Charging Jeep batteries affects WiFi connection

[KQL]

I’ve been struggling with intermittent WiFi connectivity issues on my iPhone when in rooms of the house that are close to the garage and finally traced it to the source. I’ve been charging my Jeep’s batteries using a NoCo charger: hood open, charger attached to positive and negative terminals due to cold weather and not driving much. Apparently in this mode, UConnect connects to my phone via Bluetooth and turns off my WiFi connection on the phone every few minutes. Not sure why this is, the Jeep doesn’t have native wireless CarPlay (which is known to kill your WiFi connection to your router, since WiFi is used for CarPlay). For the record I have a base 2022 with all manual options and the smaller screen in the Jeep. Disconnecting the charger and leaving the hood open stops this behavior, so it’s definitely something about the Jeep waking up every few minutes when being externally charged. Just thought I’d share this PSA in case anyone else has been experiencing similar symptoms. I do have an aftermarket wireless carplay adapter in the truck, but watching my BT connections as the WiFi goes dead, it’s the UConnect that switches from Not Connected to Connected, not the CarPlay adapter.

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[Jefe1018]

I was going to ask if you had a wireless CarPlay adapter. Unplug it, wireless CarPlay kills your WiFi as part of the voodoo it does to work with your radio.

 

[KQL]

Indeed this is what further testing is showing: my 3rd party wireless CarPlay adapter is showing in my BT device list as UConnect. Unplugged the adapter and so far WiFi is stable

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Indeed this is what further testing is showing: my 3rd party wireless CarPlay adapter is showing in my BT device list as UConnect. Unplugged the adapter and so far WiFi is stable

Yeah, there's no way uconnect will shut down wifi. Apple would not allow an app to have that sort of permission. The app for your adapter likely has that permission granted during installation.

At least on Android, you can go in and see what permissions any given app has (and tweak as you like)

 

[KQL]

It’s not quite an app issue. CarPlay connection initiates over BT, but then tells the phone to disconnect from any current WiFi because CarPlay needs to connect via WiFi to get enough bandwidth to do its thing.

 

[Wolf Island Diver]

I’ve been running wireless CarPlay with a Carplay2Air dongle since 2021. I would notice that while still connected to WiFi there would be a delay in CarPlay working. Sometimes my dongle would spin if I came out of a place where I had been connected to WiFi. They changed something in iOS16 and I started seeing warning messages on the phone that i need to disconnect from WiFi or turn WiFi on. I would also occasionally get a message about it needing finish setting up CarPlay. The whole handoff between being on WiFi and switching to wireless CarPlay got worse from ios16 until ios17. I haven’t noticed issues since then although IOS 17.x is a buggy mess IMHO. Apple software qa has been going downhill for years IMHO generally. Apple products seem to have WiFi issues going 20 years.

Currently my truck is plugged into a NOCO10 via a MagCode connector. I haven’t noticed this issue. My Unconnect doesn’t stay on. I haven’t checked the dongle but I will. It’s plugged into the USB-C dash port FWIW.

I did have an unrelated issue a few weeks ago where my Uconnect wouldn’t turn off and I had to pull a fuse. It wasn’t connected to a charger. This is a rare documented issue. Maybe you’re having a Uconnect issue.

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