Top/Must apps for car head units

[Vampire_Dracula]

I use mainly:
- TuneIn for BBC World Service and more.
- Audible for my audiobooks,
- Google Play Music for my huge personal music collection stored for free on the cloud.
- Amazon Music.
- Google Maps, the main motivation for getting an Android HU.

 

[fleu]

Hi everyone. Is there an app out there when mobile is connected to android car head unit it can play music from mobile? Basically a media player and you can select to play through Bluetooth source? Thanks in advanced
Andy

Looking for this for ages. Love the car head unit. But this is something i haven't found yet. Using the unit as a Bluetooth speaker with no audio info and only skipping tracks is a disappointment.
Thanks in advance

 

[RogerClark]

Is anyone using Here WeGo (maps), with a GS Oreo unit? As I've got some strange problems where the turn by turn audio keeps breaking up.

I've tried changing the settings about whether the navigation app can mix or not etc, or whether the audio is "monitored", but nothing seems to make any difference.

Any ideas, whats going wrong.

 

[War-Rasta]

Looking for this for ages. Love the car head unit. But this is something i haven't found yet. Using the unit as a Bluetooth speaker with no audio info and only skipping tracks is a disappointment.
Thanks in advance

The thing is that's not the idea behind this stereo. The point of it is that you don't need to use your phone at all. If you want to use Spotify, Pandora, etc. just install it on the headunit and use it from there instead of streaming it from your phone via bluetooth. If you have mp3 files on your phone, copy them over to the head unit and play them from there (an SD card or a USB drive will work, or maybe connect the phone via USB and access it like a USB stick). That's where these stereos really shine. I see bluetooth streaming as a plan b for when somebody else in the car wants to play something that's only available on their phone; everything else I do on the headunit.

To me the whole point of having an Android headunit is that I can have the same apps I have on my phone so I don't have to use bluetooth. I just have my phone automatically turn on the hotspot when it connects to the stereo via bluetooth and then the stereo connects to the hotspot so it has internet access. I only use bluetooth for calls and that's it.

 

[TBM2]

Is anyone using Here WeGo (maps), with a GS Oreo unit? As I've got some strange problems where the turn by turn audio keeps breaking up.

I've tried changing the settings about whether the navigation app can mix or not etc, or whether the audio is "monitored", but nothing seems to make any difference.

Any ideas, whats going wrong.

Do you mean the crackling in the sound with the voice guidance?
I have that as well on my Daisaita Oreo unit and have not been able to solve it (yet).
Pity really as I think Here We Go navigation is quite good but this issue is so annoying that I am thinking of switching to something else.

 

[RogerClark]

Do you mean the crackling in the sound with the voice guidance?
I have that as well on my Daisaita Oreo unit and have not been able to solve it (yet).
Pity really as I think Here We Go navigation is quite good but this issue is so annoying that I am thinking of switching to something else.

Yes.

The same thing happens on my Xtrons Oreo unit. (Perhaps the Xtrons asn your Daisaita unit are the same hardware. PX5 "GS" )

Edit.

I just tried installing HERE WeGo on a Android 7 (Lineage ROM), phone and it worked fine.
I'll try installing it on another phone, which has a Lineage Oreo ROM in it, and see if the issue is Oreo or the head unit.

I agree, its an excellent navigation app, and I really like the voice guidance, where it tells you to turn "Now!" , but the crackling / fading of the voice navigation half way though the audio is annoying and makes it harder to use, especially if the radio or other audio us playing at the same time.

BTW. I tried looking in the settings, and changed various things to do with the mixing of the navigation audio, but it didn't seem to make any difference.
But I cant remember if it worked when the settings caused all other audio to stop completely when the HERE WeGo app was run.

Edit 2.
I tried installing it on my phone running Oreo, and it crashes during startup.
I message appears briefly on the screen but fades away in about 1/2 sec, so that its impossible to read it

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to get in contact with the company who produce this software.

I checked out their "blog", twitter and FB and its all just corporate marketing stuff, rather than engaging with users.

But I guess as its free, with no ad's or in-app purchases, there's not a lot we can do.

