Well, after a bunch of use I’ve realized that I don’t have to do any type of shortcut/automation hacking whatsoever. Here’s my experience so far:
- Stable connection: Had a 300 mile road trip the other day and the t2c didn’t disconnect even once, and the browser window stayed open the whole time. The only app I was using was Spotify though, so maybe I would have had some hang ups if I used more apps.
- Easy to initialize: After my initial setup, the ONLY step I have to do is either A.) wait for my car to connect to the autokit wifi or simply turn on wifi after I start my drive. Once I see my car is connected, I open the browser and click the icon for tespush and I’m connected. I was expecting to have to toggle my hotspot so it could connect each time since that’s a normal annoyance with most products using the phones internet connection. Happy about this!
- From sleep: as mentioned previously it takes 30-60 seconds to boot and be ready for CarPlay. No big deal.
- When out and about with sentry on: connects in 10-20 seconds
- The not so good: This only happened once, and it was the only time I tried it, but when I used google maps to try and navigate somewhere, the GPS was delayed showing me further back on my route than I was, and the whole CarPlay froze until I disconnected and reconnected. The Apple Maps/google maps show the correct gps location otherwise. Not a problem for me because I use the tesla nav 100% of the time anyway. Might have been an anomaly since like I said I only tried it once.
I should note that my parking situation might be “ideal” for this thing. I have a detached garage about 150 feet from my house so accidental connections with my phone is a non-issue. I don’t have charging in my garage because I live immediately next to multiple L2 and L3 chargers for the same price or less than it would cost at home (SDG&E’s criminal prices), so the high cost to install a garage charger due to distance and wiring path doesn’t make sense. So when I park my car it goes to sleep within 20 minutes, every time.
If everyone needs it I could put together some shareable shortcuts/automations for iOS users, but they would only be theoretical as I don’t have issues I potentially would if my garage was closer to my living space.
All in all, VERY HAPPY with this thing. Pleasantly surprised on how awesome it is. Even my wife loves it, and she usually thinks all of my tesla tinkering is the most uninteresting thing on earth. I’m addition to the superior (in my opinion) UI for music, which is my main reason for wanting this, the sound quality is FAR superior to the built-in apps as I have my audio settings maxed out on my iPhone. I know there is compression going on over bluetooth, but 320kbps over BT sounds objectively better than the standard 96kbps streaming bitrate.
