Which Better? CarPlay vs Android Auto

 

A year ago, Binize box condensed the Android machine into a small box, on top of Android, but also supported CarPlay vs Android Auto. The comparison of these two functions which is better to use, everyone has different opinions, let's see how they say

 

 

Part one: Android AUTO

 

I purchased this specifically to use it as a wireless dongle for Android Auto. There are good things and bad things about this product, ultimately unusable in its current state.

 

Pros:

-Quickly boots and connects to the car.

-Runs stand alone android with full access to the play store.

-Surprisingly snappy in the android interface

-Built in GPS is strong, accurate, and beats the pants off of other carplay AI boxes which need an external antenna.

Cons-

-Low resolution on the display. Noticeably lower than the displays native resolution.

 

I cannot get the wireless android auto connection to work. This is more likely due to the Android 12 beta software I'm using than this product, so I'm not going to rate this down because of that, I'll update my review if I get a successful connection after rolling back to android 11. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the issue with the audio focus being lost when trying to use maps and Spotify at the same time. If I could use this in standalone android mode, I wouldn't really care about AA not working. The problem is that when you start listening to music, then go into maps (or waze, or whatever) audio focus is lost, the mapping software takes over, and the audio quality drops from normal to AM radio or call quality as if you were listening to hold music on a phone call, rather than through your music player on Bluetooth.

 

 

CarPlay vs Android Auto: This makes this unusable.

 

Update: Rolled back my phone to android 11 and the wireless connection was successful. Here's what I learned:

-Connection does not initiate automatically. Even once Bluetooth is connected, you MUST go to the BT settings and back out before it will connect, otherwise will just sit on "Waiting"

-Android Auto preferences are reset each time you start it up. By default Maps is in night mode. Automatic doesn't work, and you must toggle between day mode and night mode for it to work.

-The resolution is better than the standalone android mode, but still wonky. Not even lose to what you get on a cable connection, and worse than I get implementing wireless AA with AA Gateway, which is hacky, but works.

-Connecting through AA wireless solves my complain in my original review about audio focus loss on maps navigation startup.

 

 

CarPlay vs Android Auto: Conclusion

 

Adds an additional step to accessing the cars settings. Probably not a problem for most, but on my car the only way to turn on the steering wheel heater is on the display. When using a wires connection or AA Gateway, I get a ford icon on the screen that lets me turn it on, and I can get back to android auto with one click.