Apple CarPlay On Any Smart

Generally, the easiest option is to just replace the stereo with one that has CarPlay.

That’s dead easy on the 451 fortwo and 454 forfour as it takes any double DIN stereo so you have a choice of hundreds of stereos.
However, it’s not so easy on the 450 since that has a 1 DIN stereo and the 453 is very restrictive because it has space for a double DIN screen but only room for a single DIN unit. Also, there are people out there who either don’t want to change their stereo or want to keep their car looking standard.

2nd Screen Add Ons

I have tried quite a few aftermarket 2nd screens and for the money compared to quality, I recommend Carpuride units as they are cheaper than much worse units I tried off of Amazon.

453

This is the 7 inch unit. Due to the width, it doesn’t interfere with your knee but the height means you can only use it in this lower position.

It’s a really nice unit with very crisp graphics.

If you have the basic stereo, good news, you could mount the new screen like this. (more on that later).

If you want one of these 7 inch units, click here.

Alternatively there’s a 10.3 inch widescreen version. The width is a bit excessive for the lower position.

But much better for an upper position assuming you aren’t very short and can safely see over the screen to see the road.

If you want one of these widescreen units, click here.

451

The dash on the 451 is perfect for a screen in the lower position. You can screw it directly underneath the dash.

Don’t put it on top of the dashboard. It blocks too much of the road and isn’t legal.

If you want one of these widescreen units, click here.

Wired Or Wireless?

I can’t tell you what to do but I can give you my recommendations. Avoid wireless CarPlay. It uses a combination of Bluetooth and Wifi, however, the Wifi causes interference. So make sure you turn off Wifi and use a cable. The extra bonus is that the phone will charge at the same time.

Mounting The Screen

I’ll mainly leave this to you. You can get cup phone holders that can be modified or if you have a 3D printer, you can make whatever you want, like this, or this. However, this mount was very easy.

You remove the centre cover from the stereo…

…and screw in the mount. How do you make the mount I hear you ask?

I bought this phone holder from Amazon. I suspect all of the mounts will be the same but I can only confirm this one.

Disassemble the mount (on the right) and the plate (on the left) comes with the Carpuride 7 inch screen.

Join the 2 parts together, tighten them up and slot it into the back of the screen.

Twist the mount into the front of the stereo and you are done. Just connect the power cable and audio cable.

If you have a 3D printer, you can print your own version of this mount. Just measure the original ball mount and edit this file to suit. Click.

Renault R-Link With Apple CarPlay

I’m sure many of you are here because you saw this video I made.

It’s sort of fake. It does work but it probably isn’t what you think it is. I haven’t worked out how to get root access to the Renault R-Link stereo and managed to add Carplay.

What I did instead was replace the screen with a Carpuride screen and wire it in.

This is the one I used, you can get one here. Click.

It looks like a standard R-Link stereo. The volume knob still works and the volume on the steering wheel still works.

What I did was set the original touch screen to AUX input mode.

I removed the screen from the surround and tucked it down inside the dashboard. There is just enough room…

…that it can sit out the way enough…

…for the radio unit to slide in place. (Make sure you plug everything into the screen and the radio unit).

Alternatively you could extend the cables and put the original screen somewhere else.

The only original wire you’d have left if the one going to the buttons on the fascia. Run the power cable up behind the dash along with the jack to jack audio cable. These will go back to the cigarette lighter socket and the aux input socket. Dress the wires nicely and run them separately, hidden down either side of the centre tunnel.

If you really want to, you can transmit the Carplay screen audio to an unused FM radio frequency.

You set the transmit frequency on the Carplay screen and the receive frequency on the original touch screen stereo before you hide it. I really don’t recommend this over a hardwired audio connection for audio quality reasons.

The original R-Link screen is 7 inches so I just bought one of these and opened it up.

With the small screws out, the case has to be unclipped.

Which reveals the screen which is held in with small tabs…

…and a PCB that’s screwed down.

It you really want to go full “mad man” on it, you can remove all of the contents and glue it to the back of the R-Link fascia. However, there’s enough room to just cut the sides off the casing and the whole screen can be bonded to the back of the R-Link fascia with something like polyurethaning adhesive.

See, it nearly fits without the sides being trimmed. Nearly isn’t good enough though. (It was good enough for me to make the video you saw of it working).

Now it’s up to you. Show me what you achieve. I’m too busy with other projects. This is just a proof of concept.

What About Listening To Radio?

If you connect the new Carplay screen to the R-Link stereo via an FM connection, you could use the up and down tuning buttons on the steering wheel or the original fascia to move away from the preset that you used to receive the Carplay audio. To get back to the Carplay audio, you just have to go back to the correct FM frequency.

Alternatively, the much better option is to download a radio app onto your phone such as Radioplayer. Then you can stream almost all radio stations through your phone and into your stereo. This way you have a visual representation of the stations, making it easier to choose what you want to listen to.

Carpuride Units

Click the photo of the unit you want to go to the Carpuride website.

Discount Code

Use the discount code evilution and you should get 15% off the price.