Review: Twelve South Airfly Drive
As many of you know, I have a 2016 Hyundai Tucson. And my wife and I have been on the Apple CarPlay bandwagon for a while. In fact, if we were to replace the Tucson with an EV which is the likely choice, we would not consider a non Apple CarPlay vehicle. Recently we’ve jumped onto the wireless CarPlay train as the use case is mostly compelling. I will get to the “mostly” part in a second. But that train that I spoke of starts with this device:
Meet the Twelve South Airfly Drive. This is a super tiny USB based add on that turns wired Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to wireless. Did I mention it was super tiny? It is so tiny that it in the Tucson blends in with its surroundings and is hardly noticeable as evidenced by this picture:
Look for the blue dot or the words “Airfly Drive” and you will see it. That’s a win as most devices of this type tend not to be this small and/or tend not to blend in to their surroundings as much as possible. The only catch might be that there’s a USB-A to USB-C adapter in the box as the device is natively USB-A. That adapter may make it stick out which takes away from its ability to blend with its surroundings. Thus my advice is that if you can use of USB-A, you should do it.
Oh yeah, there’s a white version if you have a white interior. Or you want it to stand out for whatever reason.
The Airfly Drive is made of plastic and aluminium. And that is likely functional as the device gets warm to the touch. The aluminium is clearly there to dissipate the heat making the Airfly Drive less warm. The way it works is that it broadcasts a Bluetooth and WiFi channel to get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to work. And the workflow goes like this:
- You plug in the Airfly Drive into the USB port and turn on the car.
- You open your phone and choose Bluetooth and pick the Airfly option inside of Bluetooth.
- You walk through the options to enable Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
- The Airfly Drive then moves all communication to the WiFi channel for speed.
- Either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto pops up or you have to navigate to it.
- Done. Declare victory and have a beer. Well maybe not a beer as driving is involved.
There’s also a less detailed series of pictograms displayed on the infotainment screen that will walk you through some of this as well.
The Airfly Drive supports two phones. So to get the second phone live you hit the button on the front of the Airfly Drive and repeat the above process. You only have to do it once and at most, you have to hit the button on the front of the Airfly Drive to get yourself connected.
The device works well as I was at best able to just get into the Tucson and CarPlay was live in two minutes or less which was the same as having things wired. At worst, I would have to hit a button on the Airfly Drive first to get my phone online. But either was I was live. Navigation was mostly fluid and mostly smooth. I say that because there is a tiny bit of lag in this setup versus a wired connection. I noticed the same thing during a voice conversation via Zoom where I quickly had to adapt to a bit of a lag between myself and the other party. That’s because wired anything beats wireless anything every time from a lag perspective. Having said that, most people may not notice this lag depending on their use case.
That was a third of the “mostly” part that I experienced. The send third of this was the fact that battery drain was a thing. In a 30km drive, I went from 100% battery life to 89% battery life using Apple Maps. But I should note that this battery drain was on an iPhone 14 Pro with 83% battery health which is going to be replaced. While your mileage may vary, I would suggest that you have the phone plugged in or go for wired Apple CarPlay or Android Auto if you do a road trip.
The final third of this was that the range appears to be limited. The Tucson is a compact SUV and CarPlay disconnected from the head unit when I stepped outside and walked about three feet away. Now that may be expected or that may be somewhat unexpected. I am not sure. But I thought I would point that out so that you know that this is the case.
All things considered the use case is compelling. You keep your phone in your pocket or purse, get into your car, start it and drive away once it connects to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. You keep your phone on your person and out of sight which has to make you safer in my opinion. Plus you are in and out of the car faster which also makes you safer I think. And it really cleans up the center console as there are no wires cluttering it. That’s a win for me.
The Twelve South Airfly Drive is $39 USD. If you want to go wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, this is the adapter to get as it does what it says and does it well.
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