Waze for Android Auto is a Thing

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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I am personally a huge fan of Waze and have used it for years now. I lost my account a couple of years ago, but have even managed to regain my "Waze Royalty" status with a couple of good cross country drives...but anyway. If you are lucky enough to have Android Auto in your vehicle, Waze can now be used inside of the Google Maps application rather than having to use your phone. Cool stuff for newer car owners. Too bad my rides are 9 and 14 years old. That said, this is a great phone mount on the cheap. Now if they will just allow me to integrate into Google Maps on my phone, all would be right in the world.

That's right—you can now navigate with Waze via your vehicle's in-car display, touch screens, steering wheel buttons, and other console-mounted controls. All it takes is connecting your Android phone to the USB port in a car that supports Android Auto.
 
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This is great. Having this (vs. not) would definitely be enough to influence my decision to buy a car.
 
My buddy has Android Auto in his 2003 F-350 using a Pioneer AVH4200NEX. Kenwood and Alpine also have Android Auto capable solutions as well.
 
Oh thank god. Good stuff, I use waze daily and didn't realize they updated it. Just tried it out, works great with my civic + pixel phone.
 
Someday our children's children will ask how our automobiles worked without accessing our personal companion device. They will ask if it's true that every car infotainment center was different. I will tell them I'm glad to not remember those days.

I use Carplay, but the basic concept is amazeballs having the phone be the infotainment system.
 
Waze on more than one occasion tried to lead me on a really bass ackwards route through the city. The final straw was when my wife was 8 months pregnant and we were doing the "how long will it take to go to the hospital" exercise, got a really pretty drive of NICE houses through San Francisco... but it's like Waze did not realize there was a stop sign ever few hundred feet and it really was just a retarded route all around. Turns out 3 in the morning we just said fuck it and went south to a hospital in another city on the freeway and were there in the same amount of time (nicer place too that doesn't fucking charge for parking!)
 
The problem IS Android Auto, it is a awful application. All android auto had to be was an interface to your phone that fed whatever was on your display to the car, instead it is garbage that does almost nothing useful and forces people to just not use it and just use their phone instead. On top of that google just hasn't done enough to keep it compatible and working well in the cars with car makers that support it.

The world has been so simple for so long yet auto makers and google have done nothing useful. Any one of us here could design a better system. Every human has a smart phone in places where people can afford new cars pretty much. Figure it out automakers and build around it.

Here is what every car needs today that will cost nearly nothing to implement. A simple standard mounting system like VESA for phone mounts. No more BS stuck in cup holders or falling off your windshield or sticking 5 inches out of your vents.
Appropriate space on the dash to have a phone that does not block other buttons and interfaces to the car or vents.

Done, see that wasn't even hard. What is that like 3$ worth of metal mounting hardware. Want to go the extra mile put 2 mounts in for passenger and driver. $6. But no the auto makers want to force you to upgrade to the $2000 technology package so they purposely make it so there is no where good for your phone to go.
 
The real problem is there is no truly universal standards for software interfaces. CarPlay and Android Auto are the attempts by the two largest camps, and they have their strengths and weaknesses just like anything else. There are many reasons why car manufacturers have to keep designing and making their own head units, outside of charging ridiculous amounts of money. For example, the in vehicle maps are usually atrocious in terms of how poor the user experience is and how quickly they become updated. I would much rather just use google maps with my phone. But that is the only way the GPS and turn by turn directions will appear in the heads up display. It uses the CANbus and serial data bus in the car to relay that information between pieces. Good luck getting all of these different map applications on your phone to do that.
 
I have Android Auto in my Jeep....bought a Kenwood deck to use it. You can get one for about 500 bucks (top of the line version), and installation isn't hard. Android Auto is the only way I do big trips anymore, and the unit I had came with a GPS antenna so you still get your maps even if you lose signal. Works well with Spotify and Google Play music.

Definitely will be shopping for a new head unit in my BRZ that has it.
 
rudy: The problem isn't really Android Auto. The problem is the USDOT and the ridiculous maze of nanny-state regulations that prevent automakers from just doing the mobile screen share that you describe. Allowing a mobile display on the dashboard might encourage some driver to do something dangerous (gasp!).

If it wasn't for the stupidity of Big Brother we'd have pure android-based dashboard accessories and they'd cost $100 or less (or even IOS based ones, but they'd cost $1,000 - and the sheep would still pay up).
 
rudy: The problem isn't really Android Auto. The problem is the USDOT and the ridiculous maze of nanny-state regulations that prevent automakers from just doing the mobile screen share that you describe. Allowing a mobile display on the dashboard might encourage some driver to do something dangerous (gasp!).

If it wasn't for the stupidity of Big Brother we'd have pure android-based dashboard accessories and they'd cost $100 or less (or even IOS based ones, but they'd cost $1,000 - and the sheep would still pay up).

They are a problem for sure, but not as big a problem as letting anyone with a pulse get a license.
 
Or just do what lots of others have done and install a tablet into your dash that tethers to your phone and outputs to an amp.
 
Not sure if I can replace my stock setup in my 2011 GMC Terrain. Just have a red screen display but it does display outside temp and climate controls info. Not sure if swapping out would break all that.
 
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