Overview
Home Assistant offers an Android Auto (AA) and Android Automotive OS (AAOS) experience. This will allow you to interact with various entities safely while driving your vehicle. It will also allow you to navigate to any zone
, person
, sensor
or device_tracker
* that has a location associated with it.
* Device tracker entities that are considered home
will not be shown in the navigation screen.
Setup
In order to use the app in your vehicle you will need to be signed in to either your phone if using AA or your vehicle if using AAOS. Once you are signed in with you will be all set to use the Home Assistant icon on the home screen in the vehicle.
Supported Actionable Domains
alarm_control_panel
If a code is not required will allow forarm_away
&disarm
otherwise no actionbutton
cover
fan
input_boolean
input_button
light
lock
scene
script
switch
The amount of entities shown will depend on the imposed limit set by the vehicle.
Favorites
If you would like to gain quick access to certain entities you can select some entities to be shown in the app. When you are parked simply go to Settings > Companion app > Android Auto favorites (or Driving favorites) and select the entities you wish to view. Once you have added favorites the next time you start the Home Assistant app in the vehicle you will be shown your favorite entities. From there you can toggle entities, navigate to an entity, view all entities and also change your server.
In addition to adding the above supported domains you can also add binary_sensor
and sensor
entities to favorites in order to view their state in the driving interface.
If you installed the app from the Google Play Store on your AAOS vehicle then currently you will not be able to set your favorite entities. In the meantime you are free to use the AA app.
Notifications
By default Home Assistant notifications do not show up in the AA interface. To show Home Assistant notifications in AA, add car_ui: true
to the notification data. Notifications will now show up on your phone and in AA. Opening the notification from AA will open the driving interface for Home Assistant.
Notifications in AA, share settings with your phone and do not support all notification features. For example, in order to have a notification show on top of the current screen in AA, the notification channel will also need to be set to pop up on your phone. For the best experience, it is recommended to use a specific channel for notifications that should be visible in AA. Example:
- alias: Send door unlocked alert
trigger:
...
action:
- action: notify.mobile_app_<your_device_id_here>
data:
title: "Door unlocked"
message: "Everyone left home but the door is still unlocked"
data:
car_ui: true
notification_icon: "mdi:door-open"
channel: "Door unlocked"
importance: high
Sensors
The sensors available for AA and AAOS are described on the main sensors page. The below list of sensors are unique to AA and AAOS:
Enabling or disabling sensors is only possible while the vehicle is parked. How to change your enabled sensors, depends on how you installed the app:
- Installed from the Play Store
- On another device, go to Settings > Devices & services > Devices, and select your vehicle.
- Select the sensor you want to change, click on the cogwheel, and turn Enabled on or off.
- Start the app in your vehicle to update the sensors.
- If you enabled any sensors that require special permissions, the app will post a notification to complete enabling them. Tap on the notification to open the app, enable the sensor again and grant any requested permissions.
- Installed from the car manufacturer's store
- Tap on Native mode in the top right of the screen.
- Go to Settings > Companion app > Manage sensors, and enable or disable your sensors.