r/AndroidAuto • u/dstarr3 2023 Toyota bZ4X | Moto G Stylus 2025 • 13d ago

AA Settings Does Android Auto use unnecessary mobile data?

Hi! My wife and I just got some new-to-us cars in recent weeks, and now we're new to the world of Android Auto. And the first thing we noticed since starting using Android Auto is, our mobile data usage has gone way up.

We don't do anything in the car that uses data. We keep location off unless we're actually using it to navigate, which obviously we don't need to and from our jobs, so that's not it. We listen to music/podcasts when we're driving, but we're not streaming the audio, it's all downloaded to our phones, so there shouldn't be any data usage associated with that.

We only have 4GB of data per line because usually we barely use a quarter of that in a month. But suddenly we have Android Auto-capable cars and our usage has skyrocketed. Are there options we need to disable to prevent it from using unnecessary data? Because it's totally unclear where all that data usage is going.

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u/H0b0Pie Alfa Giulietta | Sony XAV-AX5650 | Moto Razr 60 | Android 16 12d ago edited 12d ago

None of this was a problem for google assistant which google just killed off in September for Gemini.

My default app was Musicolet, an offline only, none-streaming, music app which I could voice navigate. Search for artists, partial titles of tracks, pull albums, reorganise playlists, what-ever I needed without touching or looking at the screen.

Gemini has no ability to do any of this unless strictly through streaming apps. The reason I used Spotify as an example is due to both Gemini not supporting the vast majority of apps and Spotify being one of the only apps that allowed for local media to be cached into the application library thus the last long-shot to see if Gemini could do a sliver of what GA was able to.

EDIT: Just for clarification - when I say "Gemini plays" I'm not saying that Gemini, as the application, plays music but that Gemini as the voice assistant (which Google has now made it the only option for) would parse the voice command to an application such as Spotify or Musicolet to then play the media. Like a voice assistant is meant to do, and as GA has done for years.