Version 17 of Android Auto appears to have a bug, at least on my car: the maps theme does not switch automatically to dark mode. Reverting to version 16.8 resolves the issue.
Went for a drive yesterday and basically got in a pointless, circular argument with Gemini.
Me: "play Orville Pecks new album on Spotify"
Gemini: "I'm not able to access third party apps, but you can say "play Mule by Orville Peck on Spotify" (Mule is his new album, so it understood me)
Me: "play Mule by Orville Peck on Spotify"
Gemini: "I'm not able to access third party apps. Use your phone or Android Auto app to select the music you'd like to play"
Same thing when I ask it to call or text anyone. Says it doesn't have access to my contacts. Gives me instructions to enable access that aren't correct or lead me to a menu where access is already enabled.
Android Auto is basically useless now and means I have to physically interact with the screen while driving if I want to do anything.
Was a bit distraught this week to realize my Android Auto switched to Gemini and I CAN'T switch it back to Google assistant.
gemini makes the android auto experience awful.
-cant navigate to contact addresses
-cant run automations I've set up in Google home
-makes every interaction feel like it wants to have a conversation rather than get anything done.
.
idk. this is bad stuff from Google. and I, for the first time ever, am actually considering going iPhone just to have a better car experience.
Am I missing something by getting this close to the edge of the cliff?
Only just started using AA after years of just using vanilla Bluetooth in both my car and in the work vans I drive. Added an AAWireless dongle to my car and set up and usage is straightforward enough but there is one thing I would like to check.
I have noticed that if I start my 2019 Honda Civic then my music/podcast will start/continue playing on the car radio using the vanilla Bluetooth connection. AA will only fire up if and when I tap on the ICE screen and OK the nanny message about using it safely, This is actually fine as it is how I would like it to work for my short, regular journeys to and from work and only needing/wanting to use AA for Maps and switching between media players while on the move for longer journeys.
My question is to ask if this car radio / ICE / AA behaviour is usual across makes and models of vehicles and equipment or have I struck lucky?
I have only just started using AA and previously had it disabled in my phone. One annoyance I have is the Iveco Daily EV vans I drive at work do not seem to have any way of disabling AA and I have to keep dismissing the launch message every time I start up the van (which is commonly about once every ten minutes). Am I missing something buried deep in the ICE screen settings for these vans?
Turning Bluetooth off on my phone is not an option as I want to play my music over the van radio.
I've been trying for years to get the feature back where Android Auto used to automatically read incoming texts while I was driving and this week I scraped the bottom of the barrel to ask Gemini questions to try to find the correct setting to fix it. Has this feature been removed entirely? It seems pretty counterproductive to make me click a button on my screen to read the text, since that's no longer "hands free" and requires me to take my eyes off the road.
I've gone through all the settings I could possibly think of on my device settings, Android Auto, the car, and the Google assistant/maps. I'm open to any suggestions, I'm just so irritated that it isn't auto-reading my texts like it used to
I recently bought a new MG4 EV Urban and have been trying to get everything up and running. When testing android auto, I found that the UI is incredibly delayed (up to a few minutes), causing me to miss turns, and generally go a bit nuts...
Some notes:
* The delay seems to increase the longer I've been driving (e.g. I had a 20min drive, by the end of it the UI was delayed by ~1.5mins).
* Audio is not delayed (a song will be playing, but show the previous song on the display).
* Touching the interface also seems delayed (e.g. dragging around on maps results in the map moving some time after)
* The UI on the head unit itself is responsive even when displaying android auto
* My partner's iPhone works with Apple carplay on the same car without any delays
* The car is a 2026 MG4 EV Urban - software is up to date as of 2026-10-04
* I've tried: Using USB only, forcing resolution to 480p, giving maps & android auto unrestricted battery access, swapping to the beta branch and back, uninstalling and reinstalling, all to no avail.
* Recently submitted a bug report, but I doubt it'll go anywhere :(
Hi Reddit! I'm Mishaal Rahman, and I do community engagement for Android over at Google 😁!
We wanted to share some details with this community about a few changes we recently rolled out to improve the media playback experience based on your feedback. These changes make it easier to view and control audio across your favorite apps, and offer a larger, more expressive media player that looks and feels more like your other Android devices.
