I look at the One Car Stereo AI Box Ultra in this review. You can buy this AI Box for $269.99 directly from the One Car Stereo website, for $249 from Amazon US, and from Amazon CA.
TLDR: The One Car Stereo AI Box Ultra is a solid performer among Qualcomm 6225-powered CarPlay adapters, delivering fast app launch times, good video playback, and decent gaming capabilities. It includes useful features like SIM support, customizable LED lighting, and rare iOS screen mirroring. However, it suffers from an occasional audio bug, lacklustre Android mirroring, and a rather average design and user interface. While it performs well, its higher price makes it difficult to recommend over more polished and competitively priced alternatives—unless you can snag it at a discount.
A few weeks ago I would have said we have reached peak performance on the 6225 AI Box adapters, but along comes One Car Stereo with their AI Box Ultra. On the surface, this is another boilerplate AI Box, but after my initial tests, this adapter performs slightly better and it has a few points of interest and one issue that may hinder its appeal. Let’s dive in!
What’s in the Box
In the box, you get a paper instruction manual. There is the Ultra AI Box adapter itself. Three power USB cables come supplied: one USB-A to USB-C and one USB-C to USB-C for more modern ports in the car. The third power cable features a power pass-through port to inject more power into the adapter should your car’s USB port not supply it with sufficient power. And finally, there is a SIM removal tool to prise open the SIM tray on the adapter.
Hardware Overview
Looking over the adapter, it’s a round-shaped device that’s similar in size to most AI Boxes selling today. Around the edge is a section of I/O ports that houses the adapter’s SIM tray and TF card slots, the USB-C port to power it, and a pair of LED status lights to make sure it’s powered and operational. Underneath you’ll find some passive cooling vents to keep the Qualcomm 6225 CPU, 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage cool. On top, there’s an indented plastic over the entire top casing with the One Car Stereo brand logo in the middle. An LED light sits beneath the logo and it can be customised in the preinstalled app to match your car interior lighting.
Interface and Boot Time
Boot-up time into the adapter’s main menu took 33 seconds and the Home Screen is nicely presented with a series of varying sizes of panels and functional widgets. The main largest panel contains the Google Maps app, which can also be interacted with. Beside this panel are a few widgets for media playback, shortcuts to toggling recently launched apps, wireless CarPlay or Android Auto, and mirroring from a mobile device.
Along the bottom of the Home Screen is a dock that shows the time, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and data SIM status, a customisable drawer of icon shortcuts, and quick access to settings, CarPlay/Android Auto and toggling the app list screen.
A floating button that persists over apps allows access to return home, navigate back in apps, multitask, invoke a Google Assistant, split screen two apps and exit back to your car’s infotainment system.
Preinstalled Apps and App Performance
The AI Box Ultra comes with the usual suite of preinstalled apps. This saves downloading the most common apps from the Google Play Store, which is where you’ll end up going to download any apps that are missing from the default set.
Launching my test apps showed some surprisingly good results for this 6225 chipset. Other than a slower launch time into Spotify, the Ultra was the fastest 6225 AI Box to launch into my remaining three test apps (Maps, YouTube and Netflix). Benchmarking in 3DMark and Geekbench 6 ranked the Ultra at the top of the list by just a few points above its similar chipset brethren.
Gaming Performance
These kinds of specs help with app launch times and some lightweight gaming. The Ultra shares a similar problem with some other Qualcomm-powered AI Boxes, with missing audio at launch. A fairly quick workaround fixes this issue, but out of the gate, this bug shouldn’t keep happening today and I still find boxes, like the Ultra, that continue to have this bug.
Once up and running and with the sound fixed, Crossy Road and Subway Surfer were a little more playable than on some other 6225 boxes. Even Asphalt Xtreme with a BT Xbox controller was good fun and could easily pass the time between publicly charging my EV.
Video Playback and Audio Sync
The Ultra performed well in its general video performance too. With an average audio delay of +70 ms, it isn’t far off my favourite video AI Box, and I found its general A/V sync to be very good in both YouTube and Netflix.
Wireless CarPlay and Android Auto Performance
CarPlay and Android Auto ran well, with a faster time into CarPlay than most other AI Boxes and an average BT pairing time into Android Auto. The visual stream quality and ratio was great and quite close to native wireless. With a 0.44/0.35 second in CarPlay/Android Auto call delay, this may not be the best, but it was high up there and very usable. Overall, the Ultra seems to tackle wireless CarPlay and Android Auto very well considering its peers, and even with its Wi-Fi 5 generation and 96 mbps spec output.
Mirroring Support
The one trick that the Ultra has over most other 6225 AI Boxes is its mirroring support. Most omit this feature, and usually for good reason, because the result is never that good. But in the case of the Ultra, I had some very good results in native iOS screen sharing, but then I got the complete opposite experience on Android Auto, which required the CarbitLink app to function and suffered with audio coming out of the phone instead of my car speakers. This was indeed a shame, especially as the delay was quite low. This chalks up yet another device mirroring failure. But on iOS, the lip sync was more favourable and enjoyable to watch. This was rare and I may have used it over optimal Wi-Fi conditions. So take this with a pinch of lucky salt—your own use may vary.
My Impressions
Overall, the AI Box Ultra from One Car Stereo performed very well in my tests, but its overall execution felt a little average and run-of-the-mill. No premium materials were used in its casing, it has a usable but a bit bland launcher home screen, and generally, it has a ‘that’ll do’ feeling about it. But what makes its outcome a bit worse is its price. Costing more than most AI Boxes selling today with similar chipsets, it’s hard to recommend it when there are better alternative options with better presentation, and in some cases, performance, that can be had elsewhere. But with that said, the Ultra performs very well. But you have to ask yourself: does this increase in cost justify a few extra points in benchmarks or half a second off launch time in some apps? If you can find this AI Box on sale, this decision may be a little more difficult and may only be when the Ultra is more favourable when judged alongside its fellow competition.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Brief overview
0:32 – Unboxing
1:09 – Hardware Overview
2:07 – Boot Up & Menu Interface
4:04 – Settings
5:45 – Split screen mode
7:09 – Preinstalled Apps & Performance
7:21 – YouTube & Dev Mode
8:34 – Netflix
9:11- Google Maps
9:47 – Spotify
10:45 – Other Apps
11:04 – Benchmarks Compared
11:16 – Calling from AI Box
11:33 – Updating
11:38 – 1080P & 4K Video Playback
13:02 – Gaming Performance
15:10 – IPTV App
15:47 – Wireless CarPlay
17:20 – Wireless Android Auto
18:41 – Mirroring Support
20:40 – My Impressions
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