Two ways to use Android Auto without owning a car

To 100% use an operating system designed for cars, it is ideal to have a car, but it is not a bad idea to be able to test it without a car for, for example, find out if it meets your needs. Unsure if Android Auto has what you need while you’re behind the wheel? Well, there are ways to test it out without purchasing the vehicle.

With the popularization of smartphone, and since in this device, we carry with our means of communication, location and entertainment, the logical barrier of the use of the mobile while driving fades thanks to vehicle operating systems. Android Auto is a safe, useful and fun way to combine car and phone. It can even be tested without the first one, let’s see what two ways.

How to get Android Auto without a car

To fully enjoy Android Auto, it makes sense to have a vehicle with this system. But of course you are not going to spend what a car costs just to verify that the operating system is suitable for your driving needs, that Google Assistant can safely help you while driving, and the music and podcast apps you use on your mobile work with Android Auto.

Testing Android Auto without a car makes it possible to ensure the future purchase of a car with this operating system. And you don’t need much else other than your primary Android mobile, a computer, or a second Android phone, it just depends on what you choose.

First step: prepare your Android mobile

To make Android Auto work on a screen other than a car screen you need your Android mobile to communicate with a remote server, which will be emulated to see the Android Auto screen on another device (computer or mobile, it depends on what you prefer). Therefore, you need to perform the following process:

• Open Android Auto on your mobile. The easiest way to find it is to go to phone settings and type in “Android Auto”. Click on the result with that name.
• Once in the Android Auto menu, scroll to the version number. Press several times and accept the activation of developer settings.
• Once you have enabled Android Auto Developer Settings, click on the first three menu items and choose “Start the main unit server“. Your Android mobile is ready.

Depending on the emulation mode chosen (computer or a second mobile), you will connect to the second screen using Android Auto wirelessly or with a USB connection cable. Have the cable handy, just in case.

Emulate Android Auto on your computer

Since developers need a test environment where they can check if their applications work on Android Auto, Google offers its vehicle system emulator integrated into Android Studio, the set of software with which to program and test developments. . Thanks to him, you can turn your computer screen into virtual car screen. Of course, this is not the easiest process.

First of all, you need to download and install Android Studio. Once you have it on your computer, follow the steps below to emulate Android Auto on your computer.

• Open Android Studio, go to “Android SDK”, check the “Android Auto Desktop Head Unit Emulator” box and press OK to download.

• Prepare the ADB connection on your computer by following this tutorial. If you are already using ADB, skip this step.
• As we discussed at the start of this article, enable Android Auto Developer Settings and start the main unit server.
• Connect your mobile to the computer using a USB cable, open a terminal window and type “adb devices“(without quotes). A message must appear on your mobile screen to accept the RSA key. Do it: your phone must appear in the terminal window.
• Writing “adb before tcp: 5277 tcp: 5277“(again without the quotes) and you will have your mobile ready to run the Android Auto emulator.

• Locate the “desktop-head-unit” file. If you have Windows, you can start it from the path “C: Users user AppData Local Android Sdk extras google auto”.
• If all went well, Android Auto will have jumped on your mobile. Accept the permissions and you will have the screen of your virtual car on your computer.

The process can also be a bit cumbersome tends to get complicated if you don’t have much control over command windows. You can follow the steps detailed in this article.

Android Auto in a second mobile

This is the easiest way, especially if you have more than one mobile per accommodation. Thanks to an application you can communicate your main phone with the secondary start a working Android Auto on the screen of one of them. This way, you will have access to everything that the operating system offers without needing a car with said system.

The app we are going to be using is Headunit Reloaded. It has a free trial version which you can use to see if Android Auto meets your needs or not. If you plan to use the application in depth (if you have an Android car radio for example), our recommendation is that you buy it: the full version of Headunit Reloaded is worth 4.89 dollars. It is of great quality.

You need to install the app on the Android mobile which will mimic the car screen. On the other phone (the main one) you just have to do the steps we marked at the beginning, those needed to start the main unit server. Then proceed as follows:

• Open Headunit Reloaded on the phone that will serve as the Android Auto display, follow the tutorial and accept the permissions.
• Turn off your primary mobile WiFi and share your data connection through an access point.
• Connect your secondary mobile (the one with the Headunit Reloaded application) to the access point mounted on the primary mobile (the one which will open the Android Auto application).
• Once you share the data between the mobiles, go to the one with Headunit Reloaded, make sure the screen is horizontal (otherwise Android Auto will start to distort) and click on “WiFi”.

• Android Auto opens automatically: set it up on the main mobile and use the car screen on the phone with Headunit Reloaded.

After these steps you will have a Android Auto fully functional and true to life on the screen of your second phone. For practical reasons, it’s like having a car without having it physically: you can try any app that you can think of. You can even mount this mobile on a dashboard mount and use it as if it were the vehicle console (or use Headunit Reloaded on a 4G tablet, for example).