Anyone experience loss of navigation when using Carplay?

Anytime I'm running Waze or google if my phone isn't placed on top of the vents by the center screen the Navigation can't tell where I am. I tried the ash tray, cup holders and it keeps losing my exact location. I thought it was my IPhone 15 but now I have the 16 and still experiencing the same issue.

I read somewhere that the windshield has some protective shielding that may block signals hence the cut outs for EZpass tags but I figured the nav signal could get through the windows or the sunroof basically anywhere else. Any thoughts?

I have no issues with calls.

 

the windshield has some protective shielding

 

One of the challenges I've had with phone navigation, both on Google and on Apple maps is correct vehicle direction/orientation when leaving a parking lot or on street parking. It seems like the phone doesn't know which direction the car is pointing until after I drive for 50-100 feet. Often times that has resulted in an errant turn, or the car thinking I'm pointing South when I'm actually pointing North so I have to make a U-turn or something. Not a big deal when leaving home or in the normal course of driving down the highway, but normally when I'm leaving a location where I'm unfamiliar. Does this happen to anybody else when using phone navigation?

 

this only occurs with “wired” CarPlay connections which gets its gps information from the phone. With newer cars and/or MBUX with wireless carplay, this issue does not exist anymore because wireless carplay uses the built in car receptions for gps data (your phone is only supplying data but nit gps coordinates). That’s why I never had this in any of my BMWs since 2017 (yes bmw had wireless carplay since then), and i currently don’t have this issue in my GLS. W223 shouldn’t have this issue either with wireless carplay.
I think the only exception is Waze which was coded regardless to always use phone gps but I think they fixed that this year - never tried.
with wired connection, u’ll always have issues.
unfortunately Mbenz is always 10 years behind which is why I don’t tend to keep them long especially as I learn more about what am missing it gets annoying.

 

This happens to me when emerging from covered parking structures, especially multi story underground structure where there's no GPS signal for an extended period. Happens not just with phone navigation. The longer there's no GPS and the more maneuvers you do like going up and down the levels of the parking structure, the position will be off. Above poster is correct, CarPlay can augment its location information with data from the car, but he's incorrect about wired CarPlay. It's optional with wired CarPlay, so some implementations provide location information to the phone when using wired CarPlay and some don't. He's correct, that with wireless CarPlay the location augmentation is mandatory. This is all documented in the CarPlay developer guide. I don't know for sure about MB's implementation. It appears when I first got my car, it only relied on the phone's GPS, but then I got an update for COMAND and since then it appears the car is supplying location information to the phone. Google Maps used to go haywire in San Francisco downtown due to the tall buildings blocking GPS, and it often lost track of where I was. It works much better these days, but I've also read that Google Maps had issues with the position algorithm and they recently fixed it, so it could be a combination of things.

 

We drove Charlotte-Florida & back using Waze while the phone was in the closed console between the seats (9 hours each way).

Never had a reception issue, and received all of the annoying notifications of disabled vehicles on the shoulder ahead (must be a Florida thing).

Don’t know if the phone was getting GPS info from the car or not, but the system worked flawlessly (including the 100’s of annoying notifications).

 

What about with Android Auto Wired connection? Is it using the vehicle GPS or the app?

Same question for you, based on your knowledge. What about with Android Auto Wired connection? Is it using the vehicle GPS or the app?

Like was said earlier, it works fine with highway driving and in 99% other situations. The only problem is when first starting out, the app doesn't know which direction the car is pointing prior to moving - so it tells you to make a u-turn or not, or left versus right, based on the actual direction of travel. I like the notifications, only wish I had touchscreen dash so I could respond to an incident report on the dash versus using the controller or phone to respond. You can turn off those notifications if you like.

 

I don't know about Android actually. Android never much interested me and Google seems to kinda have given up on Android Auto, focusing on Embedded Android instead.

 

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From what I understand and reading online, it is mostly app related, so Google Maps is coded the same whether it’s on an Apple device or Android device via AndroidAuto. The only exception was Waze, which always favors the phone signal (which is sad) but I heard they fixed that recently. Am still sure that Wireless CarPlay ir AndroidAuto is much more stable (I never ever had issues with wireless connections, but I always had issues with the wired ones).

 

I've made the complete opposite experience. Wired has always been much more stable across various car brands. I travel a lot and drive different rental cars and I always have to eventually wire the phone to get a stable experience. Wireless CarPlay together with wireless charging eventually causes the phone to get hot and starting to thermally shut down. I just upgraded to an iPhone 16 Pro from my XS that lasted for 6 years, so maybe it works better with newer phones. The iPhone 16 supposedly has improved cooling. I'll find out on my next trip. The universal exception is BMW. They seem to have it nailed, but I've had issues with anything from VW to Audi as well as the newer Mercs and other brands. The Mazda 6 I just rented recently was surprisingly stable, though.

 

You are referring to something completely different from what the OP is asking about. Stable from the prospective of GPS signal is what matters in this thread, and in this case, wirless is better. As far as how the connection is stable overall, yeah, wired surely won't get interrupted as you pass across certain areas that may disturb the connection. No issues with heating at all with iPhone16

 

Fair enough. Although if the CarPlay connection itself isn't stable then it doesn't matter how stable the GPS connection is. But yes, with wireless CarPlay when it works, you can depend on getting a location signal from the car, whereas with wired CarPlay depending on the implementation there could be GPS issues.

 

Car windows block RF
On S Class the windscreen also, maybe not related but interesting for those who didn't know

 

I use Waze through Apple CarPlay using an aftermarket wireless connection. I’ve found the only way I get consistent live map access is by having my iPhone in the door. I’ve always assumed it was related to the windshield coating.

 

Navigation works fine for me using Car Play. Good with Apple or Google Maps and the phone is in the front cup holder, wired. Wish I could find a mount I liked… so until then it’s in the cup holder.

I do get the confused direction thing when stopping or starting to navigate.

 

yes it is

 

Maybe try it with the windows down? I seem to never have a problem with wired. I have a wireless dongle installed which does give me issues sometimes with Google maps and apple maps, when it does I pull it out and connect by wire and everything is fine. I have a iPhone 11.

 

You can test with your wifi signal too
take a laptop in your car, connect to home wifi
test windows open, then close