My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto • Hacker News Board

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#131

Post by bigstrat2003 » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #62

wildfireday2 wrote: post #46

His good points here are undermined by the profane, emotional high-cortisol crashout. There’s a place for well-written, witty diatribes and polemics, but throwing F-bombs and F-yous into complaints is not that.

It's his blog. He can talk however he wants. You, however, don't have to read it.

When the blog post is under discussion, I think comments critical of it are just as fair game as ones which appreciate it. If the parent poster was emailing the author to make the same complaint then I think the "you don't have to read it" criticism applies, but not so much in a discussion forum. The point is to discuss what we think, even if that is a critical opinion.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#132

Post by paulddraper » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:05 AM UTC

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…

> It's quite natural to start doing (2) in a consumer facing business, isn't it?

Absolutely.

But also don't break my stuff.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#133

Post by thereisnospork » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:11 AM UTC

UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote: post #118

denkmoon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end? Pleasing a few nerds? Nerds that are just as likely to have ripped out the OTA modem or not be using a car like that.

It is genuinely lost on me why tech nerds specifically have a hard time grasping the idea that they are not the only people that matter. That sometimes, someone will know that something will upset computer nerds, and will still do the thing, because they see it as worth it overall. Like spoilt children. I genuinely don’t know if it’s the decades of SV pandering or what. MOST OF THE TIME, NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOU. And t…

You seem to be missing the underlying reason(s) why tech nerds are, well, tech nerds. 0dd to be angry about tech nerds being tech nerdy about things.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#134

Post by cyberax » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #122

cyberax wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Android Auto sucks. No, it doesn't. It's a very simple streaming protocol. It's literally a gRPC-encapsulated stream of h264 frames over a USB connection. With touch events and some car-related telemetry streamed back. You can implement it in a weekend: https://github.com/mrmees/open-android-auto You can create whatever you want, including just streaming videos onto the head unit or making it play Doom while drivin…

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?

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#135

Post by itake » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:22 AM UTC

wyager wrote: post #117

hahn-kev wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The averaged-over-usage-lifetime software quality for things like cars or video games is worse today than it was before OTA updates Arguably the peak quality after a few months/years of fixes is better, but that doesn't really matter because usage is front-loaded

I remember my parents needing to buy very expensive map DVD disks in order to update the car’s navigation system to update their car’s navigation computer.

The disks were very expensive and if you didn’t update them it wouldn’t know about new roads (slower trip, missed turns, etc).

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#136

Post by sublinear » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

gmueckl wrote: post #104

Telaneo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it's minus -20°C outside, you'll be very happy for that heated steering wheel! For someone living in the desert, I wish there were cooled steering wheels, on the same level as heated/cooled seats, but maybe that's asking a but much.

It's probably a complexity and cost thing: heating the wheel just requires heating wires in the wheel connected to a switch. Cooling requires a some cooling medium getting pumped into the wheel and back out into a heat exchanger or vented outside. You need pipes of some sort inside the wheel and wheel hub.

You're way overthinking this. Making the steering wheel an AC vent is a Mercedes Benz patent. It's just hollow on the inside.

We also used to have crotch vents beneath the steering column! This was arguably the best idea since it could cool the entire driver area including the wheel.

This is artificial scarcity like the McRib.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#137

Post by faangguyindia » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

Cloudef wrote: post #114

faangguyindia wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, i am not asking for AOT OTA update. AOT will be in base app and it will include JIT or Interpreted OTA updates. For Apple, JIT can simply be disabled and OTA update can run patched part in interpreter. But JIT works on Android (well), so this Hybrid system is capable of being much faster than React Native where your JS code only runs in Hermes VM which isn't JIT. In this system, all your crazy math and algorithms…

Apple does not allow running code from internet either (even if interpreted iirc) That said shipping JIT / interpreter with your program to recompile updates / parts of it sounds silly to me.

>That said shipping JIT / interpreter with your program to recompile updates / parts of it sounds silly to me.

why is it silly? modern phones can easily do this (they are running local llm, what issue is with jit?), if it's done one time per update what's the problem?

what's the problem with jitting couple of hot paths which have been updated and were not part of base app?

>Apple does not allow running code from internet either (even if interpreted iirc)

And how is React native expo/eas updates are working then? Isn't it downloading a bytecode bundle?

Afaik, interpreter is allowed. JIT isn't?

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#138

Post by Alien1Being » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:27 AM UTC

lifeisgood99 wrote: post #101

gmueckl wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be very simple to write out details but make them harder to access. Motivated users will find them.

Driving up costs to the company.

The costs will be recouped by sacking more developers...

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#139

Post by Alien1Being » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #41

Auto manufacturers need to realize that one bad software experience means lost sales of entire cars. Fail to provide a good experience at the cost of your brand for years to come.

Buy Chinese cars instead.

They are far better.

BYD reliability and support leaves European cars for dead.

Re: My car’s OTA update broke Android Auto

#140

Post by DangitBobby » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:30 AM UTC

lmz wrote: post #50

BeetleB wrote: post #13

It's not an indictment of modern software. It's an indictment of using SW where not needed. Don't put discrete, isolated HW functions behind a SW powered screen. It's that simple.

It's Android Auto and Apple Carplay. Not sure how that's an "isolated HW function". That would be an issue if they put the turn signals or AC controls on the screen only.

My car has AC controls that are only accessible via touch screen. Most new cars do.