Hi, I changed car a while ago and it has built in stereo/navigation using a fancy dial doo-dah, it works well enough but is a bit basic and the navigation maps are 4-5 years out of date.

Mazda want a fairly sizeable chunk of cash to update the maps (which will be out of date again in a year or so), or an even more sizeable chunk of cash (£350) to update the system to use Android Auto.

My initial thoughts from watching a few Youtube vids, etc is that it looks like a decent set-up; integrating with Spotify, iPlayer, WhatsApp, as well as always having Google’s up-to-date maps/navigation. Part of the upgrade also adds a higher power USB socket so it charges much quicker than the existing one.

I’m fairly tempted to get it, but wondered if there’s any real-life experiences of it on here that may know of pit-falls I might not have considered?

I have it on my Ford Galaxy. The car itself is 3 years old now.

It’s a mixed blessing – when it works it’s not too bad, but it can be quite finicky.

The maps are obviously a lot better (but the builtin maps can allegedly be upgraded for free, I just haven’t bothered yet).

The BBC Sounds app is even more awful, but I don’t think that’s Android’s fault.

Ta for the reply.

the builtin maps can allegedly be upgraded for free

Mazda updates are free for the 1st 3 years. I bought it at 3 years and a handful of days old. Previous owner had never bothered to updated it and computer said no when I tried.

The BBC Sounds app is even more awful, but I don’t think that’s Android’s fault.

Shame the Sounds app is poor, it’s probably the one I’d want to use the most…

I pretty much only use android auto, never use the built in maps on my Skoda.

Maps are excellent, and up to date, spotify streams all my music with no issues, voice commands work well (play xxxx playlist/artist etc etc), you can get the STW podcast too (loaded this with never having listened a podcast before on it, via voice commands, on the M6).

I was a ‘must have’ on my car and I’m glad I got it.

The only issues I’ve had are random disconnections (might be due to the cable, some are more reliable than others with making the connection) – most of the time it’s perfectly fine though.

I’ve just bought a ‘new to me’ car that has Android Auto built-in. It was one of the main stipulations when looking for the car – I could have got the pre-facelift version for less money, but it didn’t have Android Auto capability.

So far, I am very pleased with it. It has worked almost seamlessly. There has been one occasion where Google Maps loaded OK and displayed the route, but no roads. I think this is because I was halfway through setting the navigation up on my phone when I plugged it into the car. I now do it all through the car screen once connected & haven’t had that happen since.

I have also had Spotify refuse to actually play a track – you press the play/pause button & nothing happens. But, it is hard to know if that is my phone/spotify/android auto. My phone can be a bit picky when sharing content to the Chromecast Audios & Google smart speakers we have around the house, so hard to pin the blame solely on Android Auto.

Main uses for me are music (Spotify), navigation (better than the built in version) and sending texts via the Google Assistant – just press the button & speak…

I suppose it depends how much the ‘upgrade’ is costing.

For my phone and my car, it works pretty well. MrsP’s phones have always had occasional issues when she’s tried to use it (usually when it was most needed). When I had a Mazda I recall there was an online forum that had all sorts of hacks and tweaks for the in-car system so might be worth having a google to see if you can roll your own first? Though I remember the USB socket in the car was absolutely useless for actually charging a phone (one of many aggravations I had with my Mazda), so might be worth paying just to get that bit sorted.

Ahh yes and you can also get it to read out text/whatsapp/facebook messenger messages, and dictate or record replies. All very clever.

I’ve got it; it’s great – though I found cable choice was important in getting it working reliably. One cable I tried only worked one way round; even though it’s USB C so should be reversible !

Waze is better than any in-car sat nav I’ve used; and as the others – spotify for tunes/podcasts. It’ll be a must have on any vehicle I buy for the foreseeable future..

Android auto – amazing, great, would not buy a car without it.
However, my Samsung S7 would have many issues with it. Upgrading to a new OnePlus7 almost all the issues disappeared. I presume it was to do with the newness of the OS on the phone. So Android auto on an old phone (or old operating system) might have more issues/oddities

Android auto = Google maps.

So constantly updated maps for life for free.

Oh and the fact you can reply to all types of messages via voice command and that it picks up every single profanity in my dictionary is the cherry.

To echo what’s said above – Android Auto is really good, much better than any factory nav. That includes Mrs C’s swanky new E Class Coupe with it’s widescreen display – the actual navigation is better on Googlemaps especially the traffic info and route choices.

As mentioned a couple of times, having a good cable is important. The one in my car is on it’s way out so will disconnect if the phone’s jostled.

I find it easier to type the destination in before I plug the phone in, find it easier on the phone.

You will use a little data on your phone if you’re using Googlemaps, playing music etc.

Neither of our cars have CD players so using Android auto is the best way of listening to music for us.

Android auto – amazing, great, would not buy a car without it.
…
So Android auto on an old phone (or old operating system) might have more issues/oddities

You beat me to it.

When I first got a car with Android Auto it was terrible. Took ages to start, lagged like anything, unusable. I got a new phone and it was a night and day difference.

