Getting android (Galaxy S4) to work with 2015 Honda Civic EX
I'd love to post this in Automotive but it is not an Android Auto-related question.
I just bought a 2015 Honda Civic. One of the selling points the dealer gave to me was the smartphone connectivity this car has. He said that I wouldn't even need to buy an expensive navigation system because I could buy a $60 app on my phone and get the same result. I was skeptical (why would they not want to sell you the $1000 navigation package?) so I asked if it was supported on all smartphones. He said, "Honda has an app called HondaLink that is available to both android and iphone users." Cool.
Well, HondaLink actually has 2 versions of the app. HondaLink First Generation and HondaLink Next Generation. First generation is literally useless for my car. The app just opens Aha (which is built into the car's audio system already). [Aha is similar to pandora, letting you stream music and podcasts, etc]. It functions terribly and is very buggy. Next Generation is like an app ecosystem, which lets you install other apps that let you do cool things like navigation, weather updates, etc.
Next Generation is iphone only, of course. Very misleading on the salesman's part. Better yet, Honda has made no claims that it even intends to support android devices for its Next Generation app, nor update the terrible First Generation app currently offered (average 2.5 stars on google play).
But the car has tons of inputs and bluetooth.
My question is, is there a way to get my Android smartphone to do things like navigation, weather updates, youtube, voice recognition, etc using the car's screen, even if its not officially supported? My Galaxy S4 has ScreenMirror which seems perfect for this job but the car won't recognize the phone using Screen Mirroring. Any HDMI or USB adapters I can buy that would facilitate the process?
Any Civic EX 2014/15 owners that have knowledge or experience with this?
To be clear, the bluetooth/making calls/listening to pandora part works well. I can connect the phone to the car, I just cant do any of the cool stuff with it that I was told I could.
I'd love to post this in Automotive but it is not an Android Auto-related question.
I just bought a 2015 Honda Civic. One of the selling points the dealer gave to me was the smartphone connectivity this car has. He said that I wouldn't even need to buy an expensive navigation system because I could buy a $60 app on my phone and get the same result. I was skeptical (why would they not want to sell you the $1000 navigation package?) so I asked if it was supported on all smartphones. He said, "Honda has an app called HondaLink that is available to both android and iphone users." Cool.
Well, HondaLink actually has 2 versions of the app. HondaLink First Generation and HondaLink Next Generation. First generation is literally useless for my car. The app just opens Aha (which is built into the car's audio system already). [Aha is similar to pandora, letting you stream music and podcasts, etc]. It functions terribly and is very buggy. Next Generation is like an app ecosystem, which lets you install other apps that let you do cool things like navigation, weather updates, etc.
Next Generation is iphone only, of course. Very misleading on the salesman's part. Better yet, Honda has made no claims that it even intends to support android devices for its Next Generation app, nor update the terrible First Generation app currently offered (average 2.5 stars on google play).
But the car has tons of inputs and bluetooth.
My question is, is there a way to get my Android smartphone to do things like navigation, weather updates, youtube, voice recognition, etc using the car's screen, even if its not officially supported? My Galaxy S4 has ScreenMirror which seems perfect for this job but the car won't recognize the phone using Screen Mirroring. Any HDMI or USB adapters I can buy that would facilitate the process?
Any Civic EX 2014/15 owners that have knowledge or experience with this?
To be clear, the bluetooth/making calls/listening to pandora part works well. I can connect the phone to the car, I just cant do any of the cool stuff with it that I was told I could.