Photo: Google
One of the big benefits of Android Auto running on the screen in the car is support for voice commands via Google Assistant, which means you can control most of its capabilities without actually having to touch the screen.
In other words, whenever you want to set up the navigation app, be it Google Maps or Waze, to provide directions to a specific destination, it’s enough to simply say “OK, Google, navigate to [address].”
That’s only in theory, however, because in practice things are completely different, as a bunch of unlucky Android Auto users figured out themselves lately.
Posts on Google’s forums and dating back to October this year reveal that turning to voice commands to set up an address to navigate to is no longer working correctly due to what appears to be broken support in Android Auto.
More specifically, Google Assistant either doesn’t understand where it needs to go or just searches for addresses that include the world “navigate.” This is a behavior that was spotted before, but an official fix has never been provided.
Interestingly, a late October update for the Google app, the one that’s powering the experience with Google Assistant, is said to fix the problem for some people, though others say they’re still struggling with the same glitch despite the latest version already installed.
“I'm experiencing the same problem as others. When using the voice command with Maps I used to be able to say ‘Starbucks’ for example and it would show the nearest Starbucks but now instead it says, ‘Something went wrong, try again’. I've tried to ask it as a question but nothing seems to work. I have a Samsung S20 5G using it in a 2019 Jeep Cherokee,” one user said earlier this month.
For now, the only workaround that seems to exist is go back to an earlier version of the Google app, though that obviously means you might be missing out on other improvements and new features included in the latest builds.
That’s only in theory, however, because in practice things are completely different, as a bunch of unlucky Android Auto users figured out themselves lately.
Posts on Google’s forums and dating back to October this year reveal that turning to voice commands to set up an address to navigate to is no longer working correctly due to what appears to be broken support in Android Auto.
More specifically, Google Assistant either doesn’t understand where it needs to go or just searches for addresses that include the world “navigate.” This is a behavior that was spotted before, but an official fix has never been provided.
Interestingly, a late October update for the Google app, the one that’s powering the experience with Google Assistant, is said to fix the problem for some people, though others say they’re still struggling with the same glitch despite the latest version already installed.
“I'm experiencing the same problem as others. When using the voice command with Maps I used to be able to say ‘Starbucks’ for example and it would show the nearest Starbucks but now instead it says, ‘Something went wrong, try again’. I've tried to ask it as a question but nothing seems to work. I have a Samsung S20 5G using it in a 2019 Jeep Cherokee,” one user said earlier this month.
For now, the only workaround that seems to exist is go back to an earlier version of the Google app, though that obviously means you might be missing out on other improvements and new features included in the latest builds.
Google News