IME, in-car OEM satnavs are a) taking the piss on pricing and b) shite. There’s always some embuggerance or other than isn’t immediately obvious until it’s too late. The salesman for my current Honda told me excitedly “it’s a Garmin!” and yes, yes it is, but if there’s a way of doing full postcode searches rather than the first 4-5 characters I’ve not found it yet.

Before that I had a Skoda. It’d tell you “there is congestion on your route” and then cheerfully guide you straight into it rather than try and reroute. Before that I had a Hyundai, that wasn’t too bad until they wanted £200 for a map update.

Enter Android Auto. “OK Google, navigate me to Dave’s.”

I find it easier to type the destination

How very 20th Century of you.

I use it mostly all the time for nav, works very well. Sometimes I can’t be arsed, or it’s not convenient when driving, to plug it in and use the inbuilt Sat Nav.

I pretty much only use android auto, never use the built in maps on my Skoda.

The only downside compared to the inbuilt Sat Nav is that you don’t get arrow pointers on the MaxiDot display on the instrument cluster.

Thanks for all the comments so far. Other than the usual computer glitchiness it sounds mostly very positive.

I guess I’m mainly wary of spending the cash in case Google choose to end-of-life their support for the app.

We have it on our Mazda 6, paid for the upgrade after we bought the car used, it costs a bit more because they change the usb ports to higher powered ones.
Still get speed limit warnings etc from the stock navigation when using Google maps so the best of both worlds.
It’s sometimes a bit picky with my wife’s pixel 3a, my 3xl has always been fine. May be user error…
I’d struggle to go back to a car without it.

I’ve used android auto as my 100% satnav in my taxi for the last two years so about 50,000miles (would be 75000+ if not for covid).

I don’t use Google maps as the sat nav app, rather Waze, which imo, has much better nav features and info. Also when using the phone plugged in through the usb it also stops all ad’s.

Regularly use Spotify, audible and other compatible apps when theirs no customers in the car. All are easy to use off the screen but voice control is better.
Voice control also works well, picking up address, songs or other questions like “when does flight #…. Arrive at Heathrow” or “what’s the weather like in Derby” pretty much first go.
Very glad I didn’t go for a more expensive built in at nav tbh. There are still the odd satnav glitches but because Waze’s data is controlled alot by realtime users there aren’t that many.

Waze has much much better live tracking of congestion and accidents over Google map in my experience. It has taken me on some very odd routes late at night though, usually on longer dual carriageways rather than shorter rural routes because it thinks it’s 30secs faster – I’d rather have 20miles less distance.

Waze has also been bought by Google so I’m expecting some sort of merge into Google maps at some point.

I can’t see Google ditching the auto function any time soon as so many cars are becoming more and more techy.

Waze was brought by the big G sometime ago, more features are being ported over to Google Maps over time.

I think you all might have talked me into it.

Voice control also works well, picking up address, songs or other questions like “when does flight #…. Arrive at Heathrow” or “what’s the weather like in Derby” pretty much first go.

This is a definite bonus of using Google for navigation.
We were camping in the Peak District last week & you could just say ‘navigate to Morrisons’, ‘navigate to Bakewell’, ‘navigate to Monsal Head’….and it just does it. I suppose you need data at the time, but I don’t really go to many places where it’s a problem.
I tried using the Seat sat nav to do the same thing but got no joy.

Also – a potential tip for Android Auto users.

On my car, putting the sidelights or headlights on, automatically switches the screen to ‘night’ map view in Google maps which is quite often shit.
If you turn on the developer settings in Android Auto, you can have it set by the phone where it relies on the Sunrise/Sunset times.

To do this, go to settings in Android Auto & then scroll to the version which should be at the bottom. Tap on it about 10 times you’ll turn on developer options. Within settings, press on the 3 dots (more options) button at the top and go into ‘developer settings’, you can then choose “day/night” and change how this is controlled.

You might need to kill the app & re-boot for it to take effect – I did.

Just found that I could add Android Auto to my 2014 A3 using this

Can’t really justify £445 – I’ll stick to using it on the phone.

This is a definite bonus of using Google for navigation.
We were camping in the Peak District last week & you could just say ‘navigate to Morrisons’, ‘navigate to Bakewell’, ‘navigate to Monsal Head’….and it just does it.

One thing that impressed me, it understands that some things change names. So for example* I could say “navigate to the MEN Arena” and I’d get back “navigating to Manchester Arena.”

(* – an example I made up, I don’t know if this specific request works but it’s the sort of thing that usually does.)

As mentioned a couple of times, having a good cable is important. The one in my car is on it’s way out so will disconnect if the phone’s jostled.

That’s exactly what’s happening to mine, hit a pothole and it disconnects. Which makes no sense as it’s a digital connection so it’s either there or it isn’t!

I had to find a right angle USB type C plug that worked with Android auto too, which was a pain…

If you turn on the developer settings in Android Auto, you can have it set by the phone where it relies on the Sunrise/Sunset times.

