vmarks

entropys said:

How is the second and third phone etc  BT communications while the first iPhone is being use data for CarPlay?
does the second and third iPhone BT a call?

Second and Third phones do not use BT while first iPhone is used for CarPlay. CarPlay has no call handling function for more than one phone, and Alpine uses BT to initiate the pairing for wireless CarPlay and then shuts off the BT communications as soon as it's established. Unlike other radios that do multiple phones for calls at a time, Alpine's CarPlay unit doesn't pair with multiple phones for calling at the same time.

polymnia said:

beowulfschmidt said:

Can it use the microphone my car already has installed, I wonder?

Price is a little steep, but if I was buying a new car that just lacked car play, I could see it as an investment.

Price depends on what your alternatives are. 

Im trying to keep myself away from car dealerships right now. I have a paid off, reliable 2011 vehicle. Still, I keep drooling over many of the new vehicles and their tech. 

For the cost of a couple car payments, I could stave off my impulse to buy a new vehicle for another few years, hopefully. 

Maestro Datalink, which does support Alpine, says they can retain the built in mic. Alpine explicitly supports retaining factory USB and Sirius XM tuners through datalink. I'll ask with Alpine for clarification, but I suspect you might have to use Alpine's provided mic, because their interface doesn't show the mic under factory options.

djsherly said:

vmarks said:

djsherly said:

Yes, kind expensive but also a bit bummed that it doesn't have a rotary volume control. 

That would make the screen smaller. If you have steering wheel controls, make the screen as big as possible and forget the rotary volume knob.

Maybe I'm old school but I'd rather be able to reach for something tactile and use it, rather than have to look for and locate a button, taking concentration off the road. As it happens I replaced the unit in my VW with the RCD330 which has knobs (two in fact). It's something I prefer and I'm just expressing that view.

Then this isn't the unit for you. There are carplay units that have knobs, but they don't have wireless carplay, and they have smaller screens because the knobs take up space otherwise given to the display size. I do like a larger screen and using steering wheel controls.

mr lizard said:

rogifan_new said:

jb510 said:

Wireless charging could mean dropping the lighting port.... and bringing back the audio jack right?

And if you need to transfer data via iTunes or choose to update your software that way you do what?

For the small number of people still connecting their iPhones to a computer, there’s iTunes WiFi sync which has been around for years. 

Alternatively, we might see the introduction of the smart connector currently used in the iPad Pro models. 

Both would be slower than Lightning, but Apple’s not going to keep a port around for a small percentage of customers that still use it. 

And the poster who suggested the headphone jack might be coming back... I’m assuming that was a joke. 

DFU mode when you need to restore a device with failed firmware on it will not happen over Wi-Fi Sync. There's no substitute for a physical connection.

sammiestacks said:

No idea what this reviewer was doing to kill all those batteries. I have replaced mine once in five months, which I thought was pretty good. 

Installing was easy, let’s not complain about the length of the fabric covered cable because it was plenty long. Sounds like someone needs some practice with projects around the home. 

I tried the Schlage and August smart locks before the Premis, both were far worse in quality and function. 

This article doesn’t seem to have all the facts to be publishing such a harsh review. 

djsherly said:

Review talks about alarming rate of battery usage but does not quantify. Given that's a primary beef with the product it seems it would be pertinent to provide such info. 

jayword said:

YMMV I switched to Kwikset Premis a month or so ago from Schlage Sense because the Schlage Sense ate at least 5 sets of batteries in a month. By the end after Schlage replaced it with a new unit to try to correct the issue, the new one ate battery sets in < 2 days.

Needless to say, I'm on battery set 1 with Premis still, and the battery readout says 85% so I'm not concerned.

I can't surmise what caused the reviewer's issue, but I would say my overall experience (even excluding battery) was significantly better with Premis than Sense. That may be influenced as well by the fact every other lock in my house is Kwikset so it was nice to have an easily keyed lock to everything else, and it matches perfectly. I strongly recommend Premis at 4 stars and Sense at 2 stars due to the same battery issue. But even without that, the Sense would have been 3 stars.

Battery issues will ruin a product for anyone. I got less than 1.5 months out of batteries in Premis.

 There are some dumb design decisions in Premis: the three screws required to change batteries is dumb. The gloss touch panel that has to be overcome with random numbers to keep it secure from fingerprint observation is pretty, but dumb, especially when the response is laggy. The short fabric jacketed cable is dumb, especially since it was so much easier to install Kevo, Schlage Sense, and three other Kwikset locks I've had on the door (you can see the damage to the door in the photographs - there are many unused mounting holes from other locks that I need to weld/bondo, then sand and paint.

The best of all of these for the cable connecting front to back is an old Kwikset number panel lock I have that used an FPCB flex cable.

Schlage Sense also wasn't perfect - they had to replace one for me around the iOS9 to iOS10 transition, because it saw there was a firmware update on the server, but crashed on installing it every time. Neither of the two Schlage units chewed through battery. If they had, they would have gotten a bad review, too.

The Schlage at our other editor's, Neil Hughes' house, works well for him, too. Schlage places the HomeKit sticker on the face of the lock that goes into the door. By the time you're ready to scan the 8 digit HomeKit code, the lock is installed and the sticker is concealed. You have to use the sticker on the instruction manual, but if you have to reset your HomeKit network you have to dig out the manual or take apart the door.

As far as my home repair cred goes, I've replaced all the plumbing in this house. It was PB with PB fittings, and is now PEX with brass fittings. I've replaced outlets and switches, and added circuits for more outlets and switches. I've run RG-6 to every room, and have a spool of CAT6 for when I got motivated to run it and push-down jacks for wallplates. I've changed the clutch and brake and drain pump on clotheswashers, replaced solenoids, and I've repaired the wiring harness in clotheswashers (broken wires in plastic connectors from the stress of the basin braking after spin cycle.) I've installed lord only knows how many locks, and deadbolts.

On the front door shown in the picture, the deadbolt was initially too close to the handleset and it wouldn't take some of the bigger keypad locks, they physically conflicted with the handleset. I spot welded in halfmoon shapes and used a hole saw to move the deadbolt hole further up the door. I filled the door with expanding foam, newspaper, and fiberglass filler'd over the patch. I replaced wood in the door frame to accomodate the new bolt position.

I need to take the door off and patch some of the mounting holes left over from other locks and sand the filler off again. Automotively, I just redid the AC on one of the cars, replacing compressor, condenser, receiver drier, flushed lines, vacuumed and charged them.

I can handle installing a door lock, even when the nicely jacketed fabric cable is too short to make it convenient.

 Things Premis gets wrong, even if you ignore the battery life: Screws to hold the battery enclosure on, including the third screw directly above the handleset. Come on. You know in the best of worlds that there are two battery changes a year, and you're going to require a stubby screwdriver, instead of any old long handled one the homeowner has around? Why is that third screw even necessary to hold on a decorative cover?

 The installation PDF is loaded from the cloud, and the second page didn't load. This should have been downloaded as a part of the app, and the PDF should have been formatted for mobile - it wasn't. Pinch and zoom is not a suitable answer. The glossy screen is pretty, but it's also stupid, in that you now have to put in two random numbers to overcome people guessing codes via fingerprint smudges. Additional points taken away for the input being laggy on this. The battery issue killed it, and had the family begging to put Schlage back on the door.