Bug fixing by decompiling and recompiling would be virtually impossible, as is very difficult to know quite why its doing this strange thing.

 

[variosteph]

Do you mean the crackling in the sound with the voice guidance?
I have that as well on my Daisaita Oreo unit and have not been able to solve it (yet).
Pity really as I think Here We Go navigation is quite good but this issue is so annoying that I am thinking of switching to something else.

Download Google tts from store and use it instead of Here voice. Don't use pico tts. Maybe youll have to boost the Volume in tts Settings. Youll get clear voice in Navigation. Only downside on my unit is, that the Volume of Music isnt lowered any more...

 

[RogerClark]

Download Google tts from store and use it instead of Here voice. Don't use pico tts. Maybe youll have to boost the Volume in tts Settings. Youll get clear voice in Navigation. Only downside on my unit is, that the Volume of Music isnt lowered any more...

Thanks.... I'll try that.

I wonder if the problem is an incompatibility between the TTS in the App and in Oreo.

Can anyone else test HERE WeGo on another Oreo device, that's not a head unit? As it doesn't work at all on my phone with an unofficial Oreo ROM in it

 

[variosteph]

Thanks.... I'll try that.

I wonder if the problem is an incompatibility between the TTS in the App and in Oreo.

Can anyone else test HERE WeGo on another Oreo device, that's not a head unit? As it doesn't work at all on my phone with an unofficial Oreo ROM in it

Here is working great on my mate 10 pro... But againe with tts, no way to download other speech files.

 

[TBM2]

Download Google tts from store and use it instead of Here voice. Don't use pico tts. Maybe youll have to boost the Volume in tts Settings. Youll get clear voice in Navigation. Only downside on my unit is, that the Volume of Music isnt lowered any more...

Unfortunately that doesn't help.
Installed Google TTS and made that the system default but in Here I don't have an option to specify Google TTS.
I have switched to Google Maps now which doesn't have the problem.

 

[variosteph]

Unfortunately that doesn't help.
Installed Google TTS and made that the system default but in Here I don't have an option to specify Google TTS.
I have switched to Google Maps now which doesn't have the problem.

In Here maps youll have to use voice natural (Don't know the Name in Englisch) which is google tts, not the downloaded one from Here maps

 

[TBM2]

In Here maps youll have to use voice natural (Don't know the Name in Englisch) which is google tts, not the downloaded one from Here maps

I was already using the English natural voice setting and just tried a few other natural voice languages to see if that makes a difference.
Doesn't help.
Thanks for trying to help, though.

 

[variosteph]

I was already using the English natural voice setting and just tried a few other natural voice languages to see if that makes a difference.
Doesn't help.
Thanks for trying to help, though.

Youre welcome, using natural voice did the Trick for me...

 

[RogerClark]

Youre welcome, using natural voice did the Trick for me...

I've tried all the voices that have "Natural" in their name, but they don't seem to be using TTS.

Perhaps its the option with "Street names" that I need to select, as I presume that the pre-recorded speech could not be able to announce street names unless it was using TTS ??

OK.

I can confirm on my Xtrons (Oreo PX5 GS) unit, that selecting the voice option, which includes the words "street names" (Its the first item in the list for me), that this switches to an external TTS app.

Initially the TTS didn's sound very good, so I checked the TTS settings and it was set by default to "Pico TTS" even though Google TTS is installed.
(note I thought I may need to install Google TTS, but it seems to have been installed already on my Xtrons unit)

Google TTS seems to be better than "Pico TTS". Its still not as good quality as the non-TTS voices, but at least it doesn't crackle. !

BTW. I on my phone there are a number of different options for Google TTS, including "Intonation" and an option to "Amplify speech", but these options don't seem to be available on my head unit, even though I checked and the latest Google TTS seems to be installed.
(though I will double check in case there is an update)


BTW.
I noticed that it seemed to take quite a long time to get a GPS fix, as the unit does not have an Internet connection, so I changed the Location settings, to only use the satellites, as this stops it waiting for the Internet to time out multiple times.
I think this speeds up the time to get a GPS fix, however it keeps nagging me to switch it back on (no doubt because Google wants to get my location data whenever possible)

PPS. I changed my Google account settings to try to stop Google collecting all my location data (GPS tracks etc), but I don't know how much attention Google really pay to the privacy settings.. Especially as it keeps nagging me now I have selected the GPS satellites only option, and its not attempting to use WiFi etc

 

[variosteph]

I've tried all the voices that have "Natural" in their name, but they don't seem to be using TTS.

