Android Auto & Apple CarPlay

[drfoto]

Just a quick tip for new owners...
In order to use Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, there are "switches" in the Settings tab that must be enabled before you can tap on "Projection", to show your phone display on the car screen. You must also Bluetooth pair your phone to the vehicle for everything to work correctly.

The problem I had to troubleshoot yesterday occurred when I plugged in my wife's iPhone in order to experiment with CarPlay. I had used Android Auto successfully already and wanted to show her how to use her iPhone for access to navigation via Apple Maps when she drove the car. CarPlay worked seamlessly. The problem arose when I tried to use Android Auto again. The car did not seem to recognize my Android phone, despite Android Auto having worked previously and the phone being Bluetooth paired to the car.

The gremlin was the Enable Android Auto switch in settings. Plugging in the iPhone switched Android off and turned Carplay on. Switching back to the Android phone did not automatically do the converse. I had to manually go to Settings and find the Enable Android Auto "switch" which was in the off position. As soon as I enabled Android Auto again, I could tap "Projection" and get all the Android Auto features to display on the car screen.

I hope this saves someone else the minor troubleshooting headache I experienced.

 

[drfoto]

Getting Android Auto to function reliably has a bit of a learning curve it seems. Despite my previous post, I still have had problems getting the phone (a Pixel 2) recognized and sharing the Android Auto information it's displaying onto the car display. Thru trial and error I think the answer is in rebooting the phone. After a reboot, the car seems to see the phone once it's plugged in. I've yet to establish the frequency with which reboot will be required. To simplify a workaround I may try using the program Tasker to force a reboot during the early morning hours when I'm sleeping, so the phone registers where confounding data may be stored are cleared each day.

OTOH, reverting back to an iPhone and using CarPlay is another alternative. I have a 6s+ sitting around as a backup travel phone. Over time I may experiment and compare the reliability of the two systems in the car.

Anyone else care to share their impression of Carplay, or their experience with Android Auto if it differs from mine?
Mark

 

[SeanNelson]

This is not going to help either of you, but for the benefit of those lurking I'll just mention that setting up Android Auto with my Samsung Galaxy S7 was a complete no-brainer. First I paired the phone using Bluetooth, then I installed Android Auto on the phone, enabled it in the car's menu system, and plugged it in using USB. It worked the first time.

Android Auto relies on the Bluetooth connection - one of the things it does is to unlock the phone (there's an Android Auto setting you have to allow to the effect of "automatically unlock the phone when it's near trusted devices"). So if the Bluetooth pairing isn't done first then I imagine you'd run into some issues with the Android Auto setup.

I really like how it works. Before I started using it I was skeptical about whether it would be worth the hassle of plugging and unplugging the phone all the time, but I found a nice short (~10cm) USB cable that holds it shape so that it's super easy to plug in after sliding the phone into the charging pocket. I love being able to set destinations, reply to text messages, get the weather, etc. etc. all by voice without having to fiddle with any controls or screens. And it's very cool that this very important piece of technology is going to be upgraded over time, making the car more and more useful.

My only issue is the volume of data that I'm consuming by running Google maps all the time. I used up almost 2GB in about 2000km of driving. Some of that may be due to having traffic information turned on - I turned it off a few days ago and it seems to have made a difference - I'll have to keep monitoring to see how it goes. I have a little more than a GB left on my free OnStar trial, and at the end I'll have to make a decision on whether to subscribe to OnStar data, upgrade the data plan for my phone, or something else.

 

[DesertSprings]

That's interesting. I use Waze maps, and have it on almost always when I'm driving and do not have issues with data usage anywhere near that. I wonder if Waze is better at caching or using low data consumption vector graphics than GMaps?

If you must use GMaps, you might try downloading and storing the local maps on your phone when you're connected to WiFi so it has less to download when on the road.

 

[SeanNelson]

That's interesting. I use Waze maps, and have it on almost always when I'm driving and do not have issues with data usage anywhere near that. I wonder if Waze is better at caching or using low data consumption vector graphics than GMaps?

Yeah, I might try downloading Waze just to compare it and see how I like the interface. Google Maps has a pretty slick interface, it's hard for me to imagine anything I'd like better but of course you never really know until you try.

If you must use GMaps, you might try downloading and storing the local maps on your phone when you're connected to WiFi so it has less to download when on the road.

Yeah, I know you can do this but it's a bit of a hassle. I believe Google Maps is smart enough to cache frequently map data that you use a lot so I'm hoping that turning off the traffic will reduce data consumption to a reasonable level.