Toyota to offer retrofit to CarPlay & Amazon Alexa in 2018 Camry and Sienna

[Shaddow44]

Reportedly Toyota will start notifying owners of 2018 Camrys and Siennas that a retrofit is available to add the Apple and Amazon features to headunits in these vehicles.

Toyota Offers Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa Retrofit for 2018 Camry and Sienna

Hopefully this comes down to other models as well or is available even though it isn't being advertised.

Entune is all but useless and is deprecated more and more every day. The only updates that I have done to my 2018 T4R were to remove features and apps that were no longer functional.

 

[sn_85]

Reportedly Toyota will start notifying owners of 2018 Camrys and Siennas that a retrofit is available to add the Apple and Amazon features to headunits in these vehicles.

Toyota Offers Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa Retrofit for 2018 Camry and Sienna

Hopefully this comes down to other models as well or is available even though it isn't being advertised.

Entune is all but useless and is deprecated more and more every day. The only updates that I have done to my 2018 T4R were to remove features and apps that were no longer functional.

Fingers crossed, one can only hope. I'm not willing to bet on it though. The Camry and Sienna's are big movers and the mommies of the world probably demanded it. Not sure if Toyota cares enough about it's aging truck/suv dept to provide a retrofit kit. But I hope I'm wrong!!!

 

[Shaddow44]

Fingers crossed, one can only hope. I'm not willing to bet on it though. The Camry and Sienna's are big movers and the mommies of the world probably demanded it. Not sure if Toyota cares enough about it's aging truck/suv dept to provide a retrofit kit. But I hope I'm wrong!!!

Totally agree. I'm not holding my breath, but I'd like to be proved wrong. At least with Toyota doing something officially on some models, there may be light at the end of the tunnel in the way of an unofficial work around for the rest of us savages.

 

[jrandom]

I wish it would trickle down to a 2013... but laughable. If it did, costly I am sure.

Car manufacturers really need to learn a lesson on software maintenance and delivery. Two years after my truck was new.. Entune updates faded away, truck was still under factory warranty. I mean seriously, c'mon. Still waiting for some ambitious person to hack this thing and rewrite it, I'd jailbreak this headunit in a New York minute.

 

[VancouverRunner]

Toyota sold 139k 4Runners vs 87k Siennas.

I'm willing to bet their return on investing would be much higher since we're the types to upgrade vs minivan owners. Hopefully toyota has something for us.

 

[jthoms1]

I’ve owned three 4Runners....two of them 5th Gens with entune. One of the greatest upgrades I’ve ever done...replacing the head unit. Just get rid of it and move to an Alpine or Kenwood and stop worrying about Toyota fixing the stock head unit. Metra has an excellent replacement installation kit that looks stock. I have little confidence the company that came up with entune could issue an acceptable update. Tech is not their forte. Just a little wisdom from someone who’s been there and done that.

 

[JAXJeremy]

saw something about this pop up in my google feed this morning..got excited before I realized it was for the Sienna and Camry..once again, no joy for the 4Runner...bought my 4r in August of last year and while the headunit is tolerable, it's high on my list of upgrades..

 

[bbermann]

When I read the headline I assumed it would be the cost of a new head unit and labor-like $3K, right?

Reading the article, Toyota said there will be a "nominal fee". Nominal fee? I'm all in and going to let Toyota customer service know. Bring it!

 

[csommers]

Really hoping they end up offering this for the 4Runner. Otherwise I'll probably end up going the new head unit route.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

I won't hold my breath :madgrin:

 

[Jetboy]

I'd bet that "retrofit" in this case means software update. That's why it's basically free. It shouldn't be rocket science to have a software update to add it to our head units if Toyota wanted to.

 

[Gecko]

The common thread there is that the Camry and Sienna have Entune 3.0, and our 4Runners are running a much older version of the software. I can't even find the software version - Toyota just calles it "entune" with no version associated.

With that said, I wouldn't hold my breath for a retrofit.

 

[Michael-Dallas]

I encourage everybody to send Toyota NA an email expressing interest in a retrofit or upgrade option for Apple Carplay/Android Auto. If they receive overwhelming interest, then perhaps they will invest in the time and dedicate the resources to making it happen.

 

[CO-Cygnus]

The common thread there is that the Camry and Sienna have Entune 3.0, and our 4Runners are running a much older version of the software. I can't even find the software version - Toyota just calles it "entune" with no version associated.

With that said, I wouldn't hold my breath for a retrofit.

Hopefully the 2020 8" Carplay unit and bezel can be refit in to the older 5th Gens. Far more expensive than a software update but cheaper than a new truck.

 

[r1verf3nix]

We won't see anything on the 4R, Toyota knows they can just play with our hearts and we will still line up for another round, or just mod it ourselves.