[Ned Maxwell]

Loving the Niro.

I have the Apple XS Max. Using a standard connection Lightning cable, my phone won't fit in the little cubby under the USB port. The plug takes up too much space. I tried looking for USB to Lightning connectors with angled heads once I saw a commercial for a Lexus (I think it was) where you could get them supplied with a certain trim level of the car. Unfortunately, while I can find short cables with angled heads, I can't seem to find one that's MFI Certified. Iv'e already been burned once buying a cable that stopped working shortly after I got it, and was hoping to avoid the same by getting something certified. Iv'e checked Apple boards and Google, but can't seem to find anything with all of the criteria. Anyone out there happen to know of a good cable with an angled head?

 

[Nouseformonkeys]

Loving the Niro.

I have the Apple XS Max. Using a standard connection Lightning cable, my phone won't fit in the little cubby under the USB port. The plug takes up too much space. I tried looking for USB to Lightning connectors with angled heads once I saw a commercial for a Lexus (I think it was) where you could get them supplied with a certain trim level of the car. Unfortunately, while I can find short cables with angled heads, I can't seem to find one that's MFI Certified. Iv'e already been burned once buying a cable that stopped working shortly after I got it, and was hoping to avoid the same by getting something certified. Iv'e checked Apple boards and Google, but can't seem to find anything with all of the criteria. Anyone out there happen to know of a good cable with an angled head?

I don’t know if this will work because the lightning angled head might still be too tall to fit in the cubby but it is MFI Certified.

Lightning Cable

 

[ThomasDK]

Maybe this one?
https://www.kianiroforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6377

 

[Roadkill401]

The people at KIA who designed that section of the car were either smoking weed or really didn't care. For a South Korean company, I wonder if they just didn't have a clue at to what a cell phone looks like or know what even their own companies produce. The opening is so small that if you put a case on any of the modern Andriod phones that have wireless charge Qi technology, they will not fit. Put a case and then a usb plug so that you can use Andriod Auto, and your totally SOL.



I have concluded that the wireless charge was just a nice to put on paper, but a total waste of time option.

 

[Nouseformonkeys]

We usually use Android Auto in the Niro so there’s really no need to look at the phone. But I have noticed there’s not a good way to mount your phone so you can see the screen. I don’t like to glue anything to the dash because it’ll end up leaving a sticky mess or damage the surface. In other cars, I’ve used phone holders that attach to the CD slot or air vents. The Niro has no CD player and the air vents are so small the air would be blocked completely with a holder attached. The only option seems to be a suction cup mount on the dashboard.

 

[jmurphEV]

I have concluded that the wireless charge was just a nice to put on paper, but a total waste of time option.

I agree, especially when you add in the fact the in order to use Android Auto (and Apple Carplay I aassume, but I'm not an Apple guy) you need to plug it in anyway.

I've never understood the attraction of wireless charging. The efficiency losses and space requirements inside the phone seem to completely negate the fact that you don't have to plug it in.

 

[Nouseformonkeys]

The people at KIA who designed that section of the car were either smoking weed or really didn't care. For a South Korean company, I wonder if they just didn't have a clue at to what a cell phone looks like or know what even their own companies produce. The opening is so small that if you put a case on any of the modern Andriod phones that have wireless charge Qi technology, they will not fit. Put a case and then a usb plug so that you can use Andriod Auto, and your totally SOL.



I have concluded that the wireless charge was just a nice to put on paper, but a total waste of time option.

You would think the space would be designed to fit Samsung or LG phones.

My daughter is into K-Pop (Korean Pop music) and she has a ton of songs on her phone. She was pleasantly surprised when the names of the songs were being displayed in Korean on the infotainment screen. She has taught herself how to read Korean. In our other car, the names just show up as random characters since it can’t decipher them.

 

[Nouseformonkeys]

I agree, especially when you add in the fact the in order to use Android Auto (and Apple Carplay I aassume, but I'm not an Apple guy) you need to plug it in anyway.

I've never understood the attraction of wireless charging. The efficiency losses and space requirements inside the phone seem to completely negate the fact that you don't have to plug it in.

Wireless charging has its advantages and when I had a phone with it, I used and liked it. It’s great to be able to plop your phone on the base and not bother with connecting/disconnecting the cable. It seems too impractical in the car. I wouldn’t pay extra for it.

 

[Roadkill401]

You would think the space would be designed to fit Samsung or LG phones.

