Samsung setup that works

[McSperry]

Hi,

I thought it a good idea to share my setup of your fantastic app. It may help you and hopefully other users. And somebody may have suggestions to improve my setup.

In the car I mainly use Waze for nav, Spotify for music, Pocketcasts for podcasts, and Google Messages for brief voice messaging.

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Ultra S25. It connects to the car's Bluetooth. The tablet in the car is a Samsung Tab A9+.

This setup worked seamlessly using the Headunit Revised app and associated wireless helper. Power on the tablet, open HuR, and start the car. However it would occasionally require manual intervention.

Headunit Revised required a little more setup but overall works very well, and has some nice features. I have access to Spotify playlists without opening Spotify and losing navigation. The overall layout is better. Shutting down is almost automatic when the car is turned off.

The sequence in the car is:

• Open the Tablet
• Open HuR
• There's a simple Samsung Routine on the tablet to fire up the Hotspot when HuR starts. The Hotspot is turned off automatically when HuR shuts down.
• Start the car and the phone connects to the car's Bluetooth.
• However when the car is started at home it's still connected to the home WiFi, so there's another Samsung Routine on the phone to turn off WiFi for 10 seconds then turn it back on. By this time the tablet hotspot because active and the phone connects to it.
• The WiFi Helper app on the phone starts searching for the WiFi Direct connection to HuR. However it doesn't find it until I double tap the phone to display the Lock screen, then it connects and Android Auto runs on the tablet.

In summary, I open HuR on the car's tablet, start the car, and double tap the phone, then I'm good to go. When I stop I tap the Exit button on HuR then turn off the tablet, although not really necessary because the screen has a 30 second timeout.

Settings on the Phone (Galaxy S25 Ultra)

• Connection Mode: WiFi Direct
• WiFi Direct Device Name: The name of the tablet in Android Settings
• Auto-start on Bluetooth connection
• Bluetooth Device: My Car (name given by Nissan)
• Try to auto reconnect: Not set
• Stop on BT disconnect: Set
• Day night mode

Settings on the tablet (Samsung Tab A9+)

• Auto optimise was done for an 11" screen
• Wireless Mode: Wireless Helper (waiting for phone)
• Auto-Enable Hotspot: Not set as it doesn't work for me
• Vehicle Information: Default settings incl. Right Side driving
• Audio Sink: Disabled (so that sound plays thru the car audio from the phone and not thru the tablet speakers)
• Auto-start and all other settings: Default

There are 2 "issues" which would be good to fix.

1. Day / night mode works only sometimes. I think that this is an Android issue

2. It would be good if I didn't have to wake up the phone with a double tap to initiate the connection. Yes I have battery optimisation disabled.

I hope all this helps and will endeavour to answer any questions.

[andreknieriem]

Very nice. Thank you!

[McSperry]

I have added a couple more routines to further streamline start up and shutdown. All that I do now before starting the car is turn on the tablet's screen with a double tap and run Headunit Revived. Android Auto fires up on the tablet and connects to the phone everytime.

When I turn off the car then Android Auto shuts down and so does Headunit Revised. Look Mum, no hands 😜

The changes to the above procedures are:

Auto Start Service in Wireless Helper on the phone changed from On Bluetooth Connection to On App Startup

A new routine starts Wireless Helper On Bluetooth Connection. This avoids having to open the lock screen to make the connection.

A new routine shuts down Wireless Helper on Bluetooth Disconnect. This stops Wireless Helper from continually searching for the connection after shutdown.

On the tablet Shutdown on Disconnect from AA is set

[andreknieriem]

Very nice :)

[tschwei]

Hi Andre,

Thank you for creating & updating Headunit Revived!

I've only been using it for a week (on an Amazon Fire HD tablet) but it works much better with the latest versions of AndroidAuto & Gemini than HUR does.

I have one annoying glitch that is related to the auto-connect via hotspot setting. When it is enabled Headunit Revived will immediately try to connect to my phone hotspot when launched. If the hotspot isn't running and I click on Settings icon the app crashes. This makes it difficult to change any settings!

A question:
I prefer to display the AA app/task bar on the left side of my tablet's screen (rather than on the bottom). With HUR, I was able to do that by playing around with the DPI setting and adding 20 to the left & right margins. I guess that tricks AA to think there isn't enough horizontal space to place the taskbar on the bottom of the screen? But it seems that trick doesn't work with Headunit Revived (or maybe the latest version of AA app)? Do you know of a way to get the AA app/task bar to appear on the left side of the screen with Headunit Revived?

Please keep up the great work!

Thanks,
Tim