CarPlay Display in Fabia II

Evening all

Many of you will have seen adverts all over social media of late promoting these 10-inch widescreen CarPlay/Android Auto display screens that are being marketed as a low-cost and neat way of adding modern connectivity to an older car, or to a car where it's difficult (or where you simply don't want to) replace the factory-fitted head unit. Well, I bought one. After shopping around, I actually found one on Amazon that in the end only ended up costing me £50, and it even doubles as a dash cam.

Backstory: The Fabia II Combi I now have (which I inherited from my mum when she passed away earlier this year) originally came with a Swing radio. I retrofitted an Admumdsen+ to it (having already done the same retrofit on the Rapid Spaceback I owned at the time) not long after mum bought it, as this not only added nav, but also Bluetooth (I also retrofitted the genuine mic into the roof courtesy light cluster). Mostly because it's my mum's car and I don't want to do anything that might dmagae it or that can't be reversed later, I was reluctant to buy an aftermarket Android headunit. I was tempted by the RCD330, but trying to find a reasonably priced real one (there's a lot of crap clones out there) was proving to be too much ard work. So I decided to go down a different route.

The CarPlay display comes with a choice of stick-on or windscreen mounts. I used the stick on mount, which very securely stuck to the top of the dash directly above the centre air vents (I cleaned the surface with an IPA wipe first and allowed to air dry). It's powered via a USB-C port, and a USB-C to 12v power cable is supplied. It does draw up to 3amps, so doesn't seem to play well with using a USB-C cable and a 12v accessory socket USB adapter (as these tend to only output up to 2.4amps per port). I've wired in a hidden 12v accessory socket behind the dashboard, piggybacking off the rear wiper fuse, with the power cable running straight out the back of the display and down the back of the dash below the windscreen. I've secured the hidden 12v socket and the excess cable in the void space at the end of the dashboard on the drivers side, next to the fuse box. The amount of visible cable is minimal (just over a foot coming from the back of the display and heading straiught to the gap between the end of the dash and the windscreen before disappearing from view). I also did one loop around the stand, to act as a stress support so that any pulling on the cable while I was pushing it down the back fo the dash (it's beyond the windscreen vents so not blocking or interfering with those) wouldn't tug on the display.

Connection to the phone is very simple. After doing the initial connection via Bluetooth, the screen then sets up the CarPlay connection using Wi-Fi. Audio options are to either use the built in speakers on the CarPlay display (I wouldn't), connect the CarPlay display to the 3.5mm input socket on the Amundsen using the supplied 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable (too messy, can't hide the cable) or - and this is the option I went for - allow your phone to connect to the car's own bluetooth as normal, and connect to the CarPlay screen for display only. This works really well. While you still get full CarPlay control on the new display (including calls control), all the sound, as well as track data and caller data, goes to the Amundsen. You can see in the pic above that I've got Waze running on the CarPlay display, but the audio (and track info) from Apple Music are going via the Amundsen (but controllable from both the CarPlay screen as well as the Amundsen screen.

And as mentioned earlier, on the back of the display is a 4k Dashcam (whether it really is 4K remains to be proven, but the camera output is clear and sharp, and copes well with low light. The height and angle of the camera can be adjusted independently of the angle of the screen. It also came supplied with a 64GB MicroSD card. A 1080P wired rear/reversing camera is also included. I decided not to fit this, but have kept it in case I change my mind in the future.

Anyway - all in all - I highly recommend these screens if you want to add modern CarPlay/Android Auto capabilities to your Fabia, but don't want to do a full head unit replacement. The one I purchased (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DHSDG63B) has now gone back up to £90 (£130 with a £40 discount voucher on the page. Worth keeping an eye on it (or shopping around on Amazon, eBay, AliExpress etc. for alternative models) in case it comes down again, as things often do on Amazon.