[LSR]

Hi, I think you may have misunderstood the actual issue. When you connect you phone through WIFI CarPlay and select AUX input, you have volume control through PCM volume control.

I’m using this slightly different, where I connect via CarPlay WIFI, but select iPod as an input (not AUX). That’s when I lose volume control through PCM which is what I was referring in my post above.

The reason this happens is because when in CarPlay, this board takes over volume control through AUX. The preference would be for the board to relinquish volume control to the PCM, that way both steering and PCM volume controls would be in sync. With this new module, the steering wheel and PCM volume controls get disconnected from each other when in CarPlay.

This module should work well in your application/configuration, if you select AUX as your input.

There is someone (coder) in Rennlist who just installed the board (he had produced firmware updates for Joye successfully). He will most likely produce a firmware update for this resolving all these quirks.

Aha! Thanks for the clarification. I went back and reread this thread and also at least part of the thread in the Rennlist forum with Konkab's posts. Having done so, I believe I now understand the problem you guys are facing.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want to switch to the iPod input rather than AUX because the iSudar/Ebilaen board (and probably other solutions, like the JoyeAuto) outputs an analog audio signal to the PCM's analog AUX input even though CarPlay and AA are sending the audio digitally over WiFi. That's why the Ebilaen/iSudar instructions say to set the PCM to AUX before switching over to CarPlay or AA. And somewhere along the line - perhaps because of the iSudar/Ebilaen board's audio DAC or the PCM's audio ADC that sends digital audio via the fiber lines to the Bose or whatever amplifiers (or both) - there is a significant loss of audio quality. That's what you're trying to avoid by switching to the digital iPod input. Is this right?

If I'm now understanding the issue, it seems all the CarPlay/AA add-on solutions that instruct users to switch to AUX likely suffer from the same audio degradation problem. That's disconcerting, because you'd think if it was reasonably possible to feed a digital audio signal to the PCM from an add-on CarPlay/AA module someone would have done it already.

 

[LSR]

... Now, for the review….
The Quirks (so far):

1. When in iPod mode and using CarPlay over WiFi, I lose the ability to control volume with the head unit volume knob. However, the steering wheel volume knob works well. Fortunately, this is not an issue, as I have both the steering wheel knob and the Helix Conductor to control volume. I think this is due to the fact that the Ebilaen module takes control of the head unit volume control for CarPlay and it wants to control CarPlay volume when you are actually with the iPod.
...

Hi - I just discovered this forum and thread. I was researching others' experiences with the iSudar/Ebilean solutions and that search led me here. Kudos to all of you who posted install videos and so many other helpful comments.

I was going to pull the trigger and purchase the board until I read the bit quoted above, about the volume control not working when using CarPlay over WiFi. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm concerned the board won't work for me because my car doesn't have a multi-function wheel with a volume control. It thus seems if I buy the board and connect with CarPlay over WiFi, I'll have no volume control. Obviously, that would be a non-starter for me.

It's hard to understand how a manufacturer could market a board that disabled something as basic as the head unit's volume control under any set of circumstances, so I'm wondering whether anyone has sorted this out yet? If not, has anyone installed the board in a car without a multi-function steering wheel and, if so, does the PCM's volume control work in that instance?

Many thanks.