For background info, I have a 2013 A4 Quattro Premium Plus 6MT with the AMI Symphony infotainment system. I've been searching for a bluetooth receiver to play music from my iPhone6 via iTunes music library and streaming. I looked at multiple options, including the ViseeO and BoVee receivers, and several others. There are few options, and those that work tend to cost upwards of $80 and in some cases over $100. Ironically, despite the cost, most are not very seamlessly integrated and have various issues, such as frequent sound drops, or require disabling the native built-in BT phone integration.

Recently I found this: Product Catalog - CoolStream
It is the CarPro – Bluetooth Receiver for Audi and VW, specifically made for the Audi AMI vehicles.

I've had the CoolStream CarPro now for about 4 days. I got mine from Amazon delivered for $60, which is a little cheaper than the ViseeO or BoVee options.

Note: the CarPro does not come with the 30-pin iPod cable, you have to supply your own. My car came with the authentic Audi iPod cable, so I didn't need to get a cable, but if you don't have one you need to get one to use the CarPro. Please note, there are several cheap knock-offs of this cable on eBay and such, but there are a lot of complaints about them too, so buyer beware.

Note2: the CarPro retains the iPod media interface, it does not rewire the interface to look like an Aux input, which is what some other options do. To stream or listen to music via BT with CarPro you simply press the media button on the AMI controls and then select the device you paired. The label for the device is shown as the source, which in my case is "Phil's iPhone6".

Install and setup was easy, just plug the CarPro receiver into the iPod AMI cable and the blue light flashes, then go to your phone's bluetooth settings and pair it. Once paired the blue light stays on constant. After a minute or so to initialize, the AMI interface display shows your music library and you can navigate through artists, genres, songs and albums via either the AMI controls or the steering controls. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it enables you to navigate the music library on the AMI in more ways than just alphabetical song listing.

Music quality seemed pretty good, although all the songs on my phone are in 320K MP3, which may have some effect on sound quality. The instructions recommend you raise the volume on your phone to max and then you can control the volume on your AMI. That is a good idea and when I did that the sound volume was comparable to what you get from the SD card or Sirius.

When you are using the CoolSteam CarPro you can also navigate your library on your phone, which to me is easier since you can jump around easily between albums or artists as you please. If you navigate using the AMI controls, and say you selected artists, you will see the albums from that artist, then when you scroll down one by one and select the album you will see the song list for that album. If you want to go back you have to navigate to the top of the list and click on the up arrow to go back one step, or hit return on the AMI control. You can also jump one song at a time using the next and previous buttons.

Pressing the Media button on the AMI interface shows the iPhone6 as a classic iPod icon. Since I also have a fully loaded 64GB SD card, and the built-in CD, the display shows all three options and let's me cycle between them. When I first start the car it takes about a minute before you can use the media, with the message indicating it is initializing. It appears the AMI media system loads the entire music library from everything you have plugged in, so it takes a while to load the music off my 64GB iPhone6 and my 64GB SD card. Once it finishes initializing it immediately starts playing music off the device you were last using, and the song it was playing. Yet you can switch between SD and the iPhone immediately without any delays.

The bluetooth signal seems pretty good, even with the device tucked into the iPod crevice inside the glove compartment with the door closed. The bluetooth settings on my phone confirmed I was connected to the CarPro and the Audi phone interface at the same time. I confirmed I was able to make and receive phone calls flawlessly while the CarPro connected, it did not seem to interfere at all with the music. I also played music through the CarPro for a couple of hours without experiencing any of the dropouts that others have experienced with other bluetooth interfaces such as ViseeO and BoVee. I have read those other BT receivers tend to encounter interference if the Audi phone BT is enabled while using them, causing music dropouts periodically. I did not encounter any such issues with the CarPro, even though I had Audi phone BT enabled.

Streaming music from my iPhone using the CarPro seems to work, but there are some quirks. I was able to stream music from iTunes radio and Amazon Prime Music, and I was able to listen to Bloomberg Radio. As far as audio goes it works ok and sounds acceptable. However, the AMI display and controls are confusing and inconsistent. In several attempts, when I switched source on the phone while it was playing from my music library, the AMI display would still show my iTunes music library and even the current song playing with the elapsed time incrementing, but the sound coming out is from the streaming source. The next and previous buttons on the AMI only worked as expected sporadically while streaming. Sometimes they advanced the streaming source, sometimes they advanced to the next music library song instead of the streaming source. At times while streaming, hitting the return, next or previous button sometimes switches the sound source back to the music library on the phone. There are definitely things that need to be sorted out in streaming if you are using the iPhone6 with AMI and CarPro, but for general audio from a streaming service it seems to work.

There is just one significant glitch that happened on the second day of using the CarPro. I use Waze on my phone for navigation, and normally Waze gives audible prompts over the standard AMI phone interface so I can hear the directions on my audio system - CarPro is not needed for that. On this day, I had the AMI phone paired and connected, the CoolStream CarPro was paired and was playing music from my music library. I then launched Waze on my phone. Everything was working and seemed normal but I could not get any kind of audio from my phone. All bluetooth audio stopped making sound. When I got to my destination I tried to diagnose. Nothing I did worked, including "forgetting" the Audi and CarPro bluetooth and doing the pairing again, switching the iPhone's bluetooth off and on, turning the car off and back on, nothing! On the AMI display I could still see all the info from my iPhone's music library, what was playing, even the timer on the song it thought was playing, but no sound was coming out. Eventually I rebooted my iPhone and then everything worked again. I attribute this momentary lapse to the iPhone for now since rebooting the phone was the only solution. But I will be keeping an eye on it. For reference, I use bluetooth a lot on my phone, I have two LG BT headphones, a BT heart rate monitor, 2 external JBL BT speakers, Audi BT phone interface, and now the new BT CoolStream CarPro. It is quite possible something got messed up on the phone. The problem has not recurred since, even though I am using the exact same settings as before.

Except for the one glitch, I'm quite pleased with the CoolStream Carpro. It works well, it doesn't have cutouts like other bluetooth receivers, it sounds decent and the music library navigation via the AMI is bonus. Streaming is possible with CarPro, but there are some quirks with the AMI display and controls when you are streaming. I'll report back if I have any more issues with BT sound loss, however I don't expect it will be an ongoing problem.

For additional reference: Before I got the CoolStream CarPro I was having problems with the bluetooth in my 2013 A4 Quattro 6MT. A day after I got the car I was on a bluetooth call using my iPhone6 and all sound cut out, including all sources (radio, CD, Sat). Restarting the car was the only fix. I've also had BT phone calls dropped several times, where one moment you're talking over the car's audio, the next it drops out of BT and the call is still active on the phone. This tends to happen when I get a message or alert on the phone while I'm on a BT call. I took the car to Audi two weeks ago and they kept it for 2 days to diagnose it, and then they told me that Audi North America informed them the iPhone6 is not supported, and there is no software or firmware update to fix it. I find that odd, but in the end there was nothing the dealer could do, not even a software update.

I hope you all find this helpful.