My daughter is into K-Pop (Korean Pop music) and she has a ton of songs on her phone. She was pleasantly surprised when the names of the songs were being displayed in Korean on the infotainment screen. She has taught herself how to read Korean. In our other car, the names just show up as random characters since it can’t decipher them.

Yes, you would think but that sadly is not the case. I have an LG G5. it's a 3 year old phone, and sadly it is simply too big to fit in the spot where the wireless charging is. Granted, my phone doesn't come with wireless charging, but even just the size of the phone, regardless of if you have it plugged in or not, the phone itself it just too big to fit in the spot. The newer LG G6 and G7 are even larger than my phone. It might fit an Apple iPhone SE, but that didn't have wireless charge. I don't know if the iPhone8 or X will fit, but the 8max, XS max won't. Again, simply too large for the opening provided.


The whole entertainment system inside the Niro is a disapointment. The side of only giving a single USB port that can connect to the unit is simply not enough. I think they gave us 28mb I think of storage on the unit that you effectively could upload music to the car, but ZERO informantion in the manual on how to actually do that. If they wanted to give you music, why not make it a size you can actually do something with, like 128gb that would be enough to store actual music. if that is an extra $100 for an Apple product, then surely it could be an option for a car company. But failing that they say that the usb plug is used for conntecting an iPod. But if you have an ipod connected, then how are you supposed to get carplay or andriod auto to work as well? This is all covered up however by simply removing any details from the user manual and not including a multimedia car infotainment manual with your purchase. BIG FAIL in my books.

 

[deltasmith]

Apologies to the OP - I don't have an answer for your question about "certified Lightning to USB angled head connector". My response is mostly to what others have posted after you started this thread.



My phone doesn't have wireless charging capability, so I turned off that feature. I can put my commodity BLU phone in the charging area, though I don't recall if it lies flat or not. But it fits and rides fine there.



As Roadkill401 wrote, the entertainment system is kind of a disappointment, although I think it has some decent features too. I recall a time years ago when I was shopping for a used car and the car salesman didn't know diddly about the car I was looking at so he tried to impress me by demonstrating the radio and windshield wipers. Back in those days, I didn't even consider the radio when I was car shopping, because I had a tendency to replace the factory radio with something more to my liking. But I don't think I'd dare to replace the head unit in the Niro, due to it's integration with the computer systems that run the drive train. Has anyone done this? Apparently I need to change my car shopping habits and pay more attention to this sort of thing in the future.



As for some of the above comments: yes, the USB port under the head unit is anemic when it comes to charging. I prefer the one under the armrest. But if I really wanted a fast charge, I'd plug in a USB adapter to one of the 12v sockets. At least this car still provides those. As for the storage in the entertainment unit, search the owner's manual for "My Music": I'm looking at page 5-15 of the PDF that I downloaded a few months ago and it talks about how to copy music from a USB stick to the onboard memory (I haven't actually tried to use this feature yet, but the manual claims it has a capacity of 700 MB and I think that equates to a capacity of about 10 music CDs, depending on your configuration options when you burn them to disk/memory stick). If you want more storage than that, I recently picked up a a 128 GB USB memory stick for about $32 and it seems to work fine in the Niro. I have to admit that I initially knocked the Niro for lack of a CD player, but now that I've hit on burning my CDs to a USB stick (thanks to suggestions from another poster on this forum), I'm starting to think that it was my own technology that was somewhat lacking, rather than the Niro: the USB option works well and takes up a lot less space than CDs, but let's me carry around a lot more music.



Also, I believe that there is a separate infotainment manual that came with my car, and also available for download from https://owners.kia.com/us/en/reference-material.html?page=manuals, not sure if it's also available on the corresponding Canadian site or not. Hope this info helps.

 

[Roadkill401]

You are one up on us. In Canada, the section 5 is 2 pages long and talks about the shape of the radio antena on the back of the car. Nothing on how to actually use the radio or any of its features.

 

[deltasmith]

You are one up on us. In Canada, the section 5 is 2 pages long and talks about the shape of the radio antena on the back of the car. Nothing on how to actually use the radio or any of its features.

Sorry to hear that. Not sure if it will help, but I'm attaching screenshots of two pages from the US manual. Let me know if it translates to your Canadian version, or not.

 

[haraldk]

Unfortunately, while I can find short cables with angled heads, I can't seem to find one that's MFI Certified.

Monoprice.com cables are usually MFI certified, and I have one of their angled-head cables that I use with both an iPhone SE and a current-generation iPad:

(Search for Product # 30786 ; I can't post links yet because I'm a new user )

various lengths are available available. I hope this helps you!