If your car doesn’t come with an Android Auto head unit, you can install the Android Auto for phone screens app from the Play Store and turn your phone into an Android Auto dashboard. However, the app offers limited functionality, and its 2.9-star rating leads me to believe that it isn’t nearly as good as the native Android Auto experience. Thankfully, there’s a new app, called AutoZen, that addresses this issue.
AutoZen is a third-party car launcher (via autoevolution) that turns your phone into an Android Auto dashboard. As you can see in the attached screenshots, the app’s home screen shows a map of your current location with a search bar in the top left corner. You can use this search bar to search for your destination, quickly lookup contacts, and even search for nearby gas stations, parking spots, restaurants, and more. The map also has a couple of buttons towards the bottom that let you show/hide traffic on the map and re-center on your location. It even features a small icon in the bottom right corner that shows you your current speed.
Underneath the map, you’ll find a couple of additional buttons. The first button from the left opens up the app drawer and gives you quick access to apps like YouTube Music, Google Maps, WhatsApp, Telegram, and more. Right next to it is a button with a phone icon that opens up the dialer and lets you make a call with just a couple of taps. Besides that, the bottom bar also houses music playback controls for the music streaming app of your choice, a button to trigger voice commands, and a button for quick access to all your notifications.
On top of all the features mentioned above, AutoZen comes with a couple of premium features like built-in turn-by-turn navigation powered by Mapbox, speed camera alerts, and road construction/accident alerts. The premium version also lets you use AutoZen as the default launcher app on your phone, which lets you return to AutoZen from other apps when you tap on the home button. Furthermore, the premium version unlocks gesture support for some actions, a Do Not Disturb mode, Bluetooth auto-launch, and more.
If you want the complete Android Auto experience on your phone, you can download AutoZen by following the Play Store link below. Most of its basic features are free to use, and it offers a 7-day free trial for all the premium features.
AutoZen - Car dashboard,Navigation & Launcher (Free+, Google Play) →
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source https://www.xda-developers.com/autozen-turn-your-phone-android-auto-dashboard/