I’ve been using android auto with a 2017 Mazda cx-5 for like 4 years now, at first on a Samsung galaxy S8, and now on a pixel 5. It’s useful, and don’t get me wrong, waaaaaaaaaaaay better then what’s built into the car. But holy fucking christ is it a buggy sack of shit. Here’s a short selection of bugs i’ve had with this setup over the years:

• The entire UI just randomly freezing for a solid minute
• Sound not working for music, and the whole thing just straight-up crashing when trying to play something.
• Music absolutely refusing to play (to the point I have to reboot my fucking phone).
• Voice commands not working period.
• Not carrying over route planning from my phone to the car when plugging in.

And a bunch of other shit that I either can’t be assed to write about or don’t remember right now. PLUS, whenever anything breaks you never know if it’s the car, the phone, or the connection. Sometimes just unpluging it works, sometimes I have to reboot the phone, and once in a while I’ve had to turn my fucking car off and back on…

Honestly the overwhelming emotions that are associated with android auto for me are “annoyance” and “again?”. This is unfortunate as it is a really cool idea and a neat piece of tech. Maybe one day it won’t be a flaming pile of garbage and actually pleasant to use.

Man I forgot how C H U N K Y (and dark!) the lighting engine used to be. It really did bring out the blockiness in the game.