Head Units ( Android Auto)

[David L4]

I have a question why can;t some car head unit support Android Auto if all the heavy lifting is on the phone and your car head unit can run apps. Why can't Android Auto be added??
Thanks DL4

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

As I understand it, the head unit needs to support some sort of "projection" interface or API. IOW, the head unit is simply projecting onto the screen what the AA app on your phone says to display. Additionally the head unit will send back the X,Y coordinates of where the user touched the screen. AA then determines what virtual button exists and then performs the appropriate touch button action.

I think that some head units simply do not have the firmware installed that supports this projection API (and it may be that some hardware doesn't have a method for updating the firmware). I do know in the 2014 and 2015 Corvettes the hardware can't support AA but the 2016 (the model year I bought) has the required hardware but needed a firmware update. I got the firmware update and have been using AA ever since. I use it all the time! I suspect the 2017's are all setup from the factory and are good to go with either AA or Car Play (Don't know about the later as I'm not a iGuy).

 

[David L4]

Thanks Andrew for the reply. It looks like i just have an expensive music box in my cay.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

Note that there is some HMI update that some people have put into their 2014-2015 vettes to get this to work. It's expensive I hear and since I don't have the problem I didn't pay a lot of attention. Here's a link to one of the forum posts about it - 2016 MyLink update - who will try it? - CorvetteForum - Chevrolet Corvette Forum Discussion

There's also a Pioneer unit that supports Android auto but again that's expensive too.