Android Auto and MIB II

[mattaus]

Hi all,

I thought I'd start a thread to specifically discuss Android Auto (AA) and it's use with VW's MIB II App Connect platform. I'm hoping any and all questions can be asked here so that this thread could become a point of reference for AA users.

The only thing I ask is that if possible people post their phone specifications including model and Android version. It might help weed out issues more easily!

I've tried AA on 3 phones now:

Samsung Galaxy S3 running Cyanogenmod 12.1
Forget about it. The phone lacks thew grunt and AA is completely unusable.

HTC One M7 running Cyanogenmod 12.1
Worked, but was often slow to respond, and menu items liked to disappear especially in Spotify. Too buggy to use effectively.

LG/Google Nexus 5X running Android 6.0
Works, and works well. No noticeable issues that are not problems with AA or the MIB II platforms themselves.

My experiences with AA are mainly on the music side of things. I've barely touched maps, but have made a few phone calls and have had a few text conversations with my brother which I'd say was 80% successful but no where near as easy as they should/could have been.

What do I like? I like having text messages read to me and I like being able to respond to text messages verbally. The speech recognition is pretty good, and from using it a bit more I find speaking naturally but not too fast works well. I enjoy using Spotify more than the media interface that comes standard with the unit. Using Google maps will no doubt be handy at some point (especially if my VW maps get horribly out of date), and when more apps come along I'm sure it will get better.

However! It's clearly in Beta.

Here's what I think they need to fix with Android Auto itself:

• You need to be able to select individual songs in a playlist.
• Pressing the back button should go to the start of the current track, not the start of the previous track.*
• Not being able to actually read the content of text messages*
• The voice input stops listening far too easily. If you pause at all, it'll stop listening. What you wend up with is only part of what you wanted to say.

I am aware that a lot of this is by design as depending on what country you are from only a certain amount of presses are legally allowed before the device is considered as interfering with driving. It's dumb and will be hard for Google to work around unless better voice control is implemented.

Here's what appears to be broken with Android Auto and MIB II:

• The MIB II screen is no where near as responsive as my phone screen, but AA is clearly designed for a more responsive unit. Far too often the unit does not recognise my input.
• Connection is iffy. I get better recognition if I plug my phone in before I start the car. If I plug it in after the accessories are running, it sometimes doesn't connect, or connects and disconnects several times before finally giving up or connecting. On one occasion the screen was just black and I had to un-plug and reconnect the phone for something to happen. On another occasion the entire head-unit crashed and I had no choice but to wait for it to restart. Sort of resolved. See below:

Personally I believe Android Auto has promise, and in a massive about turn I think it's a pretty good stab at it. It's worrying that even the latest and greatest hardware appears to have lag issues, and the screen sensitivity of the MIB II unit is not great.

If any of the issues I've highlighted above are unique to me, or clearly my own stupidity, then I'm all ears!

- Matt

EDIT: I'll add a table of "Good To Know" stuff:

Action	App	Result
Right Head Unit Knob (turn)	Google Maps	Zooms map in and out
	Android Auto home screen	Scrolls the activity list up and down
VW Voice Button (press and hold)	Anywhere in Android Auto	Activates Google Voice

How to properly connect to your MIB II unit:

1. Remove the car from the bluetooth settings on the phone.
2. Remove the phone from the bluetooth settings on the car.
3. Remove the car from the android auto app.
   
   You should now have a phone and car that don't know about each other at all. If you've just bought a car, start here.
   
   
4. Turn off Bluetooth on the phone.
5. Plug the phone into the car using USB.
6. Launch Android Auto from the menu in the car.
7. Follow all of the prompts on the phone. Android Auto WILL turn on the Bluetooth radio on your phone, and pair it for you.
8. Enjoy frustration free Android Auto Goodness.

I've tested the above method and the usual wait time to get AA up and running has dropped from 30s+ (if at all) down to almost instantly. It seems stupidly finicky to me that AA needs to negotiate the Bluetooth for it to work smoothly, but it does. And I'm happy to let it run the show if it means I can get in to AA faster.

[Jebus99]

• Voice controls do not work unless you press the mic button. I'm not sure if this is a problem with AA or VW?

If you press and hold the mic button, it will activate Voice control in AA. If you press once, it activates the VW voice system, it's only long press that allows you to use Google Voice.

I'm using a Galaxy S6 Edge, it does lag a bit but I think that's mostly related to the phone since the phone itself struggles sometimes. I think a stock android phone like N5X or N6P would do much better with it.

