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Comment by wtallis | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't Android Auto carry audio over Bluetooth? That would be consistent with how unreliable the audio is.

Hey don’t knock it until you’ve tried Apple’s equivalent (wireless CarPlay) which has a 3 second buffer since they decided to use Wi-Fi for audio. Imagine if every time you play or pause or change tracks you have to count to three in your head before it responds.

Yes, I’m bitter. Somehow the video and touch are lag-free 1 but the audio is on a delay. I’d love to have regular Bluetooth audio be used.

Your 3-sec delay issue sounds more like AirPlay 1 vs AirPlay 2 issue to me.

AirPlay 1 has this delay (or more like 2 seconds to be fair), while it is reduced to like 200ms on AirPlay 2.

shairport-sync runs on a raspberry AND supports airplay 2. You can hook it up to your car.

>since they decided to use Wi-Fi for audio

Choosing to buffer for 3 seconds isn't the fault of wifi. There is no reason it couldn't start playing in a few milliseconds.

Wait, what? Wifi? Does that mean that a car that has CarPlay must also have Wifi that can act as an access point, and do some sort of automatic connection negotiation when the phone is plugged in and CarPlay is activated? That seems... terrible.

Wireless CarPlay didn't show up until several years after the original USB-based CarPlay, which is still around and there may still be new vehicles on the market which only support the USB-based CarPlay. Wireless CarPlay starts with a Bluetooth connection which is then used to negotiate the higher-bandwidth WiFi link. Neither CarPlay nor Android Auto can operate on Bluetooth alone, because the video data that needs to be streamed far exceeds what Bluetooth can handle.

It’s a point to point link too, not standard access point style.

Regular Bluetooth audio isn't guaranteed to save you there. My car has a 6 second delay on the Bluetooth audio.

That’s why always use wired CarPlay despite having wireless support.

I don't know. What's the wire for? Needing both the USB cable and Bluetooth has always struck me as pretty dumb.

The bluetooth connection is for phone calls. The rest of functionality works over the wire. As for the why does it need bluetooth at all, no idea.

Needs to be bluetooth so the handsfree controls on the steering wheel work without an outrageous degree of coupling.

If it's anything like CarPlay, it's absolutely NOT bluetooth.

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