In this review, I look at the BRUXE R6 CarPlay AI Box adapter. You can buy this dongle for $199 for the 4GB+64GB model and $210.32 for the (recommended) 8GB+128GB model directly from the BRUXE online store here – https://bit.ly/bruxer6aibox using my coupon code CARPLAYLIFE at checkout.
TLDR: The BRUXE R6 AI Box offers impressive video streaming performance, especially for YouTube, making it a strong contender in the AI box market. With a premium design, solid benchmarks, and fast wireless CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, it stands out for video playback with no sync issues—unlike competitors. However, it still has some quirks, such as occasional audio problems in games and mirroring issues. While it excels in video performance, there are a few areas, like gaming audio and wireless functionality, that need improvement. Overall, it’s a solid choice if top-tier video performance is your priority.
Just as I was about to start work on my Top 5 AI Box adapters, I received an email from BRUXE, an unknown company to me at the time. They asked me if I’d like to review their latest R6 AI box, and I could not pass on this opportunity, as the BRUXE R6 AI Box might be a top 5 contender. Let’s find out…
Unboxing and Design
In the box, you get a paper instruction manual, the adapter itself, two USB cables to power the adapter, and a SIM slot removal tool.
Looking over the BRUXE AI Box, it looks and feels very premium against the many plastic off-the-shelf AI Box cases that are selling these days. It’s refreshing to pick up an AI box that’s wrapped top to toe in shiny tempered glass and space grey aeroplane-grade aluminium. These materials not only look good, but they also have a purpose in cooling the 6225 processor, 8GB RAM, and 128GB of storage hardware that sits inside. Around its metal sides, you’ll find a USB-C port to power the adapter, an open slot to insert a TF card for expanding the R6’s internal storage, and a SIM tray that allows you to supply the AI Box with its own mobile internet source.
Performance and User Interface
Booting up the adapter took 32 seconds before landing on a familiar-looking AI Box launcher screen, featuring the common maps widget panel, media player, and shortcuts to various pre-installed Google Android applications. A side dock and a floating button complete the familiar user interface on the R6. There’s nothing drastically different here; this is pretty much a boilerplate AI Box that we may likely see rebadged by a few other brands.
Tapping on the app button on the side dock reveals its pre-installed library of Android 13-compatible apps. Fourteen apps per screen are showcased on my 13-inch high-resolution Cupra Born display, which helps save on scrolling between pages of apps. Popping the most frequently used on the shortcut app panel is still recommended and is handy whilst driving.
The Google Play Store app will be your gateway to downloading any other apps and games that you would like to use on your CarPlay display. After downloading my usual suite of test apps, I put the BRUXE AI Box through my tests to see how well it performs against its more well-known competition, and after a few apps into my tests, I was pleasantly surprised!
Benchmarks and Gaming
The BRUXE R6 benchmarked in 3D Mark and Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core tests very well, scoring a very close third place out of all the 6225 adapters I have tested so far. The R6 came out on top in my YouTube and video playback tests, mainly because it didn’t have the dreaded video bug that plagued the first and second-best 6225 adapters of the Binize LED Magic Box and CarlinKit UHD, respectively—an issue so troubling that I now brand these two mentioned adapters in red (meaning avoid) on my data sheet.
After successfully passing my video sync tests, I then moved on to what else the BRUXE R6 was able to surprise me with. General app launch times were decent, thanks to the level of optimisation that BRUXE has done to the software and hardware in the R6. Launch times are mostly affected by the speed of the internet connection given to the AI Box. Oh home Wi-Fi, this may be quick, but using a hotspot or internal SIM card, the launch time experience can vary. Opting for the 8GB RAM model will help over the cheaper 4GB model, as it will not only reduce launch times but also allow for better multi-tasking between apps.
