Inspired by @darrenwyatt's idea for creating a shortcut to resolve CarPlay audio connections, I decided to dig a little further and make an improvement I wanted to share.
So far for me, this workaround has worked perfectly. I've been running it for over a week, and now whenever I get back into the car and CarPlay connects, I get audio. If you're having this issue where CarPlay often chooses Lucid-XXXX as your output instead of the CarPlay audio output, this will save you the trouble of having to go to your control center and swapping the output manually, or turning off Bluetooth, or whatever other voodoo you are currently doing whenever this annoying bug hits you.
Hopefully this will work just as well for you.
The difference between my workaround and @darrenwyatt's is that rather than turning off Bluetooth whenever I get into the car and connect CarPlay, I'm instead instructing the car to switch the playback source to CarPlay. No need to turn off Bluetooth and lose connection to all my other Bluetooth devices.
Here's what you need to do:
(Note, you'll need to be in your car with CarPlay connected to set this up. Otherwise, the CarPlay audio source won't be available as an option. That's also why I can't simply share the shortcut with you. It won't work unless you set it up yourself with your car connected.)
Go to the Shortcuts app and create a new shortcut.
For your first action, create a 5-second delay. I'm not sure this is needed, but I figured it was worth a pause to make sure the CarPlay connection is complete. Skip this step if you like and let me know if it still works.
For the second action, choose playback destination and set it to CarPlay. This is where the magic happens. Basically, it forces audio to go through the CarPlay source instead of whatever other source the system may have poorly chosen.
Save the shortcut with whatever name you want.
Next, go to the Automations tab and create a new automation.
Have the automation occur When CarPlay connects. Be sure to set it to run immediately, no notification, no need to confirm. Otherwise, it won't run, it'll just prompt you to tap it to run on your phone.
Select the CarPlay shortcut you created above as the thing to "Do".
Now, whenever you phone connects to CarPlay, the phone will wait a few seconds, then it will be sure to set the playback destination to CarPlay. This will run automatically, so no interactions needed on your part. No need to have it do anything when you disconnect, since your phone will simply go back to its internal source as soon as CarPlay disconnects.
If the car has already selected CarPlay, the shortcut will have no adverse effect. If the car has improperly selected the Lucid-xxxx source, it will switch over to a proper CarPlay audio output. Problem solved.
And before anyone turns this into another "Lucid needs to fix this" thread, yes, I agree. This should not be necessary. But as a wise forum moderator (@Bobby) once said, I'd rather fix a thing myself if I can than complain about it endlessly.
With any luck, Lucid will eventually make this workaround unnecessary. But in the meantime, this is one more pain point I've managed to eliminate from my life completely for five minutes of work. I call that a win.
So far for me, this workaround has worked perfectly. I've been running it for over a week, and now whenever I get back into the car and CarPlay connects, I get audio. If you're having this issue where CarPlay often chooses Lucid-XXXX as your output instead of the CarPlay audio output, this will save you the trouble of having to go to your control center and swapping the output manually, or turning off Bluetooth, or whatever other voodoo you are currently doing whenever this annoying bug hits you.
Hopefully this will work just as well for you.
The difference between my workaround and @darrenwyatt's is that rather than turning off Bluetooth whenever I get into the car and connect CarPlay, I'm instead instructing the car to switch the playback source to CarPlay. No need to turn off Bluetooth and lose connection to all my other Bluetooth devices.
Here's what you need to do:
(Note, you'll need to be in your car with CarPlay connected to set this up. Otherwise, the CarPlay audio source won't be available as an option. That's also why I can't simply share the shortcut with you. It won't work unless you set it up yourself with your car connected.)
Go to the Shortcuts app and create a new shortcut.
For your first action, create a 5-second delay. I'm not sure this is needed, but I figured it was worth a pause to make sure the CarPlay connection is complete. Skip this step if you like and let me know if it still works.
For the second action, choose playback destination and set it to CarPlay. This is where the magic happens. Basically, it forces audio to go through the CarPlay source instead of whatever other source the system may have poorly chosen.
Save the shortcut with whatever name you want.
Next, go to the Automations tab and create a new automation.
Have the automation occur When CarPlay connects. Be sure to set it to run immediately, no notification, no need to confirm. Otherwise, it won't run, it'll just prompt you to tap it to run on your phone.
Select the CarPlay shortcut you created above as the thing to "Do".
Now, whenever you phone connects to CarPlay, the phone will wait a few seconds, then it will be sure to set the playback destination to CarPlay. This will run automatically, so no interactions needed on your part. No need to have it do anything when you disconnect, since your phone will simply go back to its internal source as soon as CarPlay disconnects.
If the car has already selected CarPlay, the shortcut will have no adverse effect. If the car has improperly selected the Lucid-xxxx source, it will switch over to a proper CarPlay audio output. Problem solved.
And before anyone turns this into another "Lucid needs to fix this" thread, yes, I agree. This should not be necessary. But as a wise forum moderator (@Bobby) once said, I'd rather fix a thing myself if I can than complain about it endlessly.
With any luck, Lucid will eventually make this workaround unnecessary. But in the meantime, this is one more pain point I've managed to eliminate from my life completely for five minutes of work. I call that a win.
