Photo: autoevolution
One of the best things about Android Auto is support for steering wheel buttons, so drivers can actually control apps and certain features without touching the screen.
But as some of us discovered earlier this year, the steering wheel controls are occasionally broken on Android Auto. In my case, for example, Android Auto on the Samsung Galaxy Note20 loses support for steering wheel controls every once in a while but disconnecting the phone and reconnecting it often brings back the normal behavior.
Others are less lucky, and one post on Google’s forums indicates this feature is gone completely in some cars.
What this means is that benefitting from steering wheel buttons when Android Auto is running on the head unit is no longer possible, so things like changing songs and adjusting the volume of the music don’t work anymore. The same for the voice dictation button that allows users to launch Google Assistant for hands-free interaction with Android Auto.
“I haven't driven much in the last 7 months. I noticed about 1-2 months ago that none of my steering wheel buttons are working for Android Auto anymore. I can't change tracks in Spotify anymore, I can't answer calls and voice command only activates Audis voice control. And whilst I don't care all too much about this one... The display behind the steering wheel between the speedo, no longer displays the tracks being played by Spotify. I've seen lots of people reporting similar problems but no one seems to have a solution,” one user explains on the forums.
A member of the Android Auto team says the company is already looking into this problem, only that phone logs are needed to figure out what’s causing the whole thing.
So if you too came across the broken steering wheel controls on Android Auto, make sure you head over to this discussion thread on Google’s forums and get in touch with the dev team to help them develop a fix in a future update for the app.
Others are less lucky, and one post on Google’s forums indicates this feature is gone completely in some cars.
What this means is that benefitting from steering wheel buttons when Android Auto is running on the head unit is no longer possible, so things like changing songs and adjusting the volume of the music don’t work anymore. The same for the voice dictation button that allows users to launch Google Assistant for hands-free interaction with Android Auto.
“I haven't driven much in the last 7 months. I noticed about 1-2 months ago that none of my steering wheel buttons are working for Android Auto anymore. I can't change tracks in Spotify anymore, I can't answer calls and voice command only activates Audis voice control. And whilst I don't care all too much about this one... The display behind the steering wheel between the speedo, no longer displays the tracks being played by Spotify. I've seen lots of people reporting similar problems but no one seems to have a solution,” one user explains on the forums.
A member of the Android Auto team says the company is already looking into this problem, only that phone logs are needed to figure out what’s causing the whole thing.
So if you too came across the broken steering wheel controls on Android Auto, make sure you head over to this discussion thread on Google’s forums and get in touch with the dev team to help them develop a fix in a future update for the app.
Google News