poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Most people don't want to buy a new car only to immediately stick an aftermarket head unit in it.
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Android Auto Reviews
- Thread starter TheAbsolution
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Speaking of aftermarket headunits Pioneer seem to be the only company that has come out with some:
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/androidauto/
Their cheapest is $700 going up to $1400. Screen resolution is 800 x 480 which imho indicates that it's a pile of half arsed shit though.
TangoAlphaLima
Member
I bought a mounting dock for $7 to use on the center console for my $45 Nook HD. Saved myself like $30k.
TheAbsolution
Member
Not singling you out, honest.
3 questions.
What happens when you try to switch apps? Say from Maps to Music or to text? How long do your eyes linger off the road
Do you get voice commands?
How nice is the interface?
There's a reason why Android tablets and based aftermarket units never took off. Because people want clean interfaces that work well, keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, and filter out other annoying notifications that distract from the road.
Mounting solutions don't solve all of these issues.
TangoAlphaLima
Member
I pretty much just use it for playing podcasts through the Podcast Addict app. It's not much different than fooling with the radio.
surrealist
Member
The only full fledged android units I've seen are from the Chinese. And from what I've seen, those things are trash. Poor sound quality, buggy software, cheap build.
TheAbsolution
Member
Well, my point is is you want to do more than that, AA is way less distracting and more integrated than just any old Android tablet.
Plus, it looks way cleaner.
zer0blivion
Member
That's why I went with a pioneer appradio. It has all the guts of a good aftermarket stereo with the added benefit of screen mirroring from my phone.
TangoAlphaLima
Member
Sure, but it costs a shit ton too, given that you have to buy a new car to get it.
TheAbsolution
Member
No you don't. It's available in aftermarket systems.
Yankee Ruin X
Member
Seriously why does car stereo tech move so slowly. 10 years ago I was into this stuff and put a nice system in my car but haven't really followed the industry since. Just the other day I was looking to buy a BMW M3 and I hated the head unit in it so started looking at aftermarket options as I figured by now (10 years later) there would be something that would sync up to my iPhone nicely. Looking at what is on the market I couldn't believe the lack of options. Apparently Apple has this Carplay thing but I could only find a handful of units that support it, I think Alpine and Pioneer were the ones and the prices where way more than I expected.
Is there a double din unit that is just a screen and amp behind to drive the speakers that just mirrors your phone screen so you can just use the head unit as you would your phone. All of the Car Play ones I have seen seem to have limited features and only certain apps are compatible. I was expecting to be able to get a head unit that was basically an iPad mini that just clips onto the front by now but I can't find any.
Is there a double din unit that is just a screen and amp behind to drive the speakers that just mirrors your phone screen so you can just use the head unit as you would your phone. All of the Car Play ones I have seen seem to have limited features and only certain apps are compatible. I was expecting to be able to get a head unit that was basically an iPad mini that just clips onto the front by now but I can't find any.
TangoAlphaLima
Member
Ah, didn't know that. Looks like the Pioneer units are pretty pricey though. $700 is the cheapest, and that's for a gimped version.
TheAbsolution
Member
Car tech is expensive because it has to work in a wild variety of situations. It also has to be current 2-3 years in advance because that's how long the development cycles are.
neogaffer1
Banned
Android Police just posted an incredibly detailed review of Android Auto.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/0...worthwhile-convenience-if-money-is-no-object/
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/0...worthwhile-convenience-if-money-is-no-object/
They lost my interest when multiple reviews started talking about how buggy the experience is. I need bulletproof and reliable.
At this point, my solution is a vent mount + iPhone + cigarette plug adapter (mainly so I can use "Hey Siri" activation.) About all I want is a way for third-party apps to hook into Siri, and I'm golden. Even Apple's car dash solution doesn't sound very appealing.
At this point, my solution is a vent mount + iPhone + cigarette plug adapter (mainly so I can use "Hey Siri" activation.) About all I want is a way for third-party apps to hook into Siri, and I'm golden. Even Apple's car dash solution doesn't sound very appealing.
neogaffer1
Banned
The Android Police review mentions that recent Google Play Services updates squashed the bugginess.
Jaladinozozo
Banned
I recently got this - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WT5ZNJW/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Seems like it does everything that does plus more
Seems like it does everything that does plus more
neogaffer1
Banned
I recently got this - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WT5ZNJW/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Seems like it does everything that does plus more
Seems like a driving hazard tbh. Does the screen turn off or is it always on? And I'm assuming it doesn't have Google Play Services, so no "Ok Google" or any apps from the Play Store, right?
