Here’s our first look at Android Auto’s upcoming climate control UI (APK teardown)

If you own an Android flagship and a car, you’ve likely already heard of and used Android Auto. Android Auto is a neat way to leverage the smarts of your phone and pair it to the bigger and more conveniently positioned display on your car’s head unit, to get navigation and other functionality with very little distraction. However, Android Auto isn’t perfect, and one long-time complaint of users is the absence of any climate control settings, for which users often have to switch back to their car head unit’s OS. Google has been spotted working on bringing climate control settings to Android Auto, and today, we have a demo of it, showcasing Android Auto’s upcoming layout with integrated climate control settings.

Car manufacturers have their own OS in the car’s head unit to handle in-car controls like controlling the AC speed, temperature, etc. However, this OS is often rather barebones and lacklustre, which is why many people prefer connecting their phone for wired/wireless Android Auto running on the car’s head unit. This opens up features like navigation and music playback to function on the car’s head unit, letting you take advantage of your car’s bigger display and better speakers than your phone.

However, connecting your phone to your car’s head unit for Android Auto can leave you in situations where you don’t have access to certain in-car settings, such as controlling the AC temperature and fan speed. This isn’t an issue for cars that have physical controls on their dashboard, through push or touch buttons, but it becomes an issue for cars that don’t. In those situations, users are often forced to exit out of Android Auto back to the car manufacturer’s head unit OS to control these settings.

Car manufacturers can opt for Android Automotive OS (which runs in the car itself, independent of your phone) to bring a unified Android experience to the head unit that offers not only navigation and music playback, but also deeper car controls. However, this isn’t usually feasible, especially for cars that don’t already ship with Android Automotive OS. So, most users are stuck juggling Android Auto and their car’s head unit OS.

To fix this situation, Google has been working to bring climate control support to Android Auto. This would seemingly allow users to control various settings in their car, such as the AC temperature and fan speed, front and rear defrost, and more.

Now, with Android Auto v14.3.151804, we’ve managed to activate Android Auto’s new UI to give you the first look at these upcoming climate control settings that are destined for Android Auto.

As you can see in the image above, there are two pairs of AC controls, seemingly related to the driver’s side and passenger’s side of the cabin. We see an option called “Sync,” which presumably syncs settings for both sides. We also see icons for seat cooling and heating and for windshield defrosting.

The above screenshot shows how the climate control pane sits at the bottom rail while your apps and other information occupy the rest of the screen real estate.

The spaced-out icons look neat if you have a larger head unit display. There is also a settings icon on the far right for accessing other car settings.

Here’s a demo of the climate control pane in Android Auto for an even closer look:

There’s a good chance that just because Google added buttons for a feature doesn’t mean your car will support it. Some of these features are hardware-dependent, so if your vehicle doesn’t have dual-zone climate control or seat heating/cooling/ventilation, you won’t auto-magically get those features merely because they are visible in the UI. Even if you have the hardware, there’s likely some communication involved between Android Auto and your car to control these in-car settings, and that may not always be perfectly executed, so we expect some hits and misses. That being said, having the UI in place will be a big boon for users, and car makers/head unit makers can work out any issues once users start expecting/demanding proper support.

Climate control settings in Android Auto remain a work in progress. We don’t know if and when Google will release this feature. Given the feature’s utility and development progress, we’re optimistic about its impending arrival. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more!