I tried an Android Auto alternative that's rough around the edges, but it won me over

Published Nov 6, 2026, 11:30 AM EST Dhruv Bhutani has been writing about consumer technology since 2008, offering deep insights into the personal technology landscape through features and opinion pieces. He writes for XDA-Developers, where he focuses on topics like productivity, networking, self-hosting, and more. Over the years, his work has also appeared in leading publications such as Android Police, Android Authority, CNET, PCMag, and more. Outside of his professional work, Dhruv is an avid fan of horror media spanning films and literature, enjoys fitness activities, collects vinyl records, and plays the guitar. Android Auto is a must-have for everything from navigation to playing my favorite music and podcasts in the car. Unfortunately, it also puts Google at the center of that experience. Lately, Google has been getting pretty restrictive about what I can do with my car's infotainment system. If I want to use a different navigation or streaming app, it can be a pretty big hurdle. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that someone is trying to circumvent that. AARE is an open-source app that attempts to get around Android Auto by essentially building an open-source version of the Android Auto app that runs on your phone. It replaces the phone side, works without Google Play Services, and lets you put whatever third-party app you want on your car's screen. Basically, the perfect balance of familiarity and flexibility. The app is still under heavy development, so I wouldn't expect anyone to use it as their daily driver, but from what I've seen, it's already shaping up to be the go-to way to run Android Auto in your car if you like to customize and personalize your in-car experience. AARE puts app choice first Pick a navigation or media app of your choice AARE's big idea is to host Android Auto itself. Because it runs Android Auto outside Google's restrictions, it has no limitations on using navigation apps such as CoMaps, OrganicMaps, and others as the default. Those apps work on regular Android Auto just the same, but AARE makes them first-class citizens by letting them be the default. This opens up options, since you can choose a mapping app that better suits your specific needs. This could be an app that works better for offline navigation or one that handles your part of the world better. You catch my drift — the important thing is flexibility. The same flexibility and compatibility extends to media apps. AARE supports not just the standard Android Auto media stack of music and podcast apps but also some of the third-party video-enabled apps like Fermata Auto, a lot more seamlessly than is possible with stock Android Auto. But there's a caveat that I'll come to in just a minute. Functionally, you get everything from Android Auto, plus a few extras. Reliability is a gamble More choice and room to customize — if it works The caveat that I mentioned? AARE is really early software, and things break fast and often. I tested it out on a Toyota, and the software failed to trigger two out of four times. That's a 50 percent hit rate. Not a very good place to start. Moreover, I also observed that launching apps often resulted in a force close. This shouldn't surprise you, since the documentation warns that compatibility varies a lot. That said, you're better off testing that yourself. Installation is generally straightforward, though depending on your car, you might need a few extra steps. That's fairly typical for an experimental app. All you need to do is download the APK from GitHub, install it on your phone, and grant it the necessary permissions. Then connect the app over USB or pair it over Bluetooth. Depending on your car's head unit, you may also need to install certificates. The key extraction step and relevant Python files are provided right there in GitHub. That might sound fairly involved, but the payoff is worth it. Unlike Android Auto and its restrictions, AARE makes it easy to use the apps that Android Auto won't let you use. I also like that AARE exposes a bunch of customization options. You can swap out colors, change wallpapers, and toggle things like weather and calendar widgets. There's a lot of flexibility here, as long as the app works for you. That said, the app is still in rapid development, so we should expect more stability — hopefully. A promising alternative to Google's version of Android Auto AARE won't replace Android Auto for most people. Not yet, anyway, and it certainly isn't a finished product. But it addresses a very specific, prosumer-facing problem, and it does it in a way that feels near-native. It lets you run apps on your car's infotainment system that you otherwise couldn't, and it does so without Google Play Services. That makes it a useful tool, and definitely one to watch. While I can't say I'm ready to switch over to it long term, this one's going to stick around on my phone as part of my Android Auto stack because I'm curious to see where the developer takes it. AARE