Jaladinozozo
Banned
It auto dims or you can turn the screen off but it will still keep working/recording while giving you the full mirror reflection with no distraction
It does have Google Play services including any APP you want from the Play Store and can be voice activated/hands free both through bluetooth or apps
I posted this in the Automotive discussion thread but figured I could cross-post it here. I have a 2015 Hyundai Sonata with the Tech/Navigation package, so I was eligible for their Android Auto update and had it done while I brought it in for service yesterday.
Although my phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5 on Verizon, which isn't fully supported yet according to Google, so it wasn't working straight out of the box.
But on another Hyundai forum, I did find this workaround which ended up working for me:
I got my Android Auto update installed this morning, and I was able to get a few pics taken of it in action. I took a couple others but they didn't turn out so well. And don't worry, I was stopped at the time (at a gas station).
Although my phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5 on Verizon, which isn't fully supported yet according to Google, so it wasn't working straight out of the box.
But on another Hyundai forum, I did find this workaround which ended up working for me:
Oh, good. Reliability needs to be there if we have any hope of these systems taking off.
Neat. You may very well be the first one on NeoGAF with this system. Out of curiosity, does Android Auto capitalize the first letter of messages you dictate?
CharlieDigital
Banned
I don't see that as a particularly big issue given that most people I know like to charge their phones when they are using it intensively like that for navigation or streaming music for long periods of time.
djSyndrome
Member
For long periods of time, sure. For a quick trip to the store or the park-and-ride? I'm not pulling my phone out of my pocket, but I still expect all of my head unit's features to be available.
Yes, it seems like it does for the few that I've sent.
TheAbsolution
Member
Sure, you have the original Bluetooth and Navigation in the Hyundai system to fall back on.
No, because they're trying to create a system that is as safe and least distracting as can be and the only way to do that is to lock down and create an android fork for it.
neogaffer1
Banned
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
Fucking finally!
Android Auto is now available in every cellphone with Android 5 and up, no need for a new car to use it; I think it works great, only need Waze compatible with it to be perfect. Also, for some reason, it can't bypass my Huawei lock screen.
I made a thread (new thread for new news) with the link to the google blog announcement.
Android Auto is now available in every cellphone with Android 5 and up, no need for a new car to use it; I think it works great, only need Waze compatible with it to be perfect. Also, for some reason, it can't bypass my Huawei lock screen.
I made a thread (new thread for new news) with the link to the google blog announcement.
Anyone used both Android Auto and Apple Carplay? My car supports both and I'm looking at a new phone. I am annoyed by the consistency of Apple Carplay in my car, where radio and podcast apps work every other time and I FREQUENTLY have to disconnect/reconnect to get it working properly. Based on unscientific research, it seems to be carplay bugs rather than the car.
How do the two compare in terms of practical functionality and responsiveness?
I'm not a big fan of CarPlay as I have trouble with the connection. Like there's time it would say device not supported or the apps won't even load.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
I've used both recently and still use both sometimes just to see if anything has changed. They both have ups and downs. I find Car Play to be more simple, to be smoother in operation, to have far less issues with random disconnects or unresponsiveness or anything like that, and to have pretty good apps.
Android Auto is also pretty good, has a bit more flexibility, google maps is obviously great though apple maps has still come a long way. It's honestly a toss up and you won't be disappointed either way I don't think. Practical functionality and responsiveness is good on both. One edge I'll give android auto is that I like to shuffle music but on car play you cannot see the list of shuffled songs and play whatever you want. You can only hit the next track. On android auto you can see the list.
They're both fine though. I've had less problems with car play for sure but it's all so minor. It also depends what phone you have. I find samsung phones to be troublesome for android auto (because of their weird settings fucking shit up). Pixel is a lot better.
That's why I think you should just go with whatever phone is your OS preference. You'll like both either way. They share different bugs.
Android Auto (for music) is a pain to use compared to my car's built in mp3 support (2016 civic). You can't get a simple list of available albums/song (only recently added playlist, created playlists), it doesn't display the title of the album when playing (so I can't shuffle to a song and then play the album it's on without knowing the album name), and it's pretty much designed to only work via voice command.
I'm someone who greatly prefers to listen to full albums, so if you just have a bunch of singles it will probably work fine for you.
What I usually do is play music via USB and leave it on the Android Auto navigation screen. It will still work as normal (quieting the music when giving directions, etc).
I'm someone who greatly prefers to listen to full albums, so if you just have a bunch of singles it will probably work fine for you.
What I usually do is play music via USB and leave it on the Android Auto navigation screen. It will still work as normal (quieting the music when giving directions, etc).
I have a head unit that supports both. I used CarPlay for a year, and then I switched to a Moto X Pure, so I use Android Auto now.
