T6.1 California Ocean Internet Woes

[RosscoPCole]

In our new Cali Ocean put in our WiFi dongle to watch movies etc, on long journeys. But when my wife sits in the back her phone continues to be connected to the Cali WiFi for Apple CarPlay and not the separate WiFi dongle.
Any ideas?
We then asked the Cali to forget her phone, which it did, but now when we tried to reconnect it Apple CarPlay won't work. Arrrgh!?
Is there a simple way of having a separate Internet system and your phone not getting confused?

 

[CJW]

Mobile WiFi hotspots work by using a cellular data connection, does your wife’s phone not already have cellular data? IPhones are capable of joining a WiFi and cellular data connection simultaneously, but not two Wi-Fi connections, as far as I’m aware.

I can’t see that bridging (the normal solution) would work in this instance. I may be wrong.

 

[willgr]

In our new Cali Ocean put in our WiFi dongle to watch movies etc, on long journeys. But when my wife sits in the back her phone continues to be connected to the Cali WiFi for Apple CarPlay and not the separate WiFi dongle.
Any ideas?
We then asked the Cali to forget her phone, which it did, but now when we tried to reconnect it Apple CarPlay won't work. Arrrgh!?
Is there a simple way of having a separate Internet system and your phone not getting confused?

I feel your pain! The only way I’ve managed to get around this is by toggling the “auto-join” setting in the iPhone wi-fi settings.

When your wife wants to use any other Wi-Fi network and she’s in range of the van, go into settings -> Wi-Fi -> MyVWxxxx (on her phone) and then deselect “auto-join”.
She should then be able to use the other network without the phone constantly switching back to CarPlay.

As to why CarPlay doesn’t work now… I’m not sure. I’d suggest forgetting the MyVW network and starting the pairing process again from scratch.

 

[roadtripper]

Both Android Auto and Apple Car Play work by using WiFi to create a high bandwidth wireless connection - Bluetooth isn't enough for video.

So what's happening is the phone is connecting to Bluetooth, then when the phone and head unit realise they are set up for Car Play the WiFi switches to the head unit AP to do this point to point.

I have similar issues as I need my main Android to not use it's mobile data (it's work's) and sadly it doesn't seem to bridge across to the vans built in 4G.

If you put your phone into airplane mode first (turning off all the radios) and then enable WiFi and ONLY WiFi to connect to your hub I expect it will do what you want.

 

[roadtripper]

As to how to reset Car Play I've not done it on Apple but I'd suggest making sure you clear both the WiFi and Bluetooth connections to your van on the phone and clear the head unit and start fresh.