correctly and it's usually the intercom that suffers. The other thing I discovered is older phones really don't have the HP to run nav, music and carplay all at the same time, possibly due to the much slower older bluetooth protocals. My pixel 3 and my Motorola razr would both lock up the carplay screen 100% of the time when trying to do all three even with a wired connection to the car display. My Pixel 8 runs it all seamlessly. So to avoid some potentially serious problems try to use a fairly modern (BT5.2) phone.

The Car play device I linked to above didn't have the issues I described, at least the one I'm using didn't. I think there's a couple reasons for that,

1. From what I can tell the company (autoabc) only makes wireless carplay devices and they make quite a few of them designed for OEM stereos so they've got a leg up on someone like a sock company that got a wholesale deal on some electronics and decided they are now an electronics reseller.
2. It's also a simpler device, this version doesn't have extras like TPMS and Fr & Rear cameras, pretty much just Carplay and the apps that can run through that. Simple has alot of appeal compared to something I'm required to make work correctly with a lot of fiddling.

I've said it before, these should be an like an appliance. Not like a off brand PC with an out of date OS and poor software support.

 

[DesmoDog]

Well mine showed up today. The box calls it a "Fatigue Warning Device" No other name on the box anywhere. Strange.

The first thing I did was print out a ball mount so I can use it with the RAM mounts I have on the bike already. I still need a 5 x 40mm bolt to hold it all together but it will work something like this.

I would have printed out the whole bracket, but there is a bit of vibration damping in the stock part so just drawing up and printing the ball was faster/easier. Plus I would have run a bolt through it all anyway to hold it togther in case of layer seperation, which I HIGHLY doubt would happen but ya never know. FWIW I used carbon fiber infused PETG, though I have some carbon fiber infused nylon here I've been wanting to try out too. I'll probably redo this with it before spring rolls around.


I also pulled off the cover on the bottom. It hides a reset button, card slot, and USB port.

I haven't figured out the wire routing yet. Truth be told I'm not even sure where the battery is on this bike - I just used the charge port to power my GPS when I used one. I'd like to tidy this up a little more than that though. I may add a Fuzeblock under the seat if there's room. I've got a lot of time to figure that out before spring.

 

[AirbusFlieger]

Following with interest.

Thanks for the thread.

 

[DesmoDog]

I modified an aftermarket mount to work and ran the wires under the fairing. Finally got to go out for a ride to test it out. Placement is good. It turns on when the bike starts and connects to the phone automatically. Music plays into my helmet. I can hear/answer texts with voice commands. Typical carplay stuff.

The problem? The screen isn't bright enough to be useful in any kind of sunlight. I turned Waze on and can't see a damn thing on the map. Granted I haven't searched for a brightness control yet but if it's not there, this thing is pretty much worthless for navigation.

Bummer.

The bike has Bluetooth so I can connect/control music through the switchgear/dash. I detest the user interface with my Tomtom GPS but at least I can see the screen... Maybe it's time to spend the bucks on a Garmin and see if I can get everything to play well together. Controlling music via switchgear would be nice after all.

OR, instead of bitching about it on the 'net I could get off my lazy butt, go turn the thing on, and look for a brightness setting.

Dag nabbit. Hang on, I'll be back...


EDIT: Ok, I found the brightness control. It was hidden behind a big BRIGHTNESS button on the main screen. Yeah. So. Anyway... it wasn't at full brightness so I cranked it up to 100. I didn't see a big difference in the screen but I'll have to do another ride before my final verdict.

 

[ZoomerP]

I know a hood won't solve everything (or maybe anything), but some experimentation with cardboard might help.

 

[DesmoDog]

With the brightness set to 100% the visibility is acceptable in non-direct sunlight. I wish it were brighter but for $100 it is what it is. And I wouldn't expect it to be great in direct sunlight anyway.

However... connectivity seems to be an issue now. It seems to hang on the "Welcome" screen pretty regularly. Maybe I just need to wait longer but sometimes it progresses right along and sometimes it just hangs. Today it even hung on Wecome for a bit, then moved to the next screen, then went back to welcome again. Then progressed to Carplay, so maybe I'm just being impatient. Time will tell. For now the Tomtom will remain on the shelf.

Considering my infatuation with 3D printing a hood isn't out of the question, but for now it's going to remain scantily clad with only the little stock visor to protect it.

 

[Ridefreak]

I printed a hood for my garmin, it really helped.

I agree the display isn't well suited for any detailed gps information, at least while you're moving. It's kind of small @ 5". For me It works ok when a route or track is being diplayed and I need to glance down and see if I'm still on it or if there's a turn coming up but if I was looking at it while riding through a city to see the name of a street coming up or other details it'd be difficult w/o stopping.

My bike just had some suspension work, I recently put it back together after being apart for a couple months, I'd forgotten the carplay was even installed. Each time I fired it up it connected to the phone and since the intercom was off it started playing music through its speaker. For me the connectivity has been rock solid although a little slow.