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My experience using the Raspberry Pi for wireless Android Auto

My usual operation is navigation using the voice commands when I drive, that worked seamlessly fine like the wired connection.

BHPian tbppjpr recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W - Experience Update

Today I had a typical urban driving session of around 5 hours with 5-6 stops where I drove around 30 odd kms. This also includes a high speed ring road section.

Equipment setup:

This time my test phone was old Motorola One Power with 4 GB RAM and Snapdragon 635 processor. Headunit is Sony XAV 5500. Pi boards is currently naked, waiting for the case to be delivered. Connecting wire has USB C end where I had to use an USB C to USB female adapter where a short cable is connecting it to Pi board.

Wireless Connectivity:

Connections were seamless every-time during this session. Experience was equally good like the wired connection I am used to since last 2-3 years, except the initial connectivity period which is longer than the wired, obviously.

Operations:

My usual operation is navigation using the voice commands when I drive, that worked seamlessly fine like the wired connection. Usually I listen Flac music files loaded on thumb drive which is connected on second USB port of the HU. But for the test purpose, I used Wynk streaming music to simulate typical usage. The online music worked perfectly fine through out the drive along with navigation despite my doubts on the slow 2.4Ghz wireless band, it surprisingly exceeded my expectations. I also used voice commands to play the music, that also worked fine, no lags, no skips whatsoever. Though I had bad voice during a call I received, but it was the only call during the whole drive so can't make any comment on that. Will check the calling experience later.

Mobile Battery and heat

Yes, I found mobile warm every time I was picking it up after my halts. But it was acceptable. I am surprised about the battery life. Battery was at 71% when I started and it was at 35% when I ended the session after 5 hours where I was in the car for around 2 hours. But then this is Motorola One power which lasts 2 days during my usual desk working days. Still I am happy that wireless Android Auto is usable during my urban runs, atleast on a phone like this.

But I am worried about my primary phone Pixel, which heats up a lot during mild usage and battery life is terrible on that compared to this 5 years old Motorola workhorse. I will update about that as well when I will do extensive testings on that.

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