Seeking Help with AVIN Unit

[Bry5on]

The wireless dongle does have a wired passthrough that could be used, but I haven't had a chance to tinker with it and from my reading it might not be capable of charging at the rate that CarPlay drains the phone battery.

I'm planning to upgrade the built in microphone with this unit which would route directly into the back of the AVIN, so perhaps if both the head unit and CarPlay app can be pointed at an external microphone it would sidestep this weird bluetooth issue.

That will not help, as above

[Mayan-Viking]

That will not help, as above

I'm afraid he's right. Unless you happen to have the magic unit that works as advertised...

Avin wants me to reinstall the application. I'm debating if it's even worth my time. But after 4 weeks of trying to diagnose this issue I guess there's no harm. I'm a glutton...

[dukeofchen]

This is a hardware issue with the Avin unit. I opened mine up and traced the circuits - the Avin uses the internal (on the face of the unit) microphone for CarPlay and the Bluetooth chip has a direct connection to the external wired mic. Really shitty implementation. I threw mine in the trash (even after spending all that money, as I spent months chasing this issue until I disassembled the unit) and bought an Xtrons. The Xtrons is miles better, not that it’s saying much.

Good luck, but tech support will not be able to solve this issue for you.

It has two separate Bluetooth antennas and chips. One inside the dongle and one inside the unit itself (the one connected to the mic). Another hardware issue that is unlikely to be solved in software. Sorry.

I'm afraid he's right. Unless you happen to have the magic unit that works as advertised...

Avin wants me to reinstall the application. I'm debating if it's even worth my time. But after 4 weeks of trying to diagnose this issue I guess there's no harm. I'm a glutton...

Bry5on so I was mulling over what you found inside the unit, and think there might actually be a software workaround to use an external mic while retaining CarPlay.

Like Mayan-Viking I was also puzzling over the dual connections to AutoKit and Car-Kit networks.

Within the AutoKit app settings on the unit, under advanced settings there is an option for "Call Audio Properties". When switched to "Compatible", incoming / outgoing calls get directed through the head unit's built in caller that uses the Car-Kit bluetooth, rather than going through the CarPlay dongle which only has access to the internal mic. So contrary to what AVIN suggests about not using that network, the design flaw/oversight could possibly be used to one's advantage if connection to both networks is retained, allowing access to the external mic connection.

This configuration seemed to work just fine in the test calls I did, but stability-wise I don't know how it will affect the other functions as the AutoKit software is a finicky POS. At the very least, you would still have to switch the audio device on your iPhone each time to Car-Kit, as it understandably wants to default to CarPlay for everything.

Seems promising enough that I might try that external mic to see if the reasoning holds.

Not sure why the second photo is upside down, but it shows how the unit is using the built in phone app.

[Bry5on]

I did something similar while I had the Avin but ended up deciding that it was easier to just take out my AirPods for calls so I gave up on it.

[Mayan-Viking]

dukeofchen So...I don't seem to have a CarKit app on my unit. Would you mind sharing a screen shot? But, I have to ask, if you will still be required to switch BT channels from your phone when calling what's the point?

I think Bry5on wins the big brain award. All the time and effort I've spent on this issue is significant. Far more than the price of a set of AirPods anyway. This whole time I thought it was just supposed to work as advertised...

[dukeofchen]

dukeofchen So...I don't seem to have a CarKit app on my unit. Would you mind sharing a screen shot? But, I have to ask, if you will still be required to switch BT channels from your phone when calling what's the point?

I think Bry5on wins the big brain award. All the time and effort I've spent on this issue is significant. Far more than the price of a set of AirPods anyway. This whole time I thought it was just supposed to work as advertised...

Car-Kit is just the default name of the unit's built-in bluetooth network. If you go into the AVIN's app with the bluetooth icon the settings panel looks like so:



My iPhone now recognizes Car-Kit and AutoKit, so upon starting up the unit the sequence that happens automatically on my phone is:
1. Connects to AutoKit via bluetooth to establish Carplay
2. Transitions to AutoKit via Wi-Fi (which is what Carplay runs on), and subsequently drops the AutoKit bluetooth connection
3. Connects to Car-Kit bluetooth

From this point if a call comes through and I want to take advantage of the built-in bluetooth over the dongle Carplay connection, I'd switch audio devices on my phone similar to if you wanted to put a call on speaker.



Granted as it stands the call is running through the crappy built in microphone either way, so this is only relevant if I end up installing an external microphone, which this configuration would then be able to use.

Popping in an airpod is surely a more reliable way to get a quality connection, but I also don't always have them on me and would have to fish them out if I did – so there isn't a win-win here aside from going with another unit that doesn't have this flaw.

If this ends up being a boondoggle I'll probably just take calls on my phone's actual speakerphone, luckily I rarely take calls while driving so this isn't the worst thing in the world. As long as google maps, podcasts and spotify work well enough I can live with it.