Best After-Market In-Dash CarPlay unit for Tundra

Hi all...new to the forum...just bought a 2019 Tundra.

Any recommendations of the best In-Dash replacement radios so that I can have Apple Car-Play?

Any suggestions appreciated. It’s probably somewhere in the forum, I’m just to daft to figure out how to find answers. Apologies.

 

Welcome!
You're probably going to get a whole bunch of different answers. Most of which come down to how much coin you're willing to spend on your unit and whether your carplay needs to be wireless.
There are 4 mains routes you can take when going aftermarket

• Tesla style
• Dasaita Android unit
• Double din kenwood/alpine/pioneer etc
• Floating oversized screen of option 3.

Or if you're not completely sold on going aftermarket then you could swap in a 2020 tundra carplay stereo, too. SOmeone just did it recently on here.

Personally, i went with option 3 in a kenwood ddx8706s. It was on sale last week so i picked it up for a decent price and I liked that it had wireless apple carplay. If you're looking at option 3, then wireless carplay can be a big price jump for most units. Another thing to consider is there are optional extra items that can be purchased for options 3 and 4. This would be an idatalink maestro rr with the plug and play harnesses.

Good luck!

 

2019 Platinum with JBL that I hated....I just got the Kenwood 9707s with JL Audio package installed by Tech12Volts and I love it, the wireless car play works flawlessly so far (i was worried as it sounds like the first generation wireless CP had some issues) I tried to figure out the differences between my 9707s and 8706 that dittothat has and I dont see much if any difference.. maybe his has HD radion but mine does not...the best buy comparsion also says mine is touch screen and 8706s isnt?? (probably not correct) In this process I figured out the DDX gets the DVD/CD drive which at first I didnt think i cared enough to pay the extra $100 for BUT I am glad I did because the screen angle is physically adjustable on the DDX vs the DMX

 

Kenwood DNX996XR.

 

I believe your screen is capacitive touch (supposed to be more sensitive and also can view screen with polarized sunglasses better). Yup, I’m pretty pumped about the screen angle too. Just waiting on my antenna to arrive (forgot when putting all the parts in my cart) and hopefully have everything buttoned up. Yours says it has wireless phone mirroring for iPhone? Is that true

 

nope! Even the USB wired phone mirroring took me forever to figure out how to get it to work and not anything I want to go through to be able to watch something from my phone on head unit (you have to basically disable car play (wired and wireless) and wipe out the profile of the Head Unit on your phone and repair just the bluetooth pairing while the phone fights you to turn carplay back on) I will blame Apple until I have someone with a android in my car to test the wireless screen mirror with

 

The volume knob is gone, I installed a JVC in my 2006 Ram 2500 and lost the volume knob as well. That annoys me you have to get rid of it. I just bought a 2019 SR5 Tundra and miss the CarPlay but won’t upgrade unless the knob stays

 

I like my alpine halo 9 alot !!!!

 

Where dis you get all your wood grain?
Steering wheel too?

 

It's standard equipment on the 1794 edition Tundras.

 

Nearly all aftermarket head units will have Carplay/Android Auto nowadays. In general, head units can be grouped into 2 categories imo, under and over $500.

Generally speaking for the "big brands", e.g. Sony, Alpine, Kenwood, Pioneer, (there are always exceptions/outliers) for under $500, you'll get an ~800x480 resolution screen that's either capacitive (like a phone screen that's swipeable and a little more responsive) or responsive that's based on touch pressure, wired carplay/android auto, fewer overall inputs for USB, HDMI, and/or cameras.

For over $500, again very generally speaking, you start to get into "HD" screens (~1200x720 resolution), larger "floating" ipad size screens, capacitive screens, wireless carplay/android auto, more overall inputs for USB, HDMI, and extra cams.

There are Tesla style units, and other android based units, brands like Joying and Daisaita. Plenty of folks report loving these. Anecdotally it seems like there's also more complaints about these brands in regards to software, quality control, units resetting/not connecting etc. I can't speak from personal experience as I've never installed one. I've always stuck to the big brands for both head units and other car audio gear, and the "higher" end big brands at that rather than brands like JVC or Boss. Again, plenty of people like and have great success with those brands and even within the aforementioned big brands like Alpine and Kenwood people have issues.

The other thing to consider is called "iDatalink". iDatalink is more or less the gold standard for factory integration right now. If you get an iDatalink capable head unit, you'll have to spend extra to get an iDatalink unit which is basically a little black box that plugs in behind a new head unit, and ties into the factory system to retain steering wheel controls, factory amps, and adds the ability to see some additional info like tire pressure and other gauges on your new head unit, depending on the head unit. You can get a non-iDatalink head unit and still maintain steering wheel controls. To go the iDatalink route, plan on an additional ~$250 for the iDatalink unit and the necessary wiring. For a non iDatalink install, plan on about half that or ~$100.

Crutchfield offers a wiring service for like $20 I believe and they'll wire up your harnesses for you. I ended up buying a Sony head unit bundle from the folks at TrailGridPro as it was actually cheaper than going through Crutchfield and I got "more" in the way of them wiring everything. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I've recommended them to other forum members that are also happy customers for them. They're prices can seem a little sticker shock-y, but when you compare their total cost to somewhere like Crutchfield for head unit + install gear, they are very comparable.

As with most things, the more you spend the more you get. Everyone has a different opinion on what the point of diminishing returns is. I always recommend people to either have a firm budget in mind and stick to it/don't look beyond it or you'll inevitably yearn for more, or, have a general price range in mind with flexibility to go beyond it by 10-20% if something really catches your eye.

 

lol. This thread is from 2020.

 

LMAO I totally missed that, saw the last couple of replies and figured it was new. Hopefully OP isn't still searching but I don't see he ever responded after his initial post haha

 

@Snert still appreciate your response, very detailed and informative. I'm running a 2011 no factory navi/JBL, so pretty basic as-is. I'm typically in the camp of going with the bigger brand names assuming they deliver the quality with the added cost, but the fit of the Dasaita units has me thinking twice. Any thoughts on those units? Seems like they make pretty clean solutions for both the gen 2 and gen 2.5 (I'm in a gen 2 and don't want any sloppy fitment/protrusion from the dash). Thanks for any input!