2014-2019 Toyota Tacoma Hamilton Upgrade Kit for CarPlay® and Android Auto™

I bought this as a belated Father's Day present to myself, hoping to breathe new life into my 2015 Tacoma. As I am located near Raleigh I probably could have gone and picked up the unit myself in person, but I ordered on a Thursday & had the unit in hand on Friday via UPS. The unit itself is beautifully engineered - it’s a shame really that such a beautiful piece of kit will be forever hidden from view. Installation took a few hours & was not nearly as easy as Hamilton’s videos make it look. I attribute that partially to my big hands & worsening eyesight; also partially to the fact that in my 2015 model the procedure to remove the head unit is slightly more involved from that which is depicted in the otherwise excellent videos. Using the videos as a baseline I was able to apply some engineering common sense to deduct how I had to modify the procedures from the videos to fit my particular circumstances. After getting everything back together I’m thrilled with the purchase. I ran some errands around town to put it through its paces. It’s useful that the Hamilton config screen allows you to adjust the phone volume independently from the audio volume as I found that was definitely required. I’m looking forward to seeing what other products you all come up with in the future! A few minor quibbles: 1) the whole “temporarily tape the units together” thing was hokey. I understand that with the design of the Hamilton unit once the head unit is re-attached to the mounting brackets that everything will be secure…but still that seemed chintzy. I would have preferred to have the Hamilton unit also attached to the mounting brackets in the same way that the satellite radio was. 2) I wish the cable for the bluetooth/wifi antenna was longer. I mounted the antenna on the underside of the dash using the provided double-sided adhesive. Unfortunately doing so almost did not leave me enough length on the cable to attach it to the unit. I ended up needing to hold the whole assembly very close to the final installed position, balancing it precariously in one hand, while fumbling around trying to connect the antenna with the other. Not fun. Please make the cable longer. 3) I wish that you made or sold accessories to go along with your product. In this particular case I’m referring to a USB passthrough that can be used in place of one of the blanking plates below the climate controls. I found one on Amazon that I think will work but it would be nice to know that you all have already tested such things. As I said, these are minor complaints. Very happy with the unit and looking forward to getting many years of use from it!

I feel the 2014-2019 Toyota Tacoma Hamilton Upgrade Kit for CarPlay was one of my best purchases this year. It breathes new life into my 2014 Taco. The installation videos were very accurate and it went in and worked the first time. I opted to deinstall my factory Sirius package , but I lose no functionality because I still have Sirius from my iPhone app. Gaining a graphic equalizer was an unexpected benefit that makes my OEM speakers sound great. It was a bit intimidating removing so many cables, and installing two internal ribbon cables, but so worth it to retain factory cabin microphone, steering wheel controls, radio head screen, and factory reverse camera. I am an experienced electronics technician and would rate the DIY difficulty level a 6 out of 10. I took my time and found the removal of radio head to be about 45 minutes. (Took plenty of pictures) The upgrade install to be about an hour. The reinstallation took 30 minutes. I hesitated to spend so much on the upgrade, but less expensive radio head replacement CarPlay solutions all seemed like compromising. (Loss of steering wheel controls, or cheap sounding microphones, backup camera attached to license plate, etc.) What sold me was the 3 year warranty, North Carolina based support, and the ability to perform a firmware update via USB port should some future IOS update require it.

Had some significant wiring issues at first, but customer service helped me solve them. Then once everything was actually working, I experienced some disappointing connectivity drops, so I moved the wifi antennae from inside the dash to right on top of it. However the cable was not quite long enough to do this comfortably or make it look clean. Helped with the connection issues to my phone, but man I hate the way it looks. Otherwise I am really impressed with the responsiveness of the unit interface. Really brings my 2016 Tacoma up to the modern age.