Gadgetory

in Google's attempt to pretty much be a part of every aspect of your life they're not moving into the automotive realm hey it's Josh freghar from Android authority what's going on everybody and behind me is a 2015 Hyundai Sonata equipped with a navigation system that now has Android auto installed now quick disclaimer we do have two versions of the Hyundai Sonata in this video the silver version is the one with Android auto but virtually the same car was also sent to me in a white edition that didn't have Android auto about a month prior and I got to familiarize myself with all the features already built in before Android auto was installed so let's go ahead and jump into the car and get started now one of the other things that we have here is that the phone has to be connected via USB you won't be using any Bluetooth here on on Android auto or even with the navigation system that ends up getting paired to it what's going to happen is you're going to pair your phone to this particular system and here you'll see that it's going to happen via the Android Auto app which can get in the Play Store of course now you are going to get some apps for Android auto and like Android wear what happens is when you have particular applications installed on your phone it will already have the code in place in order for the integration to Android auto to happen but here is the beginnings of the Android auto integration you have basically what our let's say Google now cards here and it's going to show you everything that is available we've seen calls the weather where I am right now and if you have searched for any particular locations using Google or Google now let's say it will show up here automatically so you can easily just press any of those particular cards and you'll take you straight to there for example I have a flight tomorrow at 9:40 a.m. and already knows that from my Google now now a lot of the Google now functionality that you're probably used to won't be showing up here but all of the location-based cards will probably do so here but let's look at the media first we're going to jump over to the media real quick and I do have a number of applications already installed for media applications like google play music I Heart Radio NPR 1 and pocket casts now it's from here that you'll get a number of different functions underneath the surface so if we go to google play music I already have some music that's going to play and then what else is going to happen here is when you go to the top left you'll have a menu area and you can always look at your recent playlist turn on the radio or even just go to the listen now option and you'll get a number of different places in order to start up some nice music for your drive now let's go to the left a little bit we can always go to our calls and the calls are really easy to get through any recent calls we'll always be at the top and your starred contacts are going to be below it so you'll have a lot of easy access to everybody here you can also go into the menus here and you can dial a number you can look at your call history and just access your voicemail there as well but of course you can always go to the top here on the right and like in Google now you can say that you want to call somebody pretty easily call this person call that person or even send text but the texting capability I want to show you is replying to texts because a heads-up display will come up a little bit later and you'll be able to respond to it in a very specific way which is pretty nice then finally let's go to our directions here maps will open up and you'll have because I'm in Park the ability to type in any location that I want to go to but from here we also be able to go here and go to suggestions and categories to be able to find all the different places and of course have traffic always at the ready so you can see just how long it's going to take for you to get somewhere so that right there was a look at what Android auto looks like in your navigation system especially here on the Hyundai Sonata now we're going to go ahead and put this car into drive and get moving a little bit and I'm going to use the Voice Actions on here in order to get us to one of my favorite places the sign I need them all Santa Anita mall here is Westfield Santa Anita and their Santa Anita mall we'll go ahead and just say it's about ten minutes away from where I am right now I'm gonna go ahead and get moving why don't we go ahead and get some of the voice stuff out of the way as well oh hey just testing the phone call on the Android auto stuff oh no no too bad so that phone call went off without really much of a hitch and as you heard me say I'm having her send me a text message you're going to see how we're going to integrate a text message into this the heads-up notification comes up at the top and when you click on it here's the message you have not a charger so if I don't respond then my phone is dead but you know where I am silent face with smiling eyes but me closes at 6:00 I can migrate rewards and cheese or something I will be at Starbucks across the street take your time Android Auto you can press the voice button and say look like so it says that you can press the voice button on the top right and then when you hit reply the last thing that it talked about in this case this message for my girlfriend will be what it replies to reply this internet connection isn't reliable right now but you can try again later so you can already see that there's a little bit of frustration there Android auto obviously relies on the connection of your phone so if your phone is out of commission or it doesn't have a good connection to the internet it kind of ties the hands of Android auto itself reply what's the message okay sounds good just driving around and I'll pick you up later got it here's your message okay sounds good just driving around and I'll pick you up later do you want to send it yes sending message and there you go you send the actual message via the use of your voice and it will guide you through everything of course the whole point is that your hands are going to be on the steering wheel and everything is done via your voice so you're not fiddling with any keyboards or anything via your phone or even on the actual Android app screen here on the navigation system and that all makes a lot of sense and it's actually really really preferred to the alternative of you know being unsafe which kind of brings us to the final point of this video really trying to see if Android auto is actually that much better than any systems that are already in place