I took the jump and decided to upgrade my USB hub and firmware for my MX-5. This process was pretty stressful. On a level of 1 to 10, I’d put this in a 7.
I watched the videos on here about 5 times. I read the forum instructions at least 7 times. Mind you I’ve done mechanical work on the car and it does not stress me out. For some reason, the fear of breaking my Infotainment Center scared me since it would have been a $3k fee to fix.
For me, I had to upgrade from firmware 50.x to the new 70.x version. I’m currently at 70.00.335. The only difference between the early release of 70.x is that there is no safety installation to test. Installing went all in.
My process…so I wouldn’t be too stressed out was to install the firmware first. Make sure it works and wait a few days to then do the cable installation. Overall, the firmware took about 40 minutes. For those of you who have read the instructions, I pressed the clutch in every 15 minutes.
The cable installation was pretty easy because I already upgraded my gauges.
Overall, I’m liking what I’m seeing. I’m leaning towards the Apple Car Play side of things. Yes, I have 2 phones so we’ll see which one wins in the end.
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- Cables
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- Apple Car Play Interface
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- Android Auto Interface
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- Android Google Map
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- Apple Car Play Google Map
What’s different between the USB hub that came with the car and the one you added?
Apple Carplay and Android Auto will only work with the updated hub. From what I’ve read, there is not enough “power” in the stock hub.
Yes, I’ve tried to use the updated firmware with the old hub. It did not work.