Apple CarPlay

cloudby ALYT

What it adds to a house

adds nothing yet.

How a person connects it

Method: nativeApp. While parked, open ALYT on your phone, then Settings, then Car and arrival, and connect this home.

What it can look for

Nothing: it does not look for things on the network.

What stops working when it is disconnected

This screen loses access to your home. Remove its connection in Settings, then Car and arrival.

The descriptor

Connection fields are served for a program at /connectors/apple_carplay.json.

{
  "source": "built-in",
  "visibility": "public",
  "listed": true,
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "docsUrl": "https://developers.alyt.com/connectors/apple_carplay",
  "kind": "APPLE_CARPLAY",
  "logo": {
    "url": "/integrations/logos/apple_carplay.png",
    "color": "#0BD319",
    "ratio": 1,
    "background": "#FFFFFF",
    "inset": 0,
    "scale": 1
  },
  "name": "Apple CarPlay",
  "icon": "car-front",
  "connectivity": "cloud",
  "brings": [],
  "connect": {
    "method": "nativeApp",
    "setupPath": "/settings/surfaces",
    "fields": [],
    "help": "While parked, open ALYT on your phone, then Settings, then Car and arrival, and connect this home."
  },
  "discovery": null,
  "disconnect": {
    "consequence": "This screen loses access to your home. Remove its connection in Settings, then Car and arrival."
  },
  "author": {
    "kind": "alyt",
    "name": "ALYT",
    "url": "https://alyt.com"
  }
}

The guide

Apple CarPlay connects from the iPhone through ALYT’s phone app while the car is parked. In the current workflow, the household opens ALYT, goes to Settings → Car and arrival, and connects this home there. The surface is native on the phone, and setup stays on that screen today. CarPlay remains gated until the required Apple DrivingTask entitlement and native build acceptance are in place, so a developer should treat the connector as available only when those prerequisites are met.

Connection and access

CarPlay is a cloud-connected surface, so it depends on the phone, Apple’s CarPlay environment, and network access for the connector path. If that path is unavailable, the CarPlay surface cannot be used as normal. The setup flow is the same for every installed build that exposes the surface: open ALYT on the iPhone while parked, then Settings → Car and arrival, and connect the home from there.

Arrival detection is an optional phone feature that must be enabled separately. It uses a home boundary and sends bounded enter and exit events, without route coordinates. It does not infer the driver’s destination, and it does not run routines automatically. Turning it off on the phone stops local monitoring and removes the related server state.

What CarPlay exposes

The surface shows native lists and confirmations. ALYT provides the same names, units, icons, status, and reviewed controls that appear on the phone and web. Supported controls include simple power actions, locks, covers, and supported saved routines. Up to 12 ordered favourites are available in the CarPlay view.

Sensitive actions use a short-lived confirmation once. If a response is lost, the system does not retry automatically. A separate revocable credential continues to work while RN is suspended, and it is cleared on sign-out; it does not grant access to the ordinary household API.

What is not available

The connector does not expose camera video, interactive sliders, account editing, or arbitrary routines. A dedicated Car screen is not present yet, so the active setup route stays on Settings → Car and arrival rather than a separate car page.

The entitlement gate is specific to CarPlay. It does not affect TV, and TV work does not unlock CarPlay. Ordinary phone builds keep CarPlay disabled unless the matching native build and provisioning are in place.

Failure checks

When CarPlay fails to connect or stops showing the home, check these points first:

• The iPhone is on the current ALYT build and CarPlay was enabled for that build.
• The household has been connected through Settings → Car and arrival on the phone.
• Apple’s DrivingTask entitlement is present for the native build.
• The phone is parked and arrival detection, if needed, is enabled.
• Network access is available for the cloud-connected path.
• The user has access to the home from the phone session.

If the household removes the connection in Settings → Car and arrival, the CarPlay screen loses access to the home and must be connected again from that same place.