USB 2.0 A Female to A Female Coupler Adapter
I have a Roadster 2.5 with the Infotainment System. Ever since day one, I've had troubles with my iPhone (not) connecting via the provided connector. Strangely, every iPod and iPhone owned by the Seattle Tesla Store staff would work in my car, but my own iPhone would not work. But my iPhone connects to everything else in the world (I'm an iPhone developer, so I do more than my share of USB connections), including the Roadster Sport on the showroom floor.
To their credit, the Seattle Tesla Service team ordered a complete new Alpine head unit and then called me in. Swapping the cable did no good. Swapping the head unit seemed to work, but we noticed that we tested it with the iPhone wired directly to the head unit rather than to the Roadster wiring harness. My head unit works just fine, too, when the iPhone is plugged in directly.
Turns out that the HD Radio unit steals the USB plug on the head unit, and then acts as a USB hub to provide the iPhone/iPod connection. But the HD Radio is a very poor USB hub. My original unit appeared to be bad, and so Tesla Motors replaced it under warranty. The new HD Radio unit seemed to work much better with my iPhone, but still only about 90%.
The solution has turned out to be bypassing the HD Radio unit completely. Just disconnect the two USB cables that normally plug into the HD Radio unit and then plug them together with a coupler. See the link above for a $0.85 part that solves everything 100%, provided you don't care about actually using HD Radio. In my opinion, HD Radio sounds like crap. Looking up the specifications, it seems that the broadcast standard is 64k MP3 quality, well below the norm for everything else digital, not to mention iTunes AAC at better than 128k.
Anyway, I changed nothing at all except to bypass the HD Radio unit, and now my iPhone works all of the time. Not only does it work, but it connects much faster than it ever did before. I left a couple of these USB Couplers with the service staff in Seattle, in case anyone else with the Infotainment package is tired of the hassle (and won't miss "HD Radio").
I have a Roadster 2.5 with the Infotainment System. Ever since day one, I've had troubles with my iPhone (not) connecting via the provided connector. Strangely, every iPod and iPhone owned by the Seattle Tesla Store staff would work in my car, but my own iPhone would not work. But my iPhone connects to everything else in the world (I'm an iPhone developer, so I do more than my share of USB connections), including the Roadster Sport on the showroom floor.
To their credit, the Seattle Tesla Service team ordered a complete new Alpine head unit and then called me in. Swapping the cable did no good. Swapping the head unit seemed to work, but we noticed that we tested it with the iPhone wired directly to the head unit rather than to the Roadster wiring harness. My head unit works just fine, too, when the iPhone is plugged in directly.
Turns out that the HD Radio unit steals the USB plug on the head unit, and then acts as a USB hub to provide the iPhone/iPod connection. But the HD Radio is a very poor USB hub. My original unit appeared to be bad, and so Tesla Motors replaced it under warranty. The new HD Radio unit seemed to work much better with my iPhone, but still only about 90%.
The solution has turned out to be bypassing the HD Radio unit completely. Just disconnect the two USB cables that normally plug into the HD Radio unit and then plug them together with a coupler. See the link above for a $0.85 part that solves everything 100%, provided you don't care about actually using HD Radio. In my opinion, HD Radio sounds like crap. Looking up the specifications, it seems that the broadcast standard is 64k MP3 quality, well below the norm for everything else digital, not to mention iTunes AAC at better than 128k.
Anyway, I changed nothing at all except to bypass the HD Radio unit, and now my iPhone works all of the time. Not only does it work, but it connects much faster than it ever did before. I left a couple of these USB Couplers with the service staff in Seattle, in case anyone else with the Infotainment package is tired of the hassle (and won't miss "HD Radio").