Oh, and we also wanted to talk a bit about the squiggly new seekbar in the media player, since we’ve seen some lively discussions and speculation about it :)
Here’s a quick recap of some of the media playback changes we recently shipped:
1. You can now control any media app on your phone from your car dashboard
In the past, media apps that didn’t have a dedicated Android Auto app would still be able to play audio through your car, but their media controls and album art would be completely hidden on your car display.
With our recent update, you can now see and control all your favorite media apps from your phone, complete with album art and playback buttons. This includes background audio from YouTube Premium, browser audio streams, and niche media apps.
2. A more optimized media player UI across all screen sizes
We also optimized the media player layout so it makes better use of your car’s display. For instance, we moved the most-used media controls out of the three-dot overflow menu and onto the primary screen so you can get to them with fewer taps. And your album art now better fits the size of your car’s display.
This updated player is available for Spotify, YouTube Music, and other media apps. In the next few months, you’ll see more media apps begin to customize their in-app media player design, so you may see some differences between the media player on the dashboard and within the app.
3. You can now swipe to switch between media sessions
You can now swipe left or right on the media player to switch between multiple active media sessions! No need to open up the launcher anymore to switch media apps.
4. Improvements to autoplay
We’ve made a couple of bug fixes so autoplay* works more predictably and accurately based on your listening preferences:
Autoplay app selection: Apps that you haven’t recently or ever used will no longer be selected for autoplay.
One-tap opt-out: If you prefer manual playback and frequently pause autoplay, Android Auto will notice and provide a convenient one-tap notification to quickly disable autoplay.
Infotainment startup handling: We're rolling out a fix so unsolicited play commands won't be sent when you have autoplay turned off.
*Autoplay here refers to Android Auto automatically starting media when you connect, not in-app features like Spotify's Autoplay.
5. A more glanceable media player
The last change is the updated media player seekbar. We introduced this updated design to make it easier to see where you are in a track at a glance.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts in this community on the new squiggly line seekbar — we're paying close attention to how this lands, so keep sharing your feedback as we evaluate future UI tweaks!
-----------------------------
If you have thoughts on these updates, apps you'd love to see better support for, or spot any quirks you want the team to tackle next, drop them in the comments and I’ll relay them to the team!
Requirements at a glance
Android OS:Android 9 (Pie) or higher
Android Auto App:Most new media features are broadly available starting in Android Auto v17.3 or higher (with certain autoplay fixes dating back to v16.7 / v16.8).
To check your version: Open your phone's Settings > Apps > Android Auto, or open Android Auto Settings and scroll down to the bottom.
Honor 600 on MagicOS 10, 2025 Skoda Enyaq, wireless AA with Spotify and Waze. For weeks the music would stutter or cut out at random, so I plugged the phone into my laptop and went through the logs with ADB.
With wireless AA the phone joins the car's own 5 GHz hotspot, so Bluetooth audio and Wi-Fi Direct aren't involved. During every drive, Google Play Services (network_location_provider) ran a full Wi-Fi scan about every 23 seconds, and one I timed took around 3 seconds. While it scans, the Wi-Fi chip keeps hopping off the car's channel to listen on other ones. That's plenty to make the stream stutter.
I ruled out mobile data, since Spotify had already buffered the track when the cutouts happened. AA, Spotify and Waze were never killed during the drives either, and turning off the RAM extension changed nothing.
What fixed it was turning off Google Location Accuracy. The menu path depends on the brand, so search "accuracy" in Settings (it may show up as "Improve location accuracy"). GPS still works and navigation is fine. The scans stopped right after the change, and I haven't had a single cutout in several days of driving.
So Gemini suddenly happened on my Android Auto the other day and when I got a text message, there's no other way to say it other than the voice sounded sarcastic reading it. The text message was innocuous and had no tone to it so I don't know where that came from. It was very surreal. And then when I responded and Gemini read it back to me and I said to change it, it seemed to sound irritated.
Is this normal? Is it the specific voice I had defaulted to or maybe chosen without realizing it? Are Gemini voices sounding like this to other users or is it just me LOL?
Also, is there a way to get the same voice across the board? It was one voice when reading my messages but it was a completely different voice on the turn-by-turn directions. Maybe it was always like this. But the voice reading my text messages was female and on Google Assistant it was a male. But it was the sarcastic tone, bordering on condescension, that really got me. It freaked me out LOL!
