Hello,
I just installed the Xanavi Apple CarPlay / Android Auto upgrade on our 2015 Murano, and all went perfectly. Below is a long post with details, contained in sections:
INSTALLATION
APPLE CARPLAY and ANDROID AUTO
CONCLUSIONS
INSTALLATION
First, I purchased the 32gb SD card for $7.78 USD, Amazon Prime:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GYG6T12?th=1
View attachment 56427
I went to the Xanavi Facebook Page…
Xanavi.net - tuning of the car multimedia navigation systems
…and clicked the link to contact Xanavi via Facebook Messenger, to initiate the transaction.
Xanavi's automatic reply was…
“Hello! Thank you for your message, we will reply to you asap during our business hours (Mon-Fri 11am-8pm UTC +3)
“Thanks
“Best regards, Xanavi
“We are also on WhatsApp
Vladislav Xanavi.net “
Time zones are a factor. Xanavi is in Estonia, so…
Pacific time + 10 hours
Eastern time + 7 hours
So, their business hours are…
Pacific time: 1:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Eastern time: 4:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Inside Xanavi’s business hours, the responses were very fast. The interval from my first message to them, until the installation was complete, was less than a day -- including my self-induced delays.
Xanavi's eventual reply to my Facebook Messenger message (later that same day) was:
“Hey
“
Pay Aleskei Savelev using PayPal.Me
“USD 300+6% PayPal fee
“320 USD
“SEND AS ITEM AND SERVICES!
“After the payment please send me the transaction ID and your email to send”
As others have noted, it felt a bit strange to send money to an individual in a foreign country on faith. Searching, I found no negative mentions – only good experiences reported in this forum and elsewhere. No worries about the "...xanarva" PayPal ID -- “
Narva” is a city in Estonia. I sent the funds.
The interval from my message to Xanavi containing the PayPal transaction ID and my e-mail address, and their e-mail back to me, was exactly five minutes. Their e-mail contained a PDF with very thorough instructions, and a link to a 20gb image file download from Google Drive.
One thing in the instructions’ title caught my eye right away: "Nissan Murano 3rd gen Z52 (2016-2018)" Our Murano is a 2015 model. I asked Xanavi to confirm that this upgrade will work on our car. They said it would -- that the “2016” was a typo.
I clicked on the download link in their e-mail, and a Google Drive window appeared. It was necessary to click on the very small download icon in top-right corner of the window. A warning appeared: “File too large to check for virus.” I clicked on "Download anyway," because my antivirus software would check the downloaded file. The download of the 20gb .img file from Google Drive took about five minutes over our moderately fast (800mbps) cable connection.
The instructions included methods of creating the SD card for both Mac and Windows. We only tried Windows. A link to a freeware image-file-burning Windows program was incorrect; but it was easy to figure out the correct URL, which was:
This freeware HDD Raw Copy utility duplicates almost any media and creates sector-by-sector images (raw or compressed) for restoration at a later time. Tool supports SATA, IDE, SAS, SCSI, SSD hard disk drives. Will also work with any USB and FIREWIRE external drive enclosures as well as SD, MMC...
hddguru.com
There are both a stand-alone "portable" program, and a Windows installation setup file.
HDDRawCopy1.10Portable.exe
HDDRawCopy1.10Setup.exe
I ran the stand-alone program, which was very straightforward and worked perfectly:
- Selected the downloaded .img file as "Source."
- Selected the SD card as "Target."
…Then, I burned the .img file to the SD card. It took approx 23 minutes, using my old USB 2.0 SD Card adapter. I believe it would go much faster with a newer USB 3.x adapter.
Now I had the SD card ready to install in the car. Note: Installation of this upgrade deletes all personal data in the Murano. That did not cause any problems for us.
I followed the detailed instructions, and all went exactly as described – completely automatically. After about ten to fifteen minutes of text-based batch-file-like copying activity on the Murano screen, a final screen appeared that contained the name of the “.dat” file that I needed to e-mail to Xanavi. I sent the e-mail and turned in for the night. When I woke up in the morning, Xanavi had replied with the “license file” needed to activate the system. (It is possible to drive the car before installing the license file, but the infotainment system will be inop.) The license file installed automatically upon insertion in the Murano’s SD slot, and installation was complete.
APPLE CARPLAY and ANDROID AUTO
We had no prior experience with either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. The following are initial impressions after only one day of experience with both. The two products are similar enough to give a basic overview of both here. All comments relate solely to the Apple and Google products, themselves, and not to the quality of the Xanavi upgrade product.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay both start immediately when a phone is plugged into the USB port; and stop immediately upon unplugging. When Android Auto or Apple CarPlay are on, all comm between the phone and the car is via USB, not Bluetooth. When the USB cable is unplugged, the phone connects to the native Murano infotainment system via Bluetooth, and all is exactly as it was before installation.
Both CarPlay and Android Auto take over the Murano sound system; so when they are on, any music will originate from the phone, be controlled via the Murano touch-screen, and be heard through the Murano sound system. To hear music from native Murano sources, it is necessary to stop CarPlay or Android Auto by unplugging the phone. Music can come from any phone music app. The SiriusXM streaming app sounded richer than the Murano's own SiriusXM receiver, to my ears. In all the music apps I tried, the song title and artist appear on the dash near the speedometer. Volume is controlled by the hardware volume knob, as before.
Both Android Auto and CarPlay have a persistent button on the bottom left of the screen, that we use a lot. It toggles between two or three views, depending on which app is active:
- App icons
- Three windows with map, music and next calendar item
- One app, full screen
It was easy to customize the arrangement of the app icons.
Google Maps and Waze in full-screen look and feel very well-integrated – “built-in.” The music volume automatically decreases during voice guidance. The voice guidance volume can be adjusted with the volume knob while it is active, giving us nice control of the music/voice volume mix.
CONCLUSIONS
My experience with Xanavi was 10 out of 10. As others have noted, their responses are fast, friendly and helpful.
Installation is not difficult if you are comfortable with following detailed instructions and manipulating files -- downloading, e-mailing, saving, copying, etc. If not, better to call your “computer friend.” There are roughly nine installation steps. The instructions are excellent, except for that one bad link, mentioned above and easily worked-around.
After installation, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of integration of both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Murano’s hardware. The overall “feel” is very “built-in” and both interfaces are intuitive. Having our phones on the car’s screen substantially improves the experience of driving the car.
The value provided is well worth the money, in my view. Recommended.
John Cutter
