Originally Posted by e55phil

Forgive me but let me answer both of you at the same time.

It took me 2 1/2 hours but I'm not a technical guy and I'm also very careful. Honestly probably 30 minutes was figuring out how to set the dip switch settings. I had to monkey around with that to get it to work.

I hate to get rid of this car and I'm going to keep it for a while as a second car and I want to have Apple car play.

As for quirks:

1. When you turn the car on its best to let the Mercedes navigation system run its course before you plug in the phone. I find it when I plug it in before hand it doesn't work.

2. The system has either Wi-Fi and if you turn that on then it will connect on its own. I haven't used this very much but it seems to work.

3. When you install the system you have to use one of the USB ports in the center console. It becomes dedicated to the Joyeauto device. In order for the phone and the device to work together you have to press the media button and select whichever USB port you're using. I use USB port 2.

If you don't press the media button and if the media button is not set to media interface 2 than the Joyeauto system won't work correctly.

4. If you long press the back button on the center console you'll switch between Mercedes and Joyeauto. You can go back-and-forth at will.

Sometimes I would long press the back button so that I could listen to a local radio station or satellite radio. While listening to satellite radio or a local radio station I would then long press the back button so that I could use Google maps.

If a phone call comes in and the Mercedes interface is not connected to media port 2, you can still see Google maps and you can still hear the radio station but when you try to answer the phone using car play it doesn't work. The caller can hear you but you cannot hear the caller or sometimes vice versa.

You have to have the presence of mind when the phone rings to long press the back button, press the media button, then long press the back button and answer the phone. However as I recall you can get around this by pressing the answer phone button on the steering wheel.

5. Also keep in mind that unless you're in an urban area Apple maps doesn't work. Neither do Google maps. And for that matter if you don't have a strong signal Siri doesn't work.

I bought my car in 2015 thinking the S class would come out a year earlier than it's going to. I don't want to be the first buyer of an S class in its first year so I'm going to buy an e class station wagon which will accommodate my country house. I'm buying the so-called all-terrain which a lot of people are making fun of the looks but it has the latest and greatest MB UX and the E class has been out for a few years so they've worked out the bugs. In 2022 I plan to buy a new S class after they've work through the problems.

If you live in an urban area where there is a lot of Internet signal it's worth the time and energy to install this unit. I live in New York City and I find the system to be great.

The main things I like about it are as follows:

If I short press the phone button I get Siri and all of the benefits of Siri. Call this person, tell me the weather here, tell me the time there, navigate to this location or that location. All of those things are really valuable to me.

Also I can send a text. Using Siri I can send a text to my wife or my broker or whomever. I never have to take my eyes off the road or monkey with my phone.

If you or anyone sends me a text Siri will read it to me.

There is the obvious benefit of using either Apple maps or Google maps.

If you have satellite radio you can install the satellite radio app on your phone and listen to satellite radio for free. This allows you to switch to the next song if you don't like the song is playing or even go back as I recall.

So as I say it has little quirks that you have to get used to but once you get used to it it's no problem. If you're old enough to remember DOS where you did things at the command prompt you just remember these little quirks and it's easy to deal with.

As for your question about the Internet, I don't have any sort of Internet in my car. I experimented with that and it was completely bogus. Also I was afraid that it allows bad guys to access my car while I'm driving. In my case I rely on the telephone Internet for my Internet.

I hope this answers all of your questions. I'm glad I bought the Joyeauto product and I would recommend it

I took some video of my installation but I just haven't got around to posting it but the guy Barron from Joyeauto will send it.

I am a desk jockey and if I can do it anybody can

Originally Posted by ephico2real

Completed:
I installed it yesterday with the help of one of my best friend. He has a 2018 S560 as well. We both decided to spend our Saturday together.

Duration: 6 to 8 hours. WHY? First time installer and my car has rear seat climate and entertainment. Very tough to take apart.
Tools: Torx screen drivers get 15, 20, 25 and 30.
Trim removal kit with pointed tools: This is must. I bought one on Amazon. It contain everything you will ever need.
Youtube: IMHO. I found 2 videos that helped me. I can share it if anyone cares to know. You need to watch this videos over and over. Gain confidence and find a friend who is willing to be a friend on a Saturday. Lol.

My experience: it was simple installation to be honest. Plug and play.

Difficulty: post installation and keeping the device in a safe area in the car. There are lot of wires and we decided to store on the passenger side foot wall.
The major challenge or issues is taking apart the car itself and hiding all the extra wires. The back of the default radio is very tight.

Note: Avoid buying the Ali express brand. My seller supplied 2 flashing files. It was a perfect oem integration. No wire cutting, no external mic. Oem camera work and mic too. Partly supported oem control buttons. Switching between benz and carplay with ease.

Mercedes Benz : I now understand why this S550 are so damn expensive. They are well built guys from an electrical and computer integration standpoint. I also give kudos to the developers of these aftermarket media boxes. Why? Understanding the car complicated CAN bus and creating a nearly perfect integration with DSPs and software is not an easy fit. Screen scrolling with oem button and software is very fast.

Verdict: second best car decision ever and worth every penny. The first is buying an S550 fully loaded at 40% the MSRP.

I think the Apple carplay is very well integrated versus the android auto. The wired connection is stable and the device graphics is very good IMHO. Apple carplay worked in both wireless and wired. Android worked well with wired. The maps on both work well. Google voice and siri worked well. I am very impressed. The music is better on Android with Dolby atmos enabled when compared to the iPhone. Well I've always like playing music using my bluetooth android anyway because of Dolby sound vs using my wife's iphone.

Issues: wireless connection drop sometimes and call voice is not as clear when compared to the original oem. iPhone. I am satisfied 😎. I think they improve the software. Auto connect.

Guess what: my android phone suddenly connected this evening and worked wireless.. this did not work yesterday without wired cable.