You can pair up a BT remote or BT controller to tackle some lightweight 3D controller-based gaming. Touchscreen games are also obviously supported. The Adreno 610 GPU is the same technology that’s shared in boxes as old as the 6125. It can handle a decent level of 2D and some 3D gaming, and the R6 was no different. However, this adapter carried a similar trait found on some common AI Boxes where the sound would not play within any game I tried. A quick workaround is to play music from an Android app, like Spotify, and switch back to the game. But I do hope BRUXE can fix this issue and one other major issue I discovered in games, where some crackling in the audio could be heard in Crossy Road, Subway Surfer, and a couple of others I tried.
Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
The R6 uses SpeedPlay for its wireless CarPlay and Android Auto functionality. BT pairing into wireless CarPlay took a respectable 7 seconds and 10 seconds in wireless Android Auto. Wireless CarPlay on the R6 was surprisingly worse than native wireless CarPlay in my Born, whilst Android Auto was a little sharper and looked more like how it displayed natively on my display. CarPlay had some rarely noticeable display artefacts at times, and there was some touch input delay within Android Auto under certain apps, like Waze. Call quality and delay were okay on both platforms, with Android Auto being a little more responsive in its return delay in calling.
Although not enabled by default, you can toggle Wi-Fi and hotspot at the same time, allowing you to use a second Wi-Fi source for Android and mobile hotspots simultaneously (just not both from the same source). Other settings on the R6 allow GPS and instrument display connection for media. However, I couldn’t get navigation directions to pass through natively in either Android navigation apps or SpeedPlay for CarPlay or Android Auto. Split-screen functionality is also present on this adapter, and paired apps can be launched on startup if you have a common app layout you wish to use. One issue I did notice at startup is that I still had to manually connect to my phone’s hotspot each time, which isn’t really unique to the R6, so inserting a mobile data SIM into the R6 would be recommended to offer a smoother ‘connected’ experience.
Updating & Mirroring
Updating the adapter can be carried out over the air or via an update file added to an inserted TF card. At the time of review, there hasn’t been an update since November 2024, but I’d hopefully expect new updates soon enough to address the issues I mentioned earlier.
One more issue that needs fixing is the adapter’s mirroring performance. Like most AI Boxes, mirroring isn’t too good. On iOS, I was able to AirPlay my iPhone 16 Pro over the same local home network, yet I encountered lots of frame drops and freezing at times. When it did work, the audio-to-video sync was decent, but these issues made it unwatchable. Mirroring over Android, was an instant non-starter. I just couldn’t get it working, and rather quickly, once selecting the Android option, the app started to instantly crash on me. I feel that more work is needed here, and I had hoped this box can use the native Android way of casting to the box rather than using a third-party application.
Final Thoughts
So was it wise to wait for this adapter before jumping into my top 5 AI Box roundup in 2025? In short, yes, but it comes with a few caveats, I must add these caveats are shared with many other AI Boxes from its competitors.
As speed and performance go, the R6, with its 6225 CPU and stellar video sync performance, makes this AI Box worthy of your attention. But if you seek decent wireless CarPlay, mirroring, and gaming support, then I’d be a little cautious in recommending the R6 right now, until BRUXE looks into fixing the issues I faced during my review.
With that said, these shortcomings are commonly shared with many other competing AI Box adapters in its price range, so it’s nothing new here, making this more of a compromise when using an AI Box over a wireless adapter and some of the limitations of using an Android OS platform. The BRUXE R6 is certainly an AI Box to consider if you’re looking for stellar video performance with hopefully a few short-term compromises in other areas of its capabilities that can be fixed via updates.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Brief overview
0:23 – Unboxing
0:40 – Features & design
1:53 – Boot-up & main menu
3:11- Device info specs
4:19 – LED light adjustment
4:34 – Google Maps
5:05 – YouTube
6:53 – Netflix
7:37 – Wireless CarPlay
9:31 – Wi-Fi & hotspot settings
10:43 – Wireless Android Auto
12:47 – Benchmarks & video performance
13:22 – OTA updates
13:46 – Mirroring iOS & Android devices
15:27 – Gaming & sound issues
17:02 – Bluetooth controller support
18:36 – VLC TF card 4K & 1080P video playback
20:56 – My Impressions
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