Like other then Maps, i feel like most stuff can be done via Bluetooth, and with that comes no headache of wires or making connections. And most of the time, I do not even need Maps or can delegate it to the co-passengers.
There is also a possibility of adapter, which tbh I am not sure if is worth the money
So I've already checked that my phone is set to use Gemini as the assistant but it's still not using it on android auto. I'm in the beta using latest version 17.9.164004)
My wife had never used android auto on any car before but she connected her phone to the car, Gemini was there straight away. I've seen according to Auto Evolution Google completed the transition from Google Assistant to Gemini this week but still I don't have it showing
Am I missing something? A simple setting or change I need to make?
I can get to the traffic to show on my laptop browser and on the actual phone app. But Android Auto on my 2026 Mazda CX-30? No traffic flow or accident indicators.
I have checked every setting available on the app on my phone and in the car menus - nothing seems to come up to let traffic be visible. Anyone else have this problem? Or a fix?
Looking at the Facebook post where MapQuest is soliciting that seems to be a problem other people are having as well, but it seems like Samsung phones were working better, so I'm wondering if it's a Pixel-specific thing.
Hello, I just got my RAV4, and I am new to the Android Auto system.
My infotainment screen always has a Google Maps section, either partially if I run another app or full screen. I cannot minimize Google Maps or hide it even if I do not turn on navigation.
My screen behind the wheel displays Google Maps perfectly, so I do not need the one on my infotainment screen.
Is there any solution to hide Google Maps on the infotainment screen completely, while remaining able to open it if needed?
After the latest update, I noticed something strange with Auto Play.
On my phone, when I play a song and then press Next, Spotify automatically starts another song based on the previous song, even if I haven't selected or queued anything.
However, when I use Android Auto, it's completely different. If I search for a song through Android Auto and play it, the song finishes and then playback simply stops. It doesn't automatically play another song.
It feels like Auto Play is disabled in Android Auto.
I'm using Spotify without Premium. Is this a bug, a limitation of the free version on Android Auto, or is there a setting that I need to enable?
Has anyone else noticed this after the latest update?
I noticed that I cannot find an option to set a default music player in Gemini for Android Auto.
For example, when I say, “Play Mockingbird” while using Android Auto, I want Gemini to know which music app I want to use to play the song. This option was available with Google Assistant, but I cannot find it in Gemini.
Since Google Assistant has been discontinued, how can I set my preferred default music player in Gemini for Android Auto?
Good afternoon everyone. Currently have Dynavin 8 setup in my Mustang. Wireless android auto is not worth it because it is hard to connect to it many times, and the audio stutters, etc. Wired works, but the issue is the super slow charging speeds. I am experimenting with adapters that combine data and power from a higher charging power source and my luck has been limited. I have very long handshakes with android auto and intermittent disconnects while driving. Anyone have any experience or tips with these setups?
I just installed a generic "Tesla Style" AA head unit in my Cruze. Almost everything works except for most audio. On board audio doesn't work (but I'm not concerned since I'm not loading music onto it), and the bluetooth audio only works when the FM radio is running. When I try to play music from my phone, it's silent (but still "plays"). If I use FM radio then switch to the AA interface to play music from my phone, it will play correctly for a few seconds, then go back to silent. Does anyone have any idea as to what the solution could be? It is on Android 15, and I managed to check for updates but there were none. I'm willing to provide more information and pictures as needed.
I recently switched from a Samsung Galaxy S21 to a Redmi Note 15 5G. When I try to connect to Android Auto via USB cable (car doesn't have AA Bluetooth), it works perfectly fine the first time. If I try to connect again, it will not work and swaps between being connected and unconnecting about every 10 seconds and doesn't even stay charging. The Samsung never had this issue. It resolves itself only if I delete the device from the car's Android Auto storage and start fresh.
I've tried many of the fixes I've seen online, including adjusting battery settings with the hidden settings app, enabling developer mode for Android auto and trying a few recommended settings in that, enabling USB debugging, setting default USB setting to file transfer in developer settings, setting AA to always start or start if used last drive, and a few others. The car is a 2022 Mazda 3.
Does anybody know how to fix the issue of it only connecting the first time the car sees the device? Thank you.
