Continuing the discussion from Android Auto doesn't work:
Hi I am thinking of buying a new Skoda Octavia an would like to know if anyone has successfully tested / is using Android Auto. I think there have been a bunch of changes till now.
Greetings from Austria,
Alex
Unfortunately I don’t have a compatible car, however I have been using Android Auto as a standalone app for a number of months and it does work really well for me. I can’t comment on the car specific things, but I’m finding it easier to use AA with Google Maps than using the GPS built into my car.
I am trying the App as well, to see how it will “feel” with the new car. It is nice, easy to use, big buttons and some really nice features to help you stay focused on driving your car.
I only miss google maps to show current speed and (or at least) the allowed speed (and warn me if I am to fast)
I still have one year subscription for Tom Tom Go, and would like to take advantage of it, but unfortunately it’s not featured by Android Auto …
I have seen some vids on AA, there people had quite difficulties to get their phones connected. So I would love to hear how it works with the FP2 and Android MM
So we have our new car (a Skoda with Radio Bolero) for some days now and I used Android Auto for several times.
It works quite good and when everything is set up, it starts automatically when the phone is plugged in.
The performance is good, the usability as well.
Google Maps is well adopted and works also with the hardware turning knob allowing one to zoom in or out.
The biggest limitation is that you can only use what Google allows you to use with Android Auto. My favourite radio app radio.de doesn’t work.
MirrorLink is not available for the FP2, so I can’t use my TomTom Go app for navigation.
Speech recognition / voice commands is not the best yet. But I am sure Google will continue the App development.
One (Fairphone) issue I was facing is the loss of GPS signal, it was not as bad as at my last trip and the arrow always stayed on the track, but it doesn’t seem very reliable.
Overall I am quite happy with it and I would not recommend buying an integrated navigation with the car, if you can use your smartphone instead.
You can ask your local car dealer for updates as well. Long time ago I had serious Bluetooth connection problems with a Blaupunkt NX radio made for Ford vehicles. Although it took them almost one year to release an appropriate update, it fixed the issue. Since then the radio has been working very well, and GPS navigation really has improved.
I don’t have problems with the car, actually I wanted to say that it works well …
I wanted to say that I can recommend the use of your Fairphone 2 via Android Auto for navigation on your car’s Infotainment system. And I don’t think it is worth to spend extra money on an integrated navigation system, because with the phone it works very good and it’s always up to date. (Car manufacturers often offer only one update per year and it’s not always for free)
My problem is related to the GPS performance of my FP2, as I mentioned in this post: My phone often looses the signal.
As mentioned in the first line of my post, it is a brand new car, so probably there are no updates out yet and I don’t think Skoda can help me fix the GPS of my FP2 
By the way: I have tried MirrorLink with my old Sony Xperia SP (Android 4.3 Jelly Bean) and I must say it is useless! Only a few apps show up on the car’s screen and they all cannot be used when driving - not even Google Maps! There is the possibility to cast the phone’s screen 1:1 to the car’s screen, but this also works only when the car is not moving (I wanted to use TomTom). Maybe it would work better with a more recent Android version, but I don’t have any other phone to try it out.
When I connect my FP2 to the Composition Media in my VW T6 Bus, I always have the problem that the connection drops afters several minutes. During the connection is working, everything is fine. I can use navigation and get the commands via the car’s loudspeakers.
But, as it disconnects after a short span of time I cannot use it. The software of the phone and radio got the latest updates. USB cable is checked and ok. Anyone an idea?
I was using Android Auto for navigating from Vienna to Rome and back this summer, it was a 10h+ long journey with few stops.
For most of the trip it was all working fine, but after some time it completely crashed and had to be reconnected.
I found out that a lot of other apps were crashed in the background, probably because they were trying to update but didn’t have enough resources to do so. I switched off automatic app updates via mobile data and the problem was solved for me.
But the worst was: when we arrived in Rome the battery of my FP2 was dead! Fortunately my wife had taken her older GPS Device (as we didn’t trust the phone).
I don’t know why that was, maybe the cable, maybe something else in the background (I can’t remember if I had turned the updates off before or after this). On our way back the phone was charging quite normally.
Overall it works quite well for me, but is not 100% reliable.
For your problem: try disabling background tasks like automatic updates.
Some car USB ports and USB chargers do not deliver enough current to charge the phone up. So the phone is actually discharged although the cable is plugged in. The solution is to buy a stronger car charger. I made good experiences with an Anker 2-port charger.
Some other problem is that the phone does not charge when it is too hot. You have to cool down the phone by closing background processes or by cooling the back (e. g. put the phone in front of the ventilation holes and turn the air conditioner on).
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