Android Auto is designed to let you control your phone’s functionality without taking your eyes off the road. This enables users to manage calls, media, and other functions directly on the head unit without interacting with the phone. But as users of the platform will know, Android Auto still relies on your phone for some key tasks.
Alarms fall into this category, with users required to manually snooze or stop them on their phones. While alarms can also be dismissed on a compatible smartwatch, not every Android Auto user may have one. This essentially means that most Android Auto users can only dismiss an alarm on their phone, even while driving.
Fortunately, it looks like the Android Auto team is finally laying the groundwork to rectify this shortcoming. Looking into version 16.8.161804 of the Android Auto app, the code sleuths at Android Authority have spotted evidence for this feature’s rollout.
A feature that will keep your eyes on the road
As the screenshots above show, alarms will appear directly on your car’s head unit. As on your smartphone, this pop-up will come with Snooze and Stop buttons, spaced out reasonably given the available display real estate. Alarms will appear as a standard notification and in the notification shade, just as they would on your Android phone.
There’s no word on when this feature will actually roll out to the Android Auto app, but the fact that it appears to function normally, even at this early stage, suggests a rollout shouldn’t be far off. A quick look online doesn’t reveal a large volume of requests for this particular feature, save for one from eight years ago.
But with that being said, there’s no denying that bringing alarm notifications to the Android Auto head unit will be a big relief for people who have multiple alarms set on their phone.
Aside from this potential feature addition, Android Auto is currently rolling out an upgrade to Gemini from Assistant. While this upgrade isn’t widely available yet, complaints appear to be piling up already, with a recent glitch causing Android Auto to randomly switch from Gemini to Assistant.
Outside of the long-awaited Gemini upgrade, Android Auto continues to add new features to the platform. Recently, it gained support for Google Meet calls (audio-only), while there’s also evidence that Google may finally address concerns about autoplay behavior on Android Auto.
