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My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

imdanielkendall.com

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Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#171

Post by BeetleB »

cyberax wrote: post #134
BeetleB wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm being imprecise. What I mean is: When I enable Android Auto on my phone and on my car, and connect the two, I get something that has a poor UI and sucks.

What exactly is poor?

Not sure if you're asking relative to other options, or just in the absolute. I'll respond to the latter.

Some of my complaints below may have remedies - please feel free to inform me!

When Android Auto loads up, it shows me a tile with the current weather. In Fahrenheit. I want it in Celsius. Everywhere on my phone I've set it to Celsius. In the Settings (I think multiple ones). In the actual weather app. But AA will show it in Fahrenheit.

And why show me that tile at all? I don't want to see it. I can't disable it. In my Android Auto settings, I removed it from the list of apps. It still shows up. Why can't I control what apps launch?

Why is there always a navigation app loaded? I don't want it on by default if I'm just going to listen to stuff. Nothing should be loaded by default except the launcher menu. I should be able to configure on my phone what I want autolaunched.

It eats up too much battery. Why does it need to eat so much battery if all I'm using it for is to listen to podcasts? With regular Bluetooth, it barely consumes battery.

Waze sucks on AA compared to just plain Android. I can't, for example, send an ETA via AA. I can't even do it on my phone while connected to AA.

Why does the air vent fan speed drop dramatically when I get a call? Why does the climate system even know I'm getting a call?

If I connect my phone via USB cable, why does it insist I connect via Bluetooth? I can go to Android settings, have Bluetooth forget my car, and when I plug in the USB and launch Android Auto, Android will connect to Bluetooth. I Googled and apparently this is intentional. I find it very hostile.

That's all from the top of my head. I'm sure I can come up with plenty more.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#172

Post by BeetleB »

lmz wrote: post #168
BeetleB wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would be an issue if they put the turn signals or AC controls on the screen only. Many cars have AC controls on the screen only.

I know, and that is a separate issue from what the post is complaining about being broken.

And my point was that this isn't merely a "poor SW testing" problem, but something broken from the get go. Disparate systems shouldn't be connected together such that one thing breaking can cause others to break.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#173

Post by lmz »

BeetleB wrote: post #172
lmz wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, and that is a separate issue from what the post is complaining about being broken.

And my point was that this isn't merely a "poor SW testing" problem, but something broken from the get go. Disparate systems shouldn't be connected together such that one thing breaking can cause others to break.

It does not follow from the article. You're just complaining about a different annoying thing that uses the same screen on some cars. A lot of controls are quite far away from simple on/off switches nowadays, so there's probably software behind that too (hopefully simpler and with better testing).

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#174

Post by [deleted] »

wildfireday2 wrote: post #162
thin_carapace wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't know where you sourced your perspective but yea based on the reports ive heard from automotive engineers, coding in autosar is the direct opposite of wild

I have first-hand experience unlike your third-hand anecdotes. AUTOSAR is a private industry consortium that develops specifications. They are voluntary and self-attested and don’t have anything like the verification and documentation processes that are mandated by DO-178 in the aviation world by regulators with both independent engineering certification and regulatory oversight. Tesla and Rivian don’t participate at…

[deleted]

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#175

Post by RealityVoid »

wildfireday2 wrote: post #162
thin_carapace wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't know where you sourced your perspective but yea based on the reports ive heard from automotive engineers, coding in autosar is the direct opposite of wild

I have first-hand experience unlike your third-hand anecdotes. AUTOSAR is a private industry consortium that develops specifications. They are voluntary and self-attested and don’t have anything like the verification and documentation processes that are mandated by DO-178 in the aviation world by regulators with both independent engineering certification and regulatory oversight. Tesla and Rivian don’t participate at…

> don’t have anything like the verification and documentation processes that are mandated by DO-178

ISO 26262? Not sure how the enforcement looks, but automotive is pretty serious about ISO 26262.

Still, the infotainment is most likely QM so it wouldn't apply in this specific situation.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#176

Post by foofoo55 »

hahn-kev wrote: post #105
michaelje wrote: post #12

Once upon a time, physically shipping faulty software had real costs borne by the organization - production, redistribution and transportation of a physical disc. Today there’s no disc, no recall - that cost to shipping broken software is gone. We the users pay the price.

