I'm starting this thread as a companion to the much larger one (HD+) since the audience is likely smaller and it'll make it easier to search.
This one is just about HD+ supporting Android Auto
Requirements
To start, this feature requires a car that supports Android Auto and an Android device connected via USB or wirelessly
NOTE: There's something similar called Android Automotive or Android Auto OS.. this is when a car runs a full Android OS and can install apps which can be run without a connected phone.
I might look into supporting Android Auto OS in the future if there's enough demand
You'll also need the HD+ app. The production version can be found here but today you'll also need to subscribe to the beta version since I haven't released it to production yet.
Make sure you have version 1.0.1984 or greater
NOTE: Android Auto requires the app to be installed from Google Play so you won't be able to use the sideloaded apk version
Usage
First, make sure you can login to HD+ with your phone and that you have some devices displayed
If you've never used HD+ there's a getting started page here. You'll need to add "MakerAPI" app to Hubitat and make sure it's available remotely.
Next, connect your phone to your car (USB or wirelessly)
You should see HD+ show up as an app. Open it!
By default, HD+ will only show device types that can be controlled or viewed in a car interface -- switches, lights, locks, doors, HSM, thermostats.
Configuration
Once your device has been connected to an Android Auto car, a new setting shows up in HD+ called "Android Auto". This lets you control what devices and what order they should display in.
To add or remove devices from the list, use the little red "+" button
You can also re-arrange devices by touching and dragging the little icon on the right side
HD+ Hubitat Support Page -- I always post new versions here and I'll try to post anything auto related to this thread too but just in case...
Notes
I'm only supporting (showing) devices that I can display in some way with the very limited options that I have. Generally speaking any kind of switch or sensor.
By default I'm showing all switches and sensor-type devices but you can configure it using the phone app
I don't handle every possible device type just yet. I started with the simple ones (lights, switches, valves, locks and similar)
I'll try to handle any other useful device type one by one.. for example, HSM lets you 'arm' or 'disarm'; The thermostat device type lets you send UP/DOWN commands
It'll continue to evolve.. my wife's car has Android Auto support but I don't so I won't be using it that often.. so feel free to give feedback or suggestions!
Support
For most questions or issues, feel free to post to this thread.. I'll see those first.
You can take screenshots of your car's display using your connected phone
In some cases, device logs are very useful for me to figure out what's going on:
enable debug mode in HD+ first and then try to reproduce the issue.. that's going to put more info in the logs
Been following along for years. Just downloaded your app and install was a breeze. Literally a few clicks and boom my devices were there.
Looking forward to the ride home from work and seeing it on the AA display. Lol not exactly sure how much i will use it but its fun to have stuff like this working.
Awesome job Joe. Your dashboard just keeps getting better and better. To think I can now use my cars screen as my garage door opener. Cant wait to see some of the other interesting ideas come off this.
Android Auto: remove Tab support until the UI is ready (requires car API 6+)
I got a log from someone where the app was trying to use the Tab layout. I didn't know any cars even supported that yet. I had coded for it but then when testing realized that the emulator doesn't support API-6 yet. But, I left some of that code in which makes me think some cars actually do support it!
Anyway, this just removes that code so no need to update if you don't have any issues.
For anyone else who's interested, this is what the Tabbed layout looks like. It's in the AA developer guide but only available to Car API 6+
To configure all of the tabs, the HD+ AA setup screen would also have tabs and lets you set the icon and tab name.. plus pick devices for each tab. It's almost ready to go -- I just need to be able to test it
On a side-note - does anyone know an easy way to figure out what 'car api' level AA supports? It's barely mentioned anywhere outside of developer docs. It'd be nice to say -- the 2018 Volvo XC90 supports API X but i've never seen anything like that before. Or, even an 'about' screen in the car that lists this
It may have been me. I believe this tabbed layout is referring to cool walk that i mentioned before. In my screenshot above you see the button fornthe tabbed layout in the bottom right. Pushing it didnt work for hd+ I do think it is becoming more widely available. Google was rolling it out in chunks adding support for different head units.
I am not sure how to tell what the car api is unfortunately.
Speaking of crosswalk though, I haven't really figured out any more about that. I see that icon you're talking about. What's supposed to happen when you push it? Does the app get put into split-screen mode on the left or right with some other app like music or navigation?
There might be something in the device logs which says what's happening if you're able to send them to me.
I am not sure how to tell what the car api is unfortunately.
The app (HD+) can query it.. I'll save it and display it in the auto setup screen somewhere
Sorry the featire is called coolwalk. And yes it just gives a tabbed view allowing more apps to be on the screen at once. Similar to carplay interface from what i understand.
If I understand correctly, coolwalk and AA tabs are two different things. Didn't know my car supports these tabs, and to be honest, never heard before about that feature in relation to Android Auto before.
BTW, I sent the logs to @jpage4500 by email, as he mentioned before.
Thanks @jpage4500 for your hard work. HD+ is amazing and is getting better and better.....
Is there any way to get the HD+ app to show in the top (or bottom) frame of the split portion of AA screen? The lower frame seems to be reserved for media players.
@jpage4500 Fantastic work on this app and integration.
As @jnosa899 mentioned I now can open my garage door from my car's screen!
The base HSM tile on AA does not reflect the current HSM status. After tapping the AA HSM tile it only gives Arm and Disarm Vs Disarmed, Armed Away/Home/Night on the phone screen, and does it not update (for me) when the HSM status is changed. It works correctly from the phone screen.
I was just able to test AA in a car for the first time today and I noticed a similar issue. In my case I hit disarm and it said the command was sent (that's always displayed btw -- i should change it to wait until the command was actually sent and received by the Hub)
The other (more important) issue was the HSM status never changed. I hopefully have the logs I can pull from my device and see what happened.
I can put in an option to use the tabbed UI. I'll put the option in the phone settings (vs the car screen) so you can disable it if it doesn't work. I still need to figure out how to test it somehow.
When it (tab UI) is working.. would it make sense to detect support for it and show a little 'tab' icon on the car UI? (see the "[+]" button in the image below)
Not really sure about the tab icon. I agree with you, in not being sure if it's worth. The idea to add an option for the tabbed UI seems to be awesome.
Improved Life360 support (discussed more in the main HD+ thread)
Android Auto
I added a bunch of new things here:
I'm displaying the Car API (see the "CarAPI 5" below) in the app. Version 6+ supports a tab layout so this is 1 way you can check if your car supports that or not
I'm loading custom images now for devices; right now you'll probably see the default icon show up for a second and it'll be replaced with the custom image. I'll see if I can improve that but my goal was NOT to delay the UI for some image that needed to be loaded over the web
fix HSM icons and state
some tweaks to thermostats
devices should now update to their correct state while the car UI is running -- even if the android app isn't
IF you have car API 6+ you can now enable tab support (disabled by default)
The tab UI is completely untested (I have no way to test ATM) so no guarantees it'll work.. but, if it does break you should be able to disable it in the app to get the normal version again.
NOTE: you can change the tab name and icons in the app but I haven't implemented everything in the car UI yet.. just hoping to get it working first!
It looks like Google Play is taking longer than usual for this update (not sure why). I did read that they are supposed to do a longer review for any auto updates so maybe this explains it..
