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Originally Posted by emil Point well made. In my case, I am a senior citizen with slower reflexes. I don't like to look away from the road ahead too long. Despite the proximity, a touch screen needs precise touching of virtual buttons which cannot be felt. Controls on the steering wheel can be used by a quick glance and feeling the button layout. |
if you aim to keep yourself distraction and frustration free while driving then you should avoid the Chinese Android HUs in the first place. Those things are just garbage.
The features you are looking at will never work on time when you need them the most. For example navigation is the most useful feature these days while driving. And when you need it desperately while stuck in the sea of traffic or on a fast moving highway, the HU won't listen or understand your commands. Even if it understand, it will freeze itself until you miss the important turn on your way.
Software, apps and the layout of the HU is so much cluttered and distracting that having steering controls will also not help. You will have to keep resetting the HU again and again to keep it working so you will lose you customized screen layout. After couple of times, you won't even bother to customize it again and end up leaving it at defaults.
In the end you will end up with an awfully bright screen playing some distracting video song or movie on it, thats how I see these HUs are used in the most cars these days which are posing threat to other road users.
I am telling all this after trying out three different Android HUs in my car and dumping them all together before settling onto a branded Android Auto-Apple Car Play headunit two years back.
This HU has become kind of integral part of my car and my driving since then. First thing I do is I connect my phone with the HU before start driving, afterwards no distraction, no annoying disturbance. I just command it to navigate at my desired location and enjoy my driving.
You can even set the destination in your phone before leaving your home or office, can customize your stop points or roads and can follow all this once you connect your phone with the HU.
Dedicated Android Auto-Apple Car Play HUs are fuss free, they listen and execute your voice commands on time. I have never had any freezing or hanging issue in the last two years, the HU picks and executes the voice commands quickly. Off-course you will need couple of hour to train yourself and your HU after the first time installation for seamless functionality.
The brain used in these HUs is your own mobile phone where you already have everything customized as per your needs. You can easily access your saved locations, playlists or contacts in the HU.
Although I do not prefer making or attending phone calls while driving but if someone wants to use the calling feature, its super easy and crispy clear. You can easily make phone calls by using voice commands, even you can send messages if you wish to.
Best part is when a message is received, the HU will ask you if you want to listen it, once you confirm, it narrates the message in clean manners as long as its not typed in some slang or code language. Once the narration is finished, it will ask you to reply, you can speak the reply in your voice and it will type and send it after your permission.
Over the period of time, your preferences and customisations will keep evolving but you won't lose your customizations if you ever need to reset the HU or change it or change your car because all the customizations are stored in your mobile phone profile account which can migrate onto another phone, HUs or other cars whenever you want.
No data remains stored or available on the HU after you disconnect the phone from it. So you can leave your car at service station without worrying about your personal info or data.
Its just like an AI passengers who keeps interacting with you like other passengers in your car.
So better to look for something from Alpine, Sony or Pioneer instead of going for these grossly overpriced Chinese Android HUs.
Only thing you need to consider is if you want a wired or wireless connectivity. Wireless connectivity may seem very convenient in the first place but the downside is that your phone will discharge rapidly so you will still have to keep it plugged in the charger or put it on the wireless charger, so still kind of another connection, another load, another heat source for your phone.