TL;DR
- Android Auto’s latest beta contains currently unused text strings referencing vehicle climate controls.
- Currently, Android Auto does not offer any way to directly adjust in-vehicle climate settings.
- The initial references are rather sparse, and it’s not at all yet clear how this could fit into the system’s UI.
For as much as we love Android Auto, and the way it brings some of our favorite apps to our vehicles, it just really doesn’t feel as tightly integrated as Android on pretty much any other platform. From phones to TVs, Android on other devices tends to offer reasonably thorough access to the underlying hardware, but with vehicles, Android Auto exists almost on another level, largely distinct from your car itself — this is exactly why we have the split between Android Auto and Android Automotive. Google could still be making headway on better Auto integration, though, and a recent teardown sheds some light on what form that may take.
Cracking open the newly released Android Auto 13.9 beta, the crew over at 9to5Google identified a series of text strings that quite plainly reference vehicle climate controls:
Code
<string name=”control_temperature_hi”>HI</string>
<string name=”control_temperature_lo”>LO</string>
<string name=”control_temperature_off”>OFF</string>That’s not a ton of granularity, so this feels like a very early effort, unless you want to either bake or freeze. The site mentions not seeing a lot of context in the app for how these strings might eventually be utilize, so we don’t even have much of a sense yet for how Google could be thinking of building climate controls into Android Auto’s UI.
Vehicle manufactures and Google often feel like they have a particularly contentious relationship, and pushback against Android Auto is a real thing. After all, these brands are all vying for market dominance, and want to stand out with unique in-car interfaces — not the same Android everyone else has. We may not like love that kind of posturing, but it makes enough business sense.
This just makes us all the more surprised to see evidence of Google even playing with the idea of Android Auto vehicle integration on the level of climate control. To be fair, this could just be some wishful thinking on the part of some engineers, getting a few ducks in a row well in advance of any actual agreements with car makers. Whether Google is actively encouraging this sort of development or not is a fascinating question, but one we may not have the answer to until we’re able to identify further efforts along the same like as this one.