Maps is overall pretty good. It does seem to use the car's GPS system which is nice. Live traffic is as always a life saver. Again just lag related to the phone rather than the AA / VW system I feel.

[mattaus]

If you press and hold the mic button, it will activate Voice control in AA. If you press once, it activates the VW voice system, it's only long press that allows you to use Google Voice.

I'm using a Galaxy S6 Edge, it does lag a bit but I think that's mostly related to the phone since the phone itself struggles sometimes. I think a stock android phone like N5X or N6P would do much better with it.

Maps is overall pretty good. It does seem to use the car's GPS system which is nice. Live traffic is as always a life saver. Again just lag related to the phone rather than the AA / VW system I feel.

Holy crap I tried everything apart from press and hold. I feel so stupid lol. Thanks for pointing that out to me

I've updated my original post to reflect this. I also had more of a play with Google maps and agree that traffic information is great (I can the same route through the city via Google maps and with the in car GPS and the Google estimated time of arrival was far more accurate).

as you say a few issues are related to system lag. I had more problems this afternoon with AA just not wanting to connect. I get about half a dozen messages and crap appearing on the system screen, and my phone going ape **** asking for blue tooth access and other things. I don't know what I've done wrong but I had to disconnect the cable 3(!) times to get AA to finally launch.

I definitely have a better opinion of it now that I know to actually use the steering wheel. I had a much better text conversation with my father on the way home without touching the screen or my phone. I will note that two message I sent my brother never actually sent. My phone has no recollection of them. Odd.

[Jebus99]

as you say a few issues are related to system lag. I had more problems this afternoon with AA just not wanting to connect. I get about half a dozen messages and crap appearing on the system screen, and my phone going ape **** asking for blue tooth access and other things. I don't know what I've done wrong but I had to disconnect the cable 3(!) times to get AA to finally launch.

It happens to me as well a bit. I found it was less of an issue if my phone was unlocked and I had manually opened the Android Auto app from the app drawer. Increases my hit rate for first time connect. Other times I have to go to settings and manually trigger the connection through AA Settings on the car.

From This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNKGM4ss5Sc it seems like the system only accepts the compressed video/audio and sends back some back information regarding touch/sensors/gps so most of the lag must be related tot he phone processing it. I know Samsungs have terrible RAM management compared to stock phones so I'm hoping that trialing an old N5 sometime will expose that to be true. The reason I see this is because if the phone redraws apps when you load them on your phone normally, when its in AA mode and having to create windows on the phone and on the virtual screen for AA, it's likely to have greater instances of lag/blank screens as a result. An inherent Android problem that Carplay likely won't have unfortunately.

[Ralfi]

Good thread. I'm interested to see how AA compares to CarPlay & with arguably more people using the former, there should be more tips popping up in here which I can also make use of.

Seems Spotify's also buggy in AA, although for me, with the latest IOS software update, it's more stable. Looks like Android 6 improves on things too. & it should get better over time.

Biggest thing I miss is Google Maps with its more efficient live traffic information...

[AJW]

I've been using a 2 year old Nexus 5 and didn't notice any lag or touch issues on the screen.
Just bought a Nexus 6P also works well, maybe it's slightly faster than the Nexus 5.
It's not as quite fast as using the phone but I don't have any issues with lag and I'd say it seems as fast as the VW section of the headunit.
Noticed there was an update to the App today - 1.4.097607.
It mentions "Support for cars with controller inputs and larger screen sizes" , don't know if that effects the MIBII unit or not.

I only realized the other day you can use the RHS headunit knob to zoom in and out of maps, plus when you're in the "home" screen you can use the knob to scroll up & down and enter without touching the screen.
Because I use Google Now to monitor my Home & Work address every day I get in my car it says home long it will take to get to work in the morning and how long to get home at night - really handy.
The Traffic updates on Google Maps seems to be reasonably accurate, at least in Sydney.

[mattaus]

I carpooled with a friend today and had a "holy crap!" moment on the way to work. I'm not sure how we got onto it but I ended up asking Google when Season 7 of Archer started. It started with the usual "Season 6 started on January 7, 2015" and I thought that's no help, but it then continued (roughly) "based on this information and other prior season commencement dates we can expect Season 7 to start either January 7 or 14, 2016".

I know it's not Android Auto specific and I rarely use Google voice search, but it is something I'd use in the car a lot more so it was cool to see it in action.

