CarPlay Is there a way to rename vehicles on iPhone in Carplay settings?

[dmk1974]

My household has 3 cars that all have CarPlay. Nice and slick that I can plug my iPhone into any of them. However, the icons are all different on each. And when I go into the CarPlay settings on my iPhone, I can't tell which car is which. All 3 cars are Honda's (different models and years) and all it says in the iPhone settings for each is HONDA.

I know in the bluetooth settings, I am indeed able to rename each car, but all 3 of our CarPlay interfaces are USB wired. Is there some trick or place that I can rename each vehicle so I know which is which specifically in the CarPlay settings? Thanks!

 

[AZhappyjack]

My household has 3 cars that all have CarPlay. Nice and slick that I can plug my iPhone into any of them. However, the icons are all different on each. And when I go into the CarPlay settings on my iPhone, I can't tell which car is which. All 3 cars are Honda's (different models and years) and all it says in the iPhone settings for each is HONDA.

I know in the bluetooth settings, I am indeed able to rename each car, but all 3 of our CarPlay interfaces are USB wired. Is there some trick or place that I can rename each vehicle so I know which is which specifically in the CarPlay settings? Thanks!

Unfortunately not yet. I've been asking for that for several years - my wife has a Ford Edge and I have a Ford Ranger... both have SYNC3 and. show up as SYNC... she recently traded her 2017 Edge for a 2022 Edge with SYNC4, so we can tell them apart... and other auto makers have other names for their systems... but you get what they give you... no way to rename them yet.

 

[Itinj24]

I don’t remember how I was able to do this but I did at one point. Now I can’t do it anymore. My wife’s car is an X6 on top and mine is the M340i. I was able to add the custom name.

 

[AZhappyjack]

I don’t remember how I was able to do this but I did at one point. Now I can’t do it anymore. My wife’s car is an X6 on top and mine is the M340i. I was able to add the custom name.

View attachment 2278815

sweet... want to know what you did, and how to repeat it...

I know that on the Mac I can rename my BT accessories (mouse, keyboard, headphones, etc)... wonder if it's related to that... but on my phone., my Ford Ranger is listed there as "Ford Ranger" which is different from what CarPlay reports...

so, I am very interested.

 

[Itinj24]

sweet... want to know what you did, and how to repeat it...

I know that on the Mac I can rename my BT accessories (mouse, keyboard, headphones, etc)... wonder if it's related to that... but on my phone., my Ford Ranger is listed there as "Ford Ranger" which is different from what CarPlay reports...

so, I am very interested.

Wish I remembered but I’ll do some more digging and see if I can refresh my memory. I want to say that it was something I changed with my BMW infotainment system and not something I did with the iPhone. It used say BMW 99348. They are also both wireless CarPlay so not sure if that has something to do with it.

I tried to change the top one (BMW 32257) to say BMW X6 but I recall not being able to. We got that car a few months later.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Wish I remembered but I’ll do some more digging and see if I can refresh my memory. I want to say that it was something I changed with my BMW infotainment system and not something I did with the iPhone. It used say BMW 99348. They are also both wireless CarPlay so not sure if that has something to do with it.

I tried to change the top one (BMW 32257) to say BMW X6 but I recall not being able to. We got that car a few months later.

Thanks... gonna keep digging, now that I know that it is possible.

 

[Itinj24]

Would be nice if you can also copy the arrangement of the apps from one car to another. Not a huge deal but convenient, kinda like you can do with the AppleTV (One Home Screen)

 

[AZhappyjack]

Would be nice if you can also copy the arrangement of the apps from one car to another. Not a huge deal but convenient, kinda like you can do with the AppleTV (One Home Screen)

Agreed... that would be awesome... it's not a difficult task to make the changes multiple times to make the arrangements match, but it's tedious... screen prints of the different pages helps, but still a bit of a PITA.

 

[Itinj24]

Ok, so I figured out how I got this to work while setting up my new car yesterday.

Changing the name of the Bluetooth in the car’s settings is what changed it in the iPhone CarPlay settings.

Just a heads up, these are both BMW’s and both on wireless CarPlay so I can’t answer for any other auto manufacturer or wired CarPlay, but it’s worth a shot. My guess is it should work since the CarPlay name is Apparently assigned by the car and not the iPhone. This is completely independent from the name in the iPhones Bluetooth settings. I can change them so they are both different.

I’m Jon and my wife is Dee. The way I named them in the car’s Bluetooth settings is exactly as it appears in the screen shot below. They both used to say BMW XXXXX (where the X’s represent a numeric digit).