and now I have been reiterating that statement a lot it's because honestly I don't really know what the answer is to that yet if you go to the media and I'll go ahead and just disconnect my phone from the USB just so we can illustrate this if you have your phone connected via bluetooth to this particular navigation system then if we hit media right here we actually have our access to this particular screen and of course you have the integrations with the steering wheel which is always nice those are built into the navigation system nr tapped into via Android auto so you'll be able to use all those controls in either situation now I will admit that the nav the screen here for Bluetooth audio it's a little bit better on the Android auto side of things because the integrations allow you to change the application that you're using so if I was listening to this music right now but I wanted to switch over to a podcast I can do that using the menu buttons down at the bottom and then selecting pocket cast for example for NPR one really when it comes to calling people that'll be pretty easy to do you want to sort of be able to text anybody using the built-in Hyundai not a system but that should be okay you will be able to still call people tell them what you need to tell them texting is definitely not something you should be doing while you're driving anyway whether or not it's via voice or even using your phone which is the worst case scenario and then that way Google now is a little bit better using Android auto in order to text people to respond to them so that's kind of nice and as long as you're pretty good with Google now you'll be pretty good at texting via Android auto and finally navigation as we kind of move over I'll hit this navi button right here I hate to say it but there are more options in the Hyundai Sonata side of things than in the Android auto side of things Android auto obviously taps into your Google centric searcher searches and it really relies on all of those search results in order to give you the contextual sort of suggestions in order to tell you where you need to go or help you get to where you need to go but in the case of the Hyundai Sonata they have a system in place that has maps and everything you can always update the maps via SD cards that are up here on the corner and you can always update the information the information is there you know whenever you need it you don't have to rely on a phone connection in order to have everything available here if I wanted to do a local search like let's say let's go to Old Town Pasadena it will be able to search for it via a Google search because there's a 3G connection here in this car it doesn't necessarily need to rely on your phone but if your phone was already connected via bluetooth on here you could use that connection as well but even then the maps are built into the car and you'll be able to go to Old Pasadena pretty easily without the need of using your actual phone or even your voice because I was able to do that typing method right there while I was at a stoplight just now and then once you have a set as a destination you could just it says destination it will tell you where you need to go there is traffic on your route so though you can already see that despite the fact that I'm really doing a bad job of following directions right now it is able to recalculate it's a pretty quick navigation system and there really aren't that many problems using what's built in here already when it is already kind of this good so it begs the question is Android auto really something that you should be clamoring over to get into your cars honestly as I'm driving around right now I'm really not all that sure because well there's nothing really wrong with Android auto it's just that for years now we've had car manufacturers looking to catch up with the life of the smartphone really trying to create their cars as a place for the smartphone to call home and for all of your media and all of your navigation and all of your infotainment let's say to really help you on your drive so all of these car manufacturers have been putting a lot of thought into the systems they put into here which i think is a nice reason to see that Android auto is just an add-on on top of that if you really do want the Google ESCA way of doing all of these things then it's available for you you just have to get that app installed on the navigation system you already have but if you're already having a great time with your navigation system I kind of don't think that Android auto is something that should replace what is already here it is really just an extra it's something that is available if you want to look at Google Maps rather than what already as you can see here looks quite nice and gives me the information that I need in order to get there and if media is a big thing for you then the media that the integrations that are in Android auto are pretty nice and you'll be able to move among the different apps that are available but until there's a little bit more polish on there and if maybe you can use bluetooth with this rather than having to be connected via a USB perhaps I will give it a little bit more of the edge but currently I really do enjoy what the Hyundai Sonata already has to offer and if you're going to add Android auto on top of that and that's your prerogative but for me if I didn't have one yet I had the other and still be okay in either case as always thank you guys very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this review of Android auto the version you're seeing in this video is pretty much going to be the same as it would be found in all other car manufacturers as well and that is a nice feature of Android auto but the main argument in this video is whether Android auto as an overlay to existing infotainment and navigation systems is a true replacement for what's available I don't think it's a true replacement but it is a great skin on top of what might already be available and it also adds some key functionality like media app integration and texting via voice which for those of you or who are really into Android will really enjoy having these tools on the road but nonetheless keep it tuned here for future coverage of Android auto as it gets updated maybe with a little bit more polish and even more applications baked in but until then drop a some likes on our videos subscribe to our channel if you haven't already listened to the FDP android authorities podcast and then head on over to android authority comm when you're done with all of that because we are your source for all things Android