For all of its faults, I love Android Auto. Over the past ten years, Google’s put together a really impressive interface for safely interacting with your phone while driving. Media playback, sending messages via voice commands, looking up restaurants in the middle of a road trip — there’s really no other substitute for it on Android. While I’ve been an Android Auto user for nearly six years (and a die-hard fan of the discontinued phone view well before that), there’s one feature I hadn’t yet experienced before this weekend: wireless connectivity.
Last week, I turned in my previous truck for a new ride, one that included wireless Android Auto and CarPlay support for the very first time in my twelve years of being a licensed driver. And while I’ve only hit the road a couple of times since being handed the key, I can already tell it’s one of those game-changing attributes, especially considering most of my local stomping grounds are well under 25 minutes away from my house (truly, everything is “15 minutes away” in Buffalo).
Getting in the car, pressing that push-to-start ignition, and immediately seeing the infotainment screen swap to my supported apps without taking the phone out of my pocket is, frankly, incredible. Basically, I’m kicking myself for not having picked up one of the many, many wireless Android Auto adapters that have hit the market over the past couple of years. In my defense, it seemed like something entirely unnecessary — I usually just skip out on plugging my phone in on short drives, letting Bluetooth resume whatever I was listening to last.
Of course, wireless Android Auto comes with some downgrades. Even during my 20-minute drive home from the dealer, you better believe I noticed that battery drain. I’m not too worried about it for neighborhood drives — running to grab groceries or heading over to the hardware store — but for longer trips up to Canada on vacation or to the growing list of weddings I’ll be attending this year, I’ll be reaching for that cable. I’ve also noticed that overall performance is a little choppier than I would’ve otherwise expected, although we’re talking about a difference in frames here, not overall performance.
I also have one pretty big concern over wireless Android Auto, though it’s something that applies pretty specifically to me. As someone who’s constantly swapping phones — either for review or because I’m looking for a fresher experience — the idea of setting up Bluetooth connections for every device in my pocket feels prematurely exhausting. That shiny, new feeling of having my phone’s controls available wirelessly feels pretty great now, but in a few months, when I’m reviewing the Pixel 10, will I take the time to set up the connection properly, or will I just plug it into the USB-C port? Only time will tell.
We’ve asked in the past about Android Auto usage in general — most recently in 2022, when Google’s current visual design rolled out — but this week, I want to ask specifically about wireless Android Auto. Have you ditched cables in your car? Are you still relying on a wired connection? Or maybe, unlike me, you saw the inherent promise of wireless connections and grabbed something like Motorola’s MA1 dongle. Either way, let us know in the poll below.