Amberdash Support
Amberdash puts a clock, a parking reminder, weather, your next calendar event, a service reminder, and your own photos into small widgets you can read at a glance, and it keeps a trip speedometer and a startup sound inside the app for the moment your car connects. Everything you record stays on your iPhone, and the only exception is the approximate location that the weather widget has to send out for a forecast. If something does not behave the way you expect, the answers below cover the questions we expect most, and the email at the bottom covers the rest.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add the widgets in CarPlay on iOS 26?
Everything is chosen on the iPhone, so there is nothing to arrange on the car display. Do this once while the car is parked and the widget stays in place on every later drive.
- Install Amberdash on your iPhone and open it once, so that iOS registers the widgets.
- On the iPhone, open Settings, tap General, tap CarPlay, then tap your car.
- Tap Widgets and choose the Amberdash widget you want.
- Connect the iPhone to the car, and the widget appears on the Widgets screen in CarPlay.
One thing is worth knowing. Which photo to show, which units to use and which widgets are active are all chosen inside the Amberdash app on your iPhone, and touching and holding a widget on your iPhone Home Screen and choosing Edit Widget only changes its color theme.
Why do the widgets in CarPlay need iOS 26?
Widgets on the CarPlay screen are provided by iOS itself, and Apple only opened that screen to third-party widgets in iOS 26. On an iPhone running iOS 18 there is no way for any app to place a widget on the car display, which is a limit of the system and not something an app update can work around. Amberdash still runs on iOS 18 and later, so the app and its iPhone Home Screen widgets work, while the Widgets screen in CarPlay fills in once your iPhone is on iOS 26.
Can I use the widgets on the iPhone itself?
Yes, every Amberdash widget comes in the small square size for the iPhone Home Screen. Touch and hold an empty part of the Home Screen, tap the add button, search for Amberdash, and place the widget you want.
How do I set up the startup sound?
The startup sound plays through the Shortcuts app that is already on your iPhone, which is how iOS lets a sound fire the moment your car connects.
- Open Amberdash, go to the startup sound screen, and choose the sound you want.
- Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone and tap the Automation tab.
- Tap New Automation and choose CarPlay from the list of triggers.
- Choose When Connects, then choose Run Immediately so that nothing has to be tapped in the car.
- Add an action, search for Amberdash, and choose Play Startup Sound.
- Save the automation, then unplug and reconnect to test it.
If the sound does not play, check that the automation is switched on in the Automation tab, that Run Immediately is selected rather than Ask Before Running, that your phone is not in silent mode, and that the volume is turned up enough to hear.
What does Premium include?
Premium comes in three options, Premium Weekly and Premium Yearly, which are subscriptions that renew automatically, and Premium Lifetime, which is a single payment. Each one unlocks all six widgets, every startup sound and every color theme, and the price of each is shown in the app and on the App Store product page before you buy. Without Premium you keep two widgets active, one startup sound and the standard theme.
How do I restore a purchase?
Open Amberdash, go to the upgrade or settings screen, and tap Restore Purchases. Make sure the iPhone is signed in to the same Apple Account that bought the subscription or the lifetime unlock, because Apple ties every purchase to the account that paid. This is also how you get your unlock back on a new iPhone or after reinstalling the app. If the restore still comes back empty, check your App Store purchase history first, then email us and we will help you work out which account holds the purchase.
How do I cancel the subscription?
Canceling happens in your Apple Account settings, because Apple handles the billing and we have no access to it.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap your name at the top of the screen.
- Tap Subscriptions.
- Tap Amberdash, then tap Cancel Subscription and confirm.
Cancel at least 24 hours before the renewal date, otherwise the next period is already charged, whether you are on Premium Weekly or Premium Yearly. You keep access until the end of the period you have paid for. Deleting the app does not cancel anything on its own. For a refund, use reportaproblem.apple.com, since refunds for App Store purchases are decided by Apple and not by us.
The speedometer shows nothing or freezes
The trip speedometer needs location permission and it needs to be allowed to keep reading while the app is in the background, because a trip carries on after you put the phone down. Open the Settings app, find Amberdash, tap Location, and allow access while using the app together with the precise location switch. A cold GPS fix can take a few seconds when you first pull out of a parking garage or a tunnel.
Weather is blank or out of date
Weather is fetched from Open-Meteo at open-meteo.com using coordinates rounded to about 1 km, and that request goes out again every time the widget refreshes, so the widget needs a working data connection and location permission. A widget that has been offline for a while shows the last forecast it managed to fetch until the next refresh succeeds.
Still stuck
Email carwidgets@boostmarketing.my with your iPhone model, your iOS version, your car model, and what you were doing when it went wrong. That is usually enough to find the cause on the first reply.