Google opens the door to Android Auto smart home apps

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Enlarge / The simple-looking IoT icon grid looks best when merged with Google’s multi-pane home screen layout.

Google

Android Auto is getting a new category of apps. Google has announced that Internet of Things apps (or smart home apps) for cars are now supported by the Play Store. Developers can now build smart home apps, and after an enhanced car safety check by Google, they will be available for car screens. This has been in early access for a while, but now the feature is reaching general availability.

As usual, the Android for Cars app program covers two different platforms: Android Auto and Android Automotive OS. Redundant branding means people are always confusing them, but Android Auto is an app that works on your phone. Just like Apple’s CarPlay, you plug your phone into your car’s dashboard (or connect wirelessly), and the phone’s software takes control of your car’s in-dash display, using it as an external monitor. Instead of seeing the car’s built-in infotainment system, you see a user interface created by Google, along with any compatible Android Auto apps installed on your phone.

Android Automotive OS (AAOS), on the other hand, is the infotainment system of the car. Google signs deals with automakers to run the car on Android instead of a base Linux or QNX or other in-car system, and that includes killer apps like Google Maps and Google Assistant. The car becomes a computer running Android and you can never remove it. Today you will find the Android Automotive operating system on new cars from Polestar/Volvo, GM and soon Honda and Ford. While AAOS and Android Auto are totally different platforms, they mostly support the same third-party apps. For Android Auto, you install the app from your phone’s Play Store, while for AAOS, you use your car’s built-in Play Store to install the app directly to your storage.

Designing car apps is a complicated and expensive process as everything is subject to safety regulations from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and similar regulatory bodies around the world. The rules for car apps are extremely detailed: NHTSA’s “Human Factors Design Guide for Driver-Vehicle Interfaces” is a 260-page document that legislates everything from text and icon sizes to the time it takes to perform a certain activity. You not only have to contend with the guidelines from the NHTSA but also with the guidelines of the other 45 countries where their Android Auto apps will be available. Following all these rules is an almost impossible task for a small developer and a huge barrier to entry.

Announcement

Not all car apps are on both platforms. Android Auto (the phone app) doesn’t have video apps and the Android Automotive OS (this comes pre-installed in your car) doesn’t support messaging apps.

Google

Google’s solution for worldwide security compliance is to not allow developers to do much in the way of “design” and limit car app development to more limited “app templates”. These are rigid designs that Google works out and vets with the world’s regulatory bodies, so app developers can put colors, icons, and data into their pre-packaged designs. So on Android Auto and Android Automotive, all media apps use the same basic media player design, and a company like Spotify can paint that design green and black, put in its auto streams and album art, and choose what they do. one or two optional buttons. That’s all. Pandora’s media app is blue and plays different music, but otherwise looks exactly the same.

The strict design of the app model means that car apps are limited to only certain types of apps, and there are six types: ‘Media’, ‘Messages’, ‘Navigation’, ‘Point of Interest’, ‘Video’ and now “Internet of Things.” Google’s new table confirms that messaging apps are inexplicably still unavailable on Android Automotive OS, and the new “Video” app (there’s now a YouTube app for cars) doesn’t work on Android Auto. For Play Store app developers, it is not allowed to create a car app unless it falls into one of these categories. That doesn’t stop alternative app distribution methods, even though browser company Vivaldi has a deal to distribute their browser on Polestar’s AAOS cars, automakers can ship whatever software they want, and it will be up to them to control the app with safety regulators. By the way, the Vivaldi and video apps don’t work when the car is in motion.

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