New Alpine iLX-107 System Offers Wireless Apple CarPlay

Ditch the cord forever: New Alpine iLX-107 uses Wi-Fi connection to connect with Apple services sans pesky USB cables.

One of the major drawbacks to Apple CarPlay is the tethering. Unfortunately, if you want to use CarPlay in your vehicle, you have to use a USB cord to connect your iPhone to your infotainment system. For many users, this is a cumbersome setup. The last thing you want in your car is your phone connected to a long cord that can be misplaced, tangled, or eventually broken. Well, fear not CarPlay users, Alpine have fixed that problem with their new iLX-107.

Catchy name aside, the iLX-107 is a pretty capable piece of technology for your vehicle. The unit comes with a 7-inch touchscreen that displays all the infotainment goodness that you’ve come to expect from modern vehicles, but with a twist – wireless CarPlay. That’s right, using a 5.0 gigahertz Wi-Fi connection, your phone needs no cords to be fully connected to the Apple service. After the initial set-up, like with a Bluetooth connection, your car will automatically recognize your phone when you enter the vehicle and set you up with CarPlay’s features.

Now, another useful part of a modern infotainment system are the vehicle monitoring features. With the iLX-107, you can hook up the unit to your car’s internals so that it displays various bits of info that you would see with a manufacturer’s own built-in system.

This level of technology, and the convenience it brings, comes at a price, however. The Alpine iLX-107 starts at $900. While that may seem a bit steep for most people, the idea is that you can install this in an older, less advanced car, and suddenly have all the 2017 technology at your fingertips. And for those who hate the tethered CarPlay system, this might be a worthy upgrade just to avoid having a stupid USB cable ready at all times.