[Paid Software Announcement and Discussion] epsonix:
Hello everybody, my first post on this forum.

I'm fresh user of AAGateWay 1.0BetaRC3 (thanks to OP, great app, respect for you for challenging this - super handy and from day 1 of AA Google shoudl make it standard rather USB cable thing which makes AA against today's technology) , and I would like to share bit of my experience. Apologizes for some lacks in below - I'm not expert and over 1 day of playing I can't remember every detail of what I did.

In short words my expreience is very similar as [MENTION=8104201]Thofkes[/MENTION] just reported, though I think I had bit more issues.

My setup is:

master phone is LG G6 Android 8 no root

slave phone is Samsung Galaxy A3 2016 Android 7 no root, no SIM card

Car - Alfa Romeo Giulia manufactured Apr 2018 (infotainment with firmware 059.xxx.xxx - mentioning as it is early firmware which in general in my observations is bit problematic for Android Auto - looks like often timeouts during estabishing connection to AA with direct USB connecitons with standard but slower phones, where the same phones on newer firmwares works superb (tested firmware 072.xxx.xxx in bit newer car; Alfa does not want to update my firmware for some reason))

So, first setting up, all run OK, I played a bit with DPI (screen was narrowing on >100 values). There were some slow downs on Spotify music in first seconds, but they disappeared soon. Maps, calls all worked, and even call did reverted back to Sportify playing, where when I use USB AA connecdtion, it goes back to playing FM radio, and only way to get spotify play again is to change playlist to some other and hit play - so works here way better.

Unfortunately after a few tries with different DPI, disconnections it stopped the car to even try to link with AA.

I cleared temporary data/cache on master/slave AAGateWays, cleared radio to defaults, estabilshed all connecitons/setup again, and got one lucky run. Number of attempts either nothing or connection of car radio was interrupted (probably timeout I mentioned because of my radio firmware?).

Today it started OK, but on next ride again I could not get it to work.

Note, that I tried on slave enabling USB debug mode, tried to change USB connection type (file transfer, pictures, charging), no help in the time.

In general observation is that on master Hotspot does not start automatically, and on Slave WiFi did not came up as well on USB power - I need to do this by hand. On Master my phone requires confirmation each time I enable Hotspot by hand, so maybe this is the reason why AAGateway cant do it itself? On slave each time I unplug/plug USB (e.g. accidentally did so - probably bit loose socket in old phone) there was some Allow required (can't remember what exactly - will keep an eye on this and will later report).

Finally I changed slave app settings - unticked 'toggle WiFi on power' on slave, I have now WiFi all the time on, and only thing I need to do is by hand enable hotspot on my Master before entering the car. If I do so, I get correct operation (at least it worked for my last 3 trips - not solid proof, but good indicator at least that it has chance to work quite stable way in future).

Of course more ideal would be that hotspot on Master, and WiFi on Slave runs automatically OK on every phone (and without root), but at version 1.0beta that is still grand for me as is.

The issue I see with whole concept of having hotspot on Master is that battery is drained quite quickly - I used it maybe for 1h today, but according to reports it used 20% of my battery over last 15h, when I used it maybe 15minutes for playing with settings, and 45minutes in the car operating as AA (playing Spotify). I can't imagine this to be used for longer trip as is. Do I miss something in terms of setup of my apps or phone settings?

I would prefer opposite approach, that hotspot is on slave, and prefferably no root on slave as currently required for such setup (so like VAG workaround but without root?). Alternative some fast booting TVStick instead of slave phone, this 50seconds boot for MK709 seems like not the solution. Do we need this 5G WiFi, maybe some sticks do way better and say if we decide on on specific/common good stick, and have custom ROM for it (speed optimized, cut out all unnecessary stuff), we could have stable slave platform for everybody?

[MENTION=842765]Emil Borconi[/MENTION] - fingers crossed for success of your app - that will be great benefit for all users fed up with AA by wire. I wish you all the best, and keep doing great job please. Thanks again.

Edit. In the morning it worked again, but next trip again I have issues. I did a few manual attempts to plug/unplug USB, made sure slave is connected to Hotspot etc tried to change USB conenction type a few times - no luck. It is hard to make all checks while in hurry and doing daily things, so when I get time I will try to make some notes on what is reported by both apps and will share here.