Note: I'm going to state a bunch of negative stuff up front, but there are good reasons why I continue to use this platform, so stick around 'till the end.
One of the primary motivating factors in me switching to Android was CarPlay's instability with my iPhone 6. It would crash every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. Often, when I connected the phone, I could try playing songs but there would be no sound, the only solution for which was to disconnect and reconnect the phone. Android Auto does not have these issues and has been much more stable.
Otherwise, they're both similar, and they have similar limitations. Browsing music on either platform is pointless. It's not something you're intended to do; hell, Android Auto will actually lock your screen if you try to scroll down more than three or four times in list views.
Both platforms support voice search using Siri and Google Now respectively, but you can't actually do anything useful in terms of finding music to play. You can try to ask Siri to play a song by name, but it might not interpret your request correctly, or it will play a song by that name that is a different song than what you intended. In the case of Google Now, asking it to play a particular song will always pull from Google Play Music regardless of what your preferred music app is or what music you have on your phone.
So, for music and podcasts, your best bet is to create a playlist before you connect your phone and then browse to that playlist from your app of choice. Some podcast apps, like Pocket Casts, will maintain such a playlist for you automatically, making them much simpler to use.
Why, then, use either of these? Well, as it turns out, voice search is really great for responding to messages. On CarPlay, you can dictate messages (via the Messages app) to Siri, who will read them back to you and confirm that you want to send them. Works really well. Android Auto works similarly, with two major differences:
1) you can do this for any kind of message that you receive, including stuff like WhatsApp; and
2) With CarPlay, you respond to messages by browsing to the Messages app on your home screen, finding the message, having Siri read it back to you, and then responding "Yes" when asked if you want to reply. With Android Auto, you hit the Voice Search button and say "Reply" to respond to whatever was the last message you received. That's more convenient, but it's also the only way to respond to messages; there's no way to browse for a specific message.
Navigation via voice search is similarly useful. It's great to be able to just get into the car and say, "Hey Siri, take me home". Both platforms work really well here.
Using voice to conduct operations on the phone is the killer app. I'm disappointed that such functionality is limited to built-in apps only. You can't say something like, "OK Google, play the Rock Moods playlist on Spotify in shuffle mode". In the nearly two years that I've been using these platforms, I've seen no indication that this is ever going to change, despite all the voice search innovation that's happening outside of the automotive electronics industry. That's a big disappointment, but I'd still argue that these platforms are worthwhile if you do a lot of messaging.
Note: I'm going to state a bunch of negative stuff up front, but there are good reasons why I continue to use this platform, so stick around 'till the end.
One of the primary motivating factors in me switching to Android was CarPlay's instability with my iPhone 6. It would crash every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. Often, when I connected the phone, I could try playing songs but there would be no sound, the only solution for which was to disconnect and reconnect the phone. Android Auto does not have these issues and has been much more stable.
Otherwise, they're both similar, and they have similar limitations. Browsing music on either platform is pointless. It's not something you're intended to do; hell, Android Auto will actually lock your screen if you try to scroll down more than three or four times in list views.
Both platforms support voice search using Siri and Google Now respectively, but you can't actually do anything useful in terms of finding music to play. You can try to ask Siri to play a song by name, but it might not interpret your request correctly, or it will play a song by that name that is a different song than what you intended. In the case of Google Now, asking it to play a particular song will always pull from Google Play Music regardless of what your preferred music app is or what music you have on your phone.
So, for music and podcasts, your best bet is to create a playlist before you connect your phone and then browse to that playlist from your app of choice. Some podcast apps, like Pocket Casts, will maintain such a playlist for you automatically, making them much simpler to use.
Why, then, use either of these? Well, as it turns out, voice search is really great for responding to messages. On CarPlay, you can dictate messages (via the Messages app) to Siri, who will read them back to you and confirm that you want to send them. Works really well. Android Auto works similarly, with two major differences:
1) you can do this for any kind of message that you receive, including stuff like WhatsApp; and
2) With CarPlay, you respond to messages by browsing to the Messages app on your home screen, finding the message, having Siri read it back to you, and then responding "Yes" when asked if you want to reply. With Android Auto, you hit the Voice Search button and say "Reply" to respond to whatever was the last message you received. That's more convenient, but it's also the only way to respond to messages; there's no way to browse for a specific message.
Navigation via voice search is similarly useful. It's great to be able to just get into the car and say, "Hey Siri, take me home". Both platforms work really well here.
Using voice to conduct operations on the phone is the killer app. I'm disappointed that such functionality is limited to built-in apps only. You can't say something like, "OK Google, play the Rock Moods playlist on Spotify in shuffle mode". In the nearly two years that I've been using these platforms, I've seen no indication that this is ever going to change, despite all the voice search innovation that's happening outside of the automotive electronics industry. That's a big disappointment, but I'd still argue that these platforms are worthwhile if you do a lot of messaging.
