Will there ever be such a thing? I know that you can use your phone on a mount, but having your phone integrated into your dash screen, steering wheel buttons, etc. Is a big convenience and I also think safer.
Would a drop in replacement be possible? Or would a whole new app need to be developed and integrated into every car manufacturer?
This is one google app that I still heavily rely on, unfortunately. I’m sure they are harvesting everything about me as I drive.
There’s 2 parts to this:
- Android Auto app (on your phone)
- Android Auto Head Unit software (in your car)
Both of which are currently proprietary,
and would need to be written as FOSS from the ground up by reverse engineering the above 2, which would be a huge undertaking.Also flashing custom Head Unit software to your car will be very hard, is not well documented, and likely will void your warranty, giving low incentive for developers to even attempt it :/
The best you can do right now is aa4mg (Android Auto 4 MicroG),
which at least allows to replace the proprietary Google Play services with a privacy respecting FOSS alternative and Android Auto’s dependencies with empty stub packages:
https://github.com/sn-00-x/aa4mgFull disclosure,
I helped with writing aa4mg :)Also flashing custom Head Unit software to your car will be very hard, is not well documented, and likely will void your warranty, giving low incentive for developers to even attempt it :/
I hope that Europe will demand car manufacturers to allow the installation of an after market kit, or better, to install our own software. I’m sure that the open source community will jump in (I’ll chip in for sure!)
One dreams of a day where it could be a thing. My take is that a drop in replacement is not possible because there is no incentive for car manufacturers to provide that hardware interoperability. They profit too much from the work google does to write the software for them, and all your data they can sell. They want you to buy a whole new car to get the latest features, they are not going to make it any easier on you to extend the lifetime of their product.
There are projects like Crankshaft that allow you to add a head unit to a vehicle that does not have one, but that does not get rid of the android app on your phone. As far as i know all these projects relay on a reverse engineered implementation of the android auto spec: https://github.com/f1xpl/openauto
One could read that implementation and make a client, but i am not aware of one that exists, let alone is actively maintained. Ibl believe the reason is the cost of testing the software for compatibility with all the different auto maker hardware makes this too difficult to sustain. I look forward to other responses to see what others are using.
TBH I don’t even understand why Android Auto needs to exist in the first place.
The same (or even better) functionality can be achieved by using a standard video output (DisplayPort, HDMI) from the device to the in-car screen, while the touches on the in-car screen can be translated into USB mouse position and clicks on the device (unless there is a better touch protocol).
I know there are regulations about live video on in-car screens, but 1. That does not stop people from watching videos on their phones while driving and 2. Somehow that does not apply to maps?
