Google lets Android Auto developers run their apps on PC

(Image Credit: Google)

A new tool has been released for Google’s connected car platform called Desktop Head Unit (DHU) which emulates a car dashboard running Android Auto for testing purposes. 

Instead of forking-out cold hard cash for an expensive head unit, all developers need to do is connect their Android device to a computer and the mobile device will think it's connected to a physical car. This allows developers to see how their application will behave in a real-life scenario, which can be quite different from what you think. 

The exact steps for developers to run the DHU are: 

  1. Enable Android Auto developer mode by starting the Android Auto companion app and tapping on the header image 10 times. This is a one-time step. 
  1. Start the head unit server in the companion app by clicking on the context menu, and selecting “Start head unit server”. This option only appears after developer mode is enabled. A notification appears to show the server is running. 
  1. On your workstation, set up port forwarding using ADB to allow the DHU to connect to the head unit server running on your phone. Open a terminal and type adb forward tcp:5277 tcp:5277. Don’t forget this step! 
  1. Start the DHU.  
      cd <sdk>/extras/google/auto/  
      On Linux or OSX: ./desktop-head-unit  
      On Windows, desktop-head-unit.exe 

Android Auto was first announced at Google I/O in June 2014 as a rival to Apple's CarPlay system. The platform acts like an extension to your Android-based device; similar to Android Wear but catered towards safe use whilst in a vehicle rather than on your wrist. 

Few cars have support for Android Auto built-in at the moment, but you can add the system to some cars through a new head unit such as the (expensive) devices available from Pioneer. The previous emulators for Android Auto are now deprecated and will be removed in the coming weeks. 

Do you think Google should have released their DHU tool earlier? Let us know in the comments.

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