One Car Stereo Ai Box Lite Review: This Lets You Watch Netflix In Your Car!
Retail Price: $179
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Disclaimer: One Car Stereo sent us a unit of the Ai Box Lite free of charge to review, but all thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are our own and were not discussed with the company prior to publishing.
Apple CarPlay is a nifty life hack for cars with terrible infotainment systems. Let’s be honest, most cars still have you operating the system in the same manner as a car from the early 2010’s. Sure the icons and transition animations may look cleaner now, but aside from Tesla and a handful of other carmakers, you’re really just looking at the same thing your previous cars have done for the last 20 years.
While I’m not a huge user of entertainment apps on cars like Netflix and Youtube, I do think it’s awesome that the capability is there on Teslas. And while I personally don’t watch stuff in my car much, I can see why others adore that capability. What if you could enjoy the same entertainment benefits that the Tesla Toy Box has on any car? A company called One Car Stereo reached out to us with the Ai Box Lite in hopes of showing us that it’s quite possible to enjoy Netflix on your Toyota Camry infotainment system.
Plugging In
So how exactly can you get a Netflix app working on a car's infotainment display? The prerequisite needed is wired Apple CarPlay and what we discovered also requires a display with a horizontal orientation. Keep in mind, it requires wired CarPlay and does not work with cars that only use wireless. When you plug the Ai Box Lite instead of plugging an iPhone into the car, the car’s infotainment system will recognize it as a CarPlay interface. The irony behind this is that the Ai Box is an Android machine running on Android 10, while masquerading as an iPhone for the car. Yes, you can run Apple CarPlay off of the One Car Android box in a weird paradoxical manner. If you have an Android phone, it will automatically redirect you to an Android Auto interface instead. There’s an included USB-C cable that can be plugged into the car through either USB-C or A with an adapter.
Interestingly enough, the device also has another USB-A port that you can use to plug a thumb drive with media files to view on a video player. That does offer a bit of versatility as you can essentially watch and listen to your entire library of media content from a drive. The built-in music and video player are basic in function, but they do work.
The Ai Box Lite gives your car access to Netflix
New Infotainment
After initial setup, a four pillar menu appears on the infotainment screen. I set up the Wi-Fi first by connecting it to my smartphone through a mobile hotspot. Once the box is connected to some sort of internet access, you can navigate the four pillars which then sends you to standard CarPlay, Netflix, and an Exit button back to the vanilla car interface. Those are pretty self-explanatory of where they lead you to.
Naturally, testing out video capabilities like Netflix and Youtube was the first thing I went to. Youtube needed to be updated through the Google Play Store which was slightly tricky than it sounds as you can’t access the Play Store natively on this system. After I did get it to update, Youtube actually worked as advertised. Videos take a few extra seconds to buffer on the screen, but they playback perfectly fine once it gets going.
The same can be said about Netflix. I didn’t really know what to expect going into this review, but I found myself pleasantly surprised that it actually works. I never imagined I would watch a Netflix show on a Toyota Camry’s infotainment screen. The navigation of the interface relies on touchscreen interaction with a floating/overlaying home and back button. This button does help offset the sometimes clunky navigation of what I assume is a lower-end processor powering through Android. That’s usually not a fun combination to work with as a consumer. I have a bit more tolerance for performance because of the location Android is operating here. The box does run hot after about 5-10 minutes. I haven’t noticed throttling when it gets warmer.
Audio actually pushes straight through to your car’s stereo system without delay. Adjusting your volume knob will increase or decrease the audio being played from the box’s transmission to CarPlay. I like that there isn’t any audio latency and that the moving images sync with the noise. It sounds rudimentary, but that isn’t a given sometimes with these setups.
What Works?
We borrowed my Aunt’s Toyota Camry to film this because we did not have a car that was compatible with the Ai Box Lite. I tried the box on our Polestar 2 earlier and unfortunately it was unusable. To go into detail, while the box technically does work and is properly displayed instead of Apple CarPlay, the menu and interface was inoperable due to the orientation of the display. The Polestar 2 has a squarish aspect ratio that you can classify as a vertically oriented screen. The Ai Box Lite only configures the touch screen controls to a horizontal landscape. It doesn’t adapt to the display choice that it’s plugged into. This makes using the on-screen QWERTY keyboard impossible as rows and columns of input do not align. So ultimately if your car has a vertically oriented screen, this isn’t the right set up for you.
Final Thoughts
While this is all fascinating, I want to disclaim that I don’t encourage anybody driving to divert their attention by watching videos. I know how frustrating sitting in traffic can be, but the safety of others and yourself should be paramount. There’s a setting that can be enabled that prevents videos from playing while driving. Unfortunately, that isn’t toggled on by default. It really should be. Unlike Tesla’s locked Theater, and Toybox modes in park position, this One Car Stereo box does give you a choice. Be smart.
At the end of the day, One Car Stereo delivers exactly what it advertises it’s selling. This box allows you to watch videos on your car’s infotainment system. It gets you a little bit of the Tesla experience on your existing car for only $179. If you have to entertain children during downtime on trips, or often find yourself sitting in parking lots waiting to pick someone up, I can see why this would be an attractive purchase.
Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!