[Android Auto General] nxt:
I wrote a pretty long review on Crutchfield but ran out of space. I ended up not making a video review because... it's not that great.

Just like any head unit, the regular UI for radio/settings/menus/audio/etc is ugly.

Anyways, here's some info going from the HU itself then Android Auto.

The Kenwood only has 1 USB. It charges your phone very very slowly, but it can charge it to 100% if you keep it connected long enough even while using Android Auto. (I do 6-7hour drives every other weekend).

1 USB, so 1 USB device connected and that's it. The Pioneers have a dedicated SD card slot, you can store music on it and leave it in there forever.

Putting about 64GB of music on a USB 3.0 Flash drive, the Kenwood took a very long time to get complete ID3 tags. So I'm forced to listen to Adele when it starts up, or manually choosing another folder before I can shuffle ALL songs.

The Kenwood supports various file formats, it can even play video files! Too bad all the .MKV files I have, no audio is decoded.

Bluetooth audio. Very little lag, steering wheel control to skip tracks almost instantly changes the tracks. My stock HU there was 2-3 second delay. ID3 tags show up properly. I primarily use Google Play Music app. I mostly use Android Auto mode when using to music though.

Bluetooth Phone. Works fine, I have a 2014 Mazda CX-5, I put the microphone where the stock microphone was. People can hear me perfectly. Android Auto voice commands have no issues hearing me either.

I have a Nexus 6 and when it was on 5.x.x, the Bluetooth Phonebook on the headunit would be SCREWED UP. No names, and just a ton of phone numbers. I installed Android 6.0 that was released a few days ago and Contacts information show up perfectly.

The Kenwood's backup camera input works really well. I can turn on the car and as the Kenwood is still booting up, if I put the car in reverse, the backup camera would be displayed! I'm pretty surprised with this and love it. The Kenwood takes a while to boot up.

The Kenwood, like most high end HUs have a TON of audio settings. I'm no car stereo buff so I mostly leave everything at default since I don't know half of what the settings mean. Each audio input has it's own audio setting which is great. My car has the factory Bose system and it sounds even better with the Kenwood.

The Kenwood has built in iHeartRadio/Pandora/Aupeo! "apps" that's supposed to work with your phone. It's junk, I've given up trying to make that work and just do regular Bluetooth Streaming.

Kenwood also has a SmartPhone control mode where if you can get your phone to video output into the Kenwood's HDMI or AV input, you can load the Kenwood App, and control your phone from the Kenwood's touchscreen, so you can use Waze or other apps directly. The app sucks and doesn't get my touches correctly. Don't rely on it, it's not reliable.

So yeah it has 1 HDMI input you can use with your iPhone using video adapter, or Android or whatever else.

It has DVD slot for movies/audio cds, I've never used it.

HD Radio. The radio interface really sucks, but it works. The way to change an HD station from HD1 to HD2 is really dumb and annoying. it has 3 different "seek" modes when you press the >> or << button. Seek1 auto scans to the next station that it can grab. Seek2 is manual seek. Then there's Auto where it changes to your next Preset.

Then there's the CHup and CHdown buttons. So if you're locked into an HD station and you want to change to HD2 you press the CHup or CHdown button, but that only works if you're in Seek2 (or maybe Seek1, I forgot), if you're not, all it does is the same as >> or <<. It makes no sense because CHup and CHdown acts EXACTLY like the >> and << buttons.

I have a ZuneHD with a special car aux box for it, I use it in AV1, works and sounds fine but when I put it into video mode I get a lot of interference. Not sure if it's the Kenwood or my aux box for it.

The Kenwood's video controls suck too. It's just hard to adjust and get proper color/brightness/etc.

At night, it's too bright, and lowering Brightness and "Blackness" levels, it gets hard to see/read the screen. So to make things clearly readable, screen has to be a little bright. There is a way to set holding Menu button and the screen will turn off until you press screen or a button.

OK Android Auto, I won't talk about Android Auto itself, there's many reviews and videos about it. I'll talk about how well it works with the Kenwood.

When it works it's great, but it's a coin toss if it'll work great on this drive, or the next.

Plug in USB cable to the phone and you're prompted to press OK on a warning screen on the Kenwood. The Apps icon turns into Android Auto.

Again, when it works, it works. Here's when it doesn't:

On my road trips, I would get into car, search the destination, and start navigation.

About 5 minutes later, Android Auto on the Kenwood would shut off and you're taken back to the main menu and the Apps icon return. Phone's Android Auto app is shutdown. There's no way to relaunch Android Auto without unplugging the USB and plugging it back in. On my last road trip, I did this about 4-5 times, then I decided to start Play Music while navigating, then it worked and had no issues. On my drive home, I started music right away with navigation and it still shutdown every few minutes. Unplugging and plugging back a few more times then it worked with no issues. It's completely random.

On my drive to work and back home, I drive through some low cell signal areas. When my phone looses signal and then catches signal back, Android Auto's screen would BLINK. Navigation wouldn't stop, music wouldn't stop, the screen would just BLINK. It's distracting.

Phone calls go through Bluetooth still, but it works well from the Android Auto screen. I'm sort of impressed how it works.

It's possible to listen to another audio source (HD Radio, CD, etc) while in Android Auto navigation, just press menu button, pick your source, then go back to Android Auto.

Android Auto I believe needs a lot of work. It's still in its infancy and the missing features and odd limitations Google has with it frustrates and confuses me.

Kenwood released a firmware update 9/17/2015.

Changelog is: Changed the specification of Volume function. Improved stability.

I hadn't noticed any improved stability.

That's all for now. Ask your questions and I'll try to answer them.