Older Mazdas and wireless CarPlay adapters

So, we rock a 2014 Mazda 3, and thanks to the online community (and some hardware from AliExpress), we also rock Apple CarPlay via the last available Mazda Connect/MZD firmware update.

This works flawlessly when running CarPlay with a cable – but I’m not alone in experiencing issues with wireless adapters and navigation announcements…

In the process of trying to resolve this issue, I’ve tried 4 brands of CarPlay wireless adapter – and only found one which works. It’s by Lepwings – and is available on Amazon for a very reasonable price: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FPWXFN7D

I should just warn that the included USB A to C adapter is rubbish – buy yourself a UGREEN one or something if you need it!

Firmware updates continue to be published through 2025 (last one I noticed was in December 2025, I’m writing in early 2026) … but given how finnicky the older-Mazda issue seems to be, I would advise not updating the firmware unless you explicitly have issues.

A plethora of settings are available to be tweaked if you connect to the dongle’s WiFi and browse to http://192.168.1.101 … the key setting (seems to be) the wireless delay, which I have set to the default of 1000ms (I have all the settings on the defaults, and it works flawlessly in our car).

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