Uncle Dukey
Member
I use CarPlay and have experienced two bugs:
1. On startup, the car does not switch over to CarPlay mode even though the the phone is connected
2. On startup, audio shows as playing, but no sound is heard from the speakers
Oddly, for both I have found that triggering Siri via a hardware button and then cancelling out of it tends to fix both of these issues.
I think I see this happen 5-10% of the time. I always assumed it was the head unit's problem. I also noticed that if the phone was connected to a VPN with CarPlay, I had a lot more issues.
I've also used Android Auto, but it is much more infrequently so I can't speak to the stability of it. My impression of it is that is very similar to CarPlay except that the maps are better and it supports third party messaging apps. Android Auto does not support Apple Music and CarPlay does not support Google Play Music.
What is the issue you are experiencing where you have to disconnect/reconnect?
My car doesn't have CarPlay but if I press the voice command button it invokes Siri so I can send messages etc. Not sure what other major benefits there are - you shouldn't be heavily interacting with something while driving anyway -whether it's a touchscreen on a phone or on a head unit
GrizzleBoy
Banned
Because Google bought Waze.
Shouldn't that hasten rather than slow it?
The bolded is among my many issues.
I also lose radio stations entirely when my phone gets in range of my home wifi. izarre but at least predictable. Carplay starting properly is kind of a crap shoot. Disconnecting/reconnecting and activating Siri via the voice button on my A4's steering wheel also works for me.
It's VERY hard to get straight answers from the Apple/Audi forums - Apple because you invariably get shut down by fanboys on the defensive "Must be some dumb thing you're doing!" and Audi because the problems are vague and everyone seems to have slightly different issues, but at this point I'm fairly certain it's a Carplay issue, since it seems to happen on other brands.
I should say that while the issues are annoying, I'm mostly pleased with how it works, however every now and then it will fail to connect on a long trip and none of the aforementioned fixes works. Seems like the car needs to "sleep" for a while to forget whatever caused the bad handshake to begin with - and restarting the phone doesn't seem to help.
Because most if not all systems are complete trash and don't last the life of the car. By using auto or carplay you always have an up to date system in your car with up to date maps, apps, etc.
I've used both but more Android auto. They recently brought OK Google support to auto which makes it competent now
LizardKing
Member
I have this in my car and hate it. It sucks for everything except maps IMO. And I actually feel like it's more dangerous and distracting to use the menus on this than my mounted phone (not to mention more limited). Then there's the problem of locking out my phone (there are many voice functions on a phone is that are not on the Android auto) and have to connect and disconnect every time I want to do something on my phone even if I'm sitting in a parking lot or at a light. Just terrible.
Uncle Dukey
Member
Interesting.. I have an aftermarket pioneer head unit but since you seem to have similar problems perhaps it's CarPlay after all. Before I figured out the Siri trick it was more annoying since I would have to physically unplug and plug in the phone. When you say radio stations are you referring to Apple Music or a third party application's radio station? I haven't noticed that specific issue but I'm curious if I duplicate what you're doing if I'll have the same results.
I have also experienced the problem where the phone won't connect at all without turning the car off and on again, but I've only experienced that maybe three times total.
On the bright side, if the quirks are on the CarPlay software side, it's possible that future iOS upgrades or hardware could help. I feel like neither Android Auto or CarPlay are a huge priority for either company though.
Yeah I keep waiting for stability fixes from Apple, because obviously Pioneer and Audi ain't on that schedule.
The radio thing is a kind of global fuckup - basically when the phone gets to my block, it sees my house wifi, tries to connect automatically and for some reason that turnsoff ALL radio stations - Satellite, terrestrial etc. I've never bothered to test if it would silence music from the SD cards, but I'd bet yes. What I suspect is happening is that it's soft crashing the whole Audi MMI interface, so the car is confused about what it's supposed to be playing.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Anyone here have an aftermarket head unit with android auto functionality and a phone that currently works with it? I got a galaxy s6 with 6.0 (marshmallow) and I'm reading everywhere it's essentially fucked. I was planning on switching my s6 anyways, any phone with marshmallow that still works with android auto?
Just a heads up on this, it looks like Waze is looking for beta testers for the Android Auto integration of the app.
Yup, it's really nice. The ads don't appear which is huge for me. I hope they add the limits though. Was always nice to have a reminder of just how much over the limit I'm traveling.
TheCochese
Banned
Fucking sweet. There's still a lot of holes that AA needs to address with app compatibility as well. Some is on app developers, but Google could help some as well.
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