Photo: Ford
As many of us learned the hard way, despite being a super-useful system, Android Auto often provides a terrible experience behind the wheel, and it’s all because of the too many bugs it comes with.
An old issue that apparently is yet to get a fix concerns phone calls, as many users are still unable to hear others or even the ringing when using this feature in their cars.
And it goes without saying calls being broken is quite a major inconvenience, as talking on the phone hands-free in a car is one of the main capabilities of Android Auto.
Someone on reddit has published a workaround that we first highlighted in the spring and which reportedly continues to do the trick in Ford cars, even after all these months. This is somewhat surprising, especially considering Google has released so many updates since then. At the same time, it’s also a confirmation the latest versions include absolutely no fix for this phone call issue.
The workaround hasn’t changed and appears to still work in Ford cars, but one thing worth keeping in mind is only SYNC 3 is supported. So if your Ford doesn’t already run SYNC 3, the steps described here won’t make any difference.
First and foremost, simply unplug the USB cable from the phone to disconnect Android Auto completely. On the head unit, go into the settings screen of the SYNC-based head unit and expand the phone menu. Tap the Set Ringtone option and then activate the option that reads Use phone ringtone.
Next, just connect the Android smartphone to your car, and everything is supposed to work correctly.
Someone on reddit says this easy fix brought the experience back to normal after struggling with the phone call bug for six months, and others claim it resolved the whole thing in their cars too.
Google hasn’t provided any ETA as to when an Android Auto update would fix the problem once and for all.
And it goes without saying calls being broken is quite a major inconvenience, as talking on the phone hands-free in a car is one of the main capabilities of Android Auto.
Someone on reddit has published a workaround that we first highlighted in the spring and which reportedly continues to do the trick in Ford cars, even after all these months. This is somewhat surprising, especially considering Google has released so many updates since then. At the same time, it’s also a confirmation the latest versions include absolutely no fix for this phone call issue.
The workaround hasn’t changed and appears to still work in Ford cars, but one thing worth keeping in mind is only SYNC 3 is supported. So if your Ford doesn’t already run SYNC 3, the steps described here won’t make any difference.
First and foremost, simply unplug the USB cable from the phone to disconnect Android Auto completely. On the head unit, go into the settings screen of the SYNC-based head unit and expand the phone menu. Tap the Set Ringtone option and then activate the option that reads Use phone ringtone.
Next, just connect the Android smartphone to your car, and everything is supposed to work correctly.
Someone on reddit says this easy fix brought the experience back to normal after struggling with the phone call bug for six months, and others claim it resolved the whole thing in their cars too.
Google hasn’t provided any ETA as to when an Android Auto update would fix the problem once and for all.
Google News