Perhaps its the option with "Street names" that I need to select, as I presume that the pre-recorded speech could not be able to announce street names unless it was using TTS ??

OK.

I can confirm on my Xtrons (Oreo PX5 GS) unit, that selecting the voice option, which includes the words "street names" (Its the first item in the list for me), that this switches to an external TTS app.

Initially the TTS didn's sound very good, so I checked the TTS settings and it was set by default to "Pico TTS" even though Google TTS is installed.
(note I thought I may need to install Google TTS, but it seems to have been installed already on my Xtrons unit)

Google TTS seems to be better than "Pico TTS". Its still not as good quality as the non-TTS voices, but at least it doesn't crackle. !

BTW. I on my phone there are a number of different options for Google TTS, including "Intonation" and an option to "Amplify speech", but these options don't seem to be available on my head unit, even though I checked and the latest Google TTS seems to be installed.
(though I will double check in case there is an update)


BTW.
I noticed that it seemed to take quite a long time to get a GPS fix, as the unit does not have an Internet connection, so I changed the Location settings, to only use the satellites, as this stops it waiting for the Internet to time out multiple times.
I think this speeds up the time to get a GPS fix, however it keeps nagging me to switch it back on (no doubt because Google wants to get my location data whenever possible)

PPS. I changed my Google account settings to try to stop Google collecting all my location data (GPS tracks etc), but I don't know how much attention Google really pay to the privacy settings.. Especially as it keeps nagging me now I have selected the GPS satellites only option, and its not attempting to use WiFi etc

Yes Youre right, its the voice with Street namens, my fault...

 

[RogerClark]

Yes Youre right, its the voice with Street names, my fault...

No worries.
I hope this helps other people use Here WeGo maps as it works well apart from the problem with the voice guidance

 

[TBM2]

Thanks guys.
Unfortunately, my main language is not available as a voice with streetnames but English will do as well.
Google Maps messed up badly yesterday with three very weird navigation mistakes - which I didn't expect from Google tbh - so I rather use Here WeGo instead.
Here maps seem to be more up-to-date in my area as well. All recent road changes are there.

 

[RogerClark]

I did some more testing using Google TTS and it works reasonably well. However I noticed that the Speed and Pitch and other settings, for Google TTS in the main Settings app are ignored.
I presume that Here WeGo is specifying the settings for TTS, which is a shame as the TTS is perhaps a bit too fast and it would be good to enable the option to make the TTS louder (so its louder than any music that is playing)
As at the moment the TTS seems a lot quiter than the music

 

[pedromsouza]

Hi, I have a winca/aikon s170 that came with android 6. It has a standard widget with play/stop/forward and name of song being played but it's too small. It works with bluetooth, radio and any other audio source.

OR... I'm looking for a better a2dp (bluetooth) app.

What do you recommend?

 

[CaddyRAV4]

I'm running a Nexus 7 LTE w/root stock rom 6.0.1 stock kernel
Tasker
Of course Tasker... at power on it Launches car home ultra, wakes screen, turns off airplane mode, changes battery to normal use, turns on bluetooth, on power off it closes car home ultra, sets airplane mode on, set battery saver on, locks system.

Hi. Do you have a howto on the Tasker? Or is it not needed anymore when the unit is set to autosleep? (Android 8.0, Dasaita PX5)

My favourites so far:
FCC launcher. (Some bugs, but the layout is pretty.)
Spotify for the playlists..
Poweramp / Mediamonkey for offline music. (Havent desided yet..)
Google Maps.

Also looking for another a2dp app... I mean.. Even my original HU could show more than the songtitle when playing from bluetooth.. And the original HU lacks pretty much everything..