Marvellous! Ta muchly for that Stumpy 👍

Now if you could let me know how to get it to turn on location when I plug the phone in, I’d be forever indebted to you!

Just found that I could add Android Auto to my 2014 A3 using this

Can’t really justify £445 – I’ll stick to using it on the phone.

TBH, you’ll get a lot of similar functionality with a five quid phone mount and a Bluetooth pairing. The whole point of AA really is to redirect the screen output so it’s integrated into your head unit and to provides a simplified user interface.

I’ve already got the phone mount and bluetooth – hence not being able to justify £445

One thing that impressed me, it understands that some things change names. So for example* I could say “navigate to the MEN Arena” and I’d get back “navigating to Manchester Arena.”

(* – an example I made up, I don’t know if this specific request works but it’s the sort of thing that usually does.)

Yes, that works. :O

Son has it integrated on his Skoda, and I use it on my phone only. Very good. Cables were an issue for my son, so use a quality cable.

Yes, that works. :O

Hah, ace!

It’s awesome, had it for three years in the van. You can type in places if (and only if) your handbrake is on.

I use Apple CarPlay and have just installed it in my car. It’s excellent, it’s my new favourite gadget. It’s about £100 to update my sat nav maps and they’ll still be nowhere near as good as google maps.

Assuming Android Auto works well these days (it wasn’t great with my phone before I swapped to Apple) then it’ll be well worth it.

jamiea
Member

Marvellous! Ta muchly for that Stumpy 👍

Now if you could let me know how to get it to turn on location when I plug the phone in, I’d be forever indebted to you!

No problem! It was doing my head in that driving down tree-lined roads in the daytime meant I had to had ‘night’ maps because I’d popped my sidelights on. I figured there would be a way to adjust it somehow.

Not sure what you mean by ‘turn on location when I plug the phone in’, but can try to help out.
Do you mean turn on the gps? e.g. you normally have gps turned off, but would like it to turn on automatically when you plug the phone into the car?

you normally have gps turned off, but would like it to turn on automatically when you plug the phone into the car?

Yup, that’s it. I normally have Bluetooth and GPS off, more to prolong battery life than anything. It’s great AA turns on Bluetooth when plugged into the car, it’d be even greater if it did the same with GPS! I couldn’t find anything in the developer settings.

A favourite feature for me is asking for football / rugby scores. ‘Hey Google, what’s the Burnley score?’

Saves you having to wait til ‘Final score’ on the radio.

Haven’t yet tried asking ‘Who’s leading the TdF?’, but will do when they start racing.

Now if you could let me know how to get it to turn on location when I plug the phone in, I’d be forever indebted to you!

I’d look at Trigger or IFTT to see if they can help. I have mine set so it sets the media & ringtone volume when it connects to the car via Bluetooth. It’s also set to mute most sounds when it’s connected to the work wi-fi and that meany no tunes from Spotify on the way home until I unmuted everything manually.

jamiea
Member

Yup, that’s it. I normally have Bluetooth and GPS off, more to prolong battery life than anything. It’s great AA turns on Bluetooth when plugged into the car, it’d be even greater if it did the same with GPS! I couldn’t find anything in the developer settings.

Hmmm. You might be able to set-up an automated task to do this, but I don’t think you can do it directly through Android Auto.

My phone (Lenovo P2) has an area in the settings where you can set-up rules. You can set-up a rule called ‘driving’ & when it is activated, it automatically changes various things – turns on Bluetooth, GPS, sets the ringer volume and turns wi-fi off.
It is activated by an NFC tag. My old phone had a similar thing.
If your phone supports NFC, then the chances are there is something similar. You would have to get an NFC tag & put it somewhere in your car – the nook where you stash the phone? When you wave the phone past that tag, it would activate that rule/task. You could set a rule so waving it in front of the tag turns on bluetooth & gps?
Doing the same when you get out of the car would turn it off…

NFC tags can be had cheaply on ebay:
NFC

Having been dumped into traffic jams a couple of times in Germany (you are still on the fastest route bollocks) I rumaged in the boot and found a 20-year-old road atlas. The next time the sexy voice told me to drive into the jam we turned off onto minor roads and drove under the motorway bridge with both lanes blocked, umpteen fire engines, air ambulance etc.

We also got caught in a continuous loop in Berlin, we’d have gone around the circle all day if we’d listened.

Why is it that the speed limit is shown in France but nowhere else? (French car)

Why is it that the speed limit is shown in France but nowhere else? (French car)

Are we talking about Google maps here?
If so, that’s a bit strange because when I camped in France last year, I looked up driving laws and saw something that said you couldn’t use systems that have you speed limit warnings.
I was a bit concerned by this as Google Maps shows you the speed limit with an indicator if you are above it, but this didn’t show in France. I assumed Google knew it wasn’t legal there and so didn’t show it.

I use it in my transit custom.
Google maps even gave me the heads up about a mobile speed van at the end of the A30 which was hiding away 😉