You act like there's no benefit to the user either, plenty of software gets better because of updates shipped after the fact.

s/better/less bad/

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#177

Post by wildfireday2 »

RealityVoid wrote: post #175
wildfireday2 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have first-hand experience unlike your third-hand anecdotes. AUTOSAR is a private industry consortium that develops specifications. They are voluntary and self-attested and don’t have anything like the verification and documentation processes that are mandated by DO-178 in the aviation world by regulators with both independent engineering certification and regulatory oversight. Tesla and Rivian don’t participate at…

> don’t have anything like the verification and documentation processes that are mandated by DO-178 ISO 26262? Not sure how the enforcement looks, but automotive is pretty serious about ISO 26262. Still, the infotainment is most likely QM so it wouldn't apply in this specific situation.

ISO 26262 does have serious lifecycle standards but again it’s a voluntary industry standard that has no government oversight or regulatory authority. Oversight is typically largely internal and is strongest in the auto parts/components market. It’s largely toothless to automakers/integrators and again the likes of Tesla simply don’t use it and have no obligation to.

The infotainment system itself may be QM but there has to be assurance that it is in fact separated from higher safety level system.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#178

Post by cyberax »

BeetleB wrote: post #171
cyberax wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is poor?

Not sure if you're asking relative to other options, or just in the absolute. I'll respond to the latter. Some of my complaints below may have remedies - please feel free to inform me! When Android Auto loads up, it shows me a tile with the current weather. In Fahrenheit. I want it in Celsius. Everywhere on my phone I've set it to Celsius. In the Settings (I think multiple ones). In the actual weather app. But AA wil…

> When Android Auto loads up, it shows me a tile with the current weather. In Fahrenheit. I want it in Celsius. Everywhere on my phone I've set it to Celsius. In the Settings (I think multiple ones). In the actual weather app. But AA will show it in Fahrenheit.

I don't think I ever saw this behavior?

> Why is there always a navigation app loaded?

I think this is the default? I have OsmAnd+ instead of Google Maps by default.

> It eats up too much battery. Why does it need to eat so much battery if all I'm using it for is to listen to podcasts? With regular Bluetooth, it barely consumes battery.

This is because your phone needs to encode the contents of its display as h264 stream.

> Why does the air vent fan speed drop dramatically when I get a call? Why does the climate system even know I'm getting a call?

AndroidAuto can notify the car that it wants reduced noise.

> That's all from the top of my head. I'm sure I can come up with plenty more.

This is all fixable in software on Android. Nothing from your list is a problem on the _car_ side.

Given that the protocol is now documented and available, it doesn't even need to be implemented in Android. You can have a KDE desktop running on your car!

I actually played with that about 10 years ago: https://github.com/Cyberax/aauto/tree/master

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#179

Post by BeetleB »

cyberax wrote: post #178
BeetleB wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're asking relative to other options, or just in the absolute. I'll respond to the latter. Some of my complaints below may have remedies - please feel free to inform me! When Android Auto loads up, it shows me a tile with the current weather. In Fahrenheit. I want it in Celsius. Everywhere on my phone I've set it to Celsius. In the Settings (I think multiple ones). In the actual weather app. But AA wil…

> When Android Auto loads up, it shows me a tile with the current weather. In Fahrenheit. I want it in Celsius. Everywhere on my phone I've set it to Celsius. In the Settings (I think multiple ones). In the actual weather app. But AA will show it in Fahrenheit. I don't think I ever saw this behavior? > Why is there always a navigation app loaded? I think this is the default? I have OsmAnd+ instead of Google Maps by d…

> I think this is the default? I have OsmAnd+ instead of Google Maps by default.

Ok. How do I make it not load any of them?

> AndroidAuto can notify the car that it wants reduced noise

How do I get it not to notify the car?

> This is all fixable in software on Android. Nothing from your list is a problem on the _car_ side

Which is why my original comment said Android Auto sucks.

My complaint about the car manufacturer is that they allow the driving experience to be degraded with it.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#180

Post by senorqa »

gmueckl wrote: post #99
odysseus wrote: post #87

Kia just did this with their EV9 update - it broke CarPlay with a blank screen a few minutes into driving, which then reverted itself a minute later. Another OTA mostly resolved it. Neither of these updates explained what happened or what the fix was.

Let me be a devil's advocate here: you have essentially two options. 1. You write release notes thet contain technical details. Less than 1% of your customers understand them. More than 90% probably won't even care, let alone understand the document. And then there are the folks who get confused or scared and reach out to customer support with weird questions. This generates extra workload. 2. You explain nothing. Th…

I know people who aren't nerds and actually like to know what's in the update. Just ask a LLM to write a high level human-friendly description of the changes. That's it. Just be good to your customers or in general to others. Ignorance, whataboutism & Idontcareism spreads like plague. Don't make it worse.
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