Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority
Android Auto turned ten years old this year, and most automakers have adopted it by now. But unless you drive a car from the past couple of years, chances are that it does not support wireless Android Auto. A good number of vehicles require a wired USB connection to establish a connection with your phone every single time you need to use Android Auto. That’s not a big hassle, but I find it a bit annoying to plug in on shorter trips or when I’m running errands.
Luckily, a simple USB dongle like the AAWireless TWO dongle is all you need to make that wired connection wireless. That dongle works well enough, and is reasonably priced at $65, but I recently found out that you can make your own for a fraction of the cost. And after driving around with one such DIY wireless Android Auto adapter for two weeks now, I’m left wondering why I didn’t try it sooner. The experience is nearly on par with wired and best of all, it only costs $15 and a few minutes of your time.
A wireless Android Auto adapter for just $15
Andy Walker / Android Authority
The appeal of wireless Android Auto is rather straightforward: you hop in your car, push the ignition, and your phone automatically connects within seconds. You don’t have to worry about fumbling in the dark or keeping unsightly cables tidy. My car’s USB ports are in a rather conspicuous position, and I don’t like how cables run alongside the gear selector. A wireless Android Auto dongle circumvents all of this, allowing you to tuck a device into the USB port and forget about it.
The DIY solution I ended up with involves using a Raspberry Pi configured to act as a wireless bridge between my phone and the car’s infotainment system. The Pi is a small, low-power computer that connects over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to my phone. It draws power from the car’s USB port and passes Android Auto data to the infotainment system over it. The car thinks the phone is plugged in, and the Raspberry Pi is entirely transparent.
All of this is possible thanks to an open-source project — descriptively titled WirelessAndroidAutoDongle. You can find detailed instructions on how to set it up below, but first, how well does it work in the real world?
How well does the DIY dongle work?
Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority
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