I do use Google Now cards a lot though so as AJW said knowing estimated travel times and having them readily available is great.

It happens to me as well a bit. I found it was less of an issue if my phone was unlocked and I had manually opened the Android Auto app from the app drawer. Increases my hit rate for first time connect. Other times I have to go to settings and manually trigger the connection through AA Settings on the car.

I tried this out this morning and it worked a lot better. First world problem I know, but it sucks that I have to do that rather than just get in my car and plug it in and be done with it. I need a dock for my phone, so I'm considering using NFC to trigger all that automatically for me. If it'll work the way I want it to that is.

From This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNKGM4ss5Sc it seems like the system only accepts the compressed video/audio and sends back some back information regarding touch/sensors/gps so most of the lag must be related tot he phone processing it. I know Samsungs have terrible RAM management compared to stock phones so I'm hoping that trialing an old N5 sometime will expose that to be true. The reason I see this is because if the phone redraws apps when you load them on your phone normally, when its in AA mode and having to create windows on the phone and on the virtual screen for AA, it's likely to have greater instances of lag/blank screens as a result. An inherent Android problem that Carplay likely won't have unfortunately.

Hoping this is something Google will address over time. Something like the old project butter might come along for AA?

Seems Spotify's also buggy in AA, although for me, with the latest IOS software update, it's more stable. Looks like Android 6 improves on things too. & it should get better over time.

Right now I wouldn't consider Spotify too buggy; it's just more hampered by the restrictions placed on it by Google There is the occasional glitch and I did get in a loop for a few minutes this morning where it kept asking me if I wanted to use Spofity or Google Music, but I'd say that was an overarching AA problem rather than something to do with Spotify.

I've been using a 2 year old Nexus 5 and didn't notice any lag or touch issues on the screen.
Just bought a Nexus 6P also works well, maybe it's slightly faster than the Nexus 5.
It's not as quite fast as using the phone but I don't have any issues with lag and I'd say it seems as fast as the VW section of the headunit.
Noticed there was an update to the App today - 1.4.097607.
It mentions "Support for cars with controller inputs and larger screen sizes" , don't know if that effects the MIBII unit or not.

I only realized the other day you can use the RHS headunit knob to zoom in and out of maps, plus when you're in the "home" screen you can use the knob to scroll up & down and enter without touching the screen.
Because I use Google Now to monitor my Home & Work address every day I get in my car it says home long it will take to get to work in the morning and how long to get home at night - really handy.
The Traffic updates on Google Maps seems to be reasonably accurate, at least in Sydney.

My brother has an original 5 and a 6P and says the 6P is light years better. He did try fixing the GPS issue on his 5 by himself though and made a meal of it (which I fixed) so who knows what else he did to that phone though lol. It is an interesting observation though. I'm starting to believe my lag issues are related to the head units touch screen. I remain unconvinced that it is anywhere near as accurate and responsive as the phone screen. Just this morning it ignored my input a number of times. Maybe I'm asking too much of it lol?

I've added a little table to my original post which I'll format a bit better later on and add to it as things are discovered

[AJW]

Don't know if it's my imagination but it looks like the screen resolution is better with the latest AA update (1.4.097607) - especially when running maps and fine detail.

[mattaus]

For some reason my AA didn't auto update. Doing it now.

Also wondering if anyone has experienced the following issues:

Inconsistent automatic volume control when using voice control. Basically I hit the talk button and the volume dropped so I could hear the dual chime it makes when it's ready to listen. Except once the chime stopped it returned the music I was listening to at the time (and loudly) to normal volume. I'm not sure if I needed to or not, but I had to shout to make my command clear. It then dropped briefly when the system started responding but picked up almost immediately so I could barely hear the response. Basically it was't keeping the volume down. Odd.

Second issue might be a Spotify bug (typical after I state it's not buggy!). Normally when you're listening to music and something happens to interrupt the music (a phone call, a message reading, and so forth) the music pauses and then recommence after you're done. Well it wasn't doing that this afternoon. It'd stop as expected, but then never start again. I'd have to manually press play.

I'm hoping both of the above issues were random and infrequent occurrences. All-in-all though today was a much better day with Android Auto

[mattaus]

A sadly less than stellar experience this morning. Some of the issues I highlighted previously occurred again, plus some new ones. Definitely don't start Android Auto while the radio is running otherwise you won't get sound out of the thing. I'm going to try my free Google Music subscription and see if the same issues occur. If not, then I know Spotify for AA needs some serious work!