Either side of the link may ping, and a real phone does. A 2021 Bolt
hangs up 25 seconds into every drive even with its own pings answered
and GM's channel open (#18), which leaves the phone's pings as the one
thing Android Auto sends that Gearslip didn't.
A surface encoder only makes a frame when the screen changes, and the
repeat-last-frame setting should cover a still one. On a Pixel 10 it
didn't: a LuChi box got 11 frames, then nothing, and stayed black
(#58). When the encoder has been quiet for a second, Gearslip now
draws its screen again, which is a new frame for the car.
The car list and the wireless status messages read the device's own name,
so a device renamed in Android's Bluetooth settings still showed its old
name. Prefer the alias, and sort the list by the name it shows.
Turned on under Settings > Connection, Gearslip's car screen fills the device's own
display as its home app. An All apps page opens any other app full screen, Back and
a head unit's keys work the car UI, and Phone hides on devices that can't call.
Phones never see Gearslip offered as a home app unless it's switched on.
From the moment the car's Bluetooth channel opens until the drive ends, a quiet
notification keeps Gearslip in the foreground, so Android lets it join the car's
Wi-Fi with the phone locked.
Neither runs on the car screen, but while one guides on the phone, Gearslip reads
its turn notification and shows the arrow, distance and road in the nav bar, and
sends the turn to the instrument cluster.
While Gearslip waits for the car to call, it also calls the car's own service every
8 seconds, for cars that publish it late. If the Bluetooth channel closes, the Wi-Fi
join fails or TCP can't reach the car before its screen comes up, the start-up
begins again, up to three times.
A certificate the car calls not valid yet or expired, but that is fine by the
phone's clock, now says to set the car's date and time. A start that hasn't
reached the car's screen after 45 seconds says what to try, for cable and wireless.
Android only lets the location service start in the seconds after Gearslip's
screen opens. Gearslip now starts it as the car connects, instead of when a map
opens later with the phone already in a pocket.
Native crashes, freezes and the memory killer leave no stack trace in the log. On
the next launch, Gearslip writes the reason Android recorded, at the end of the run
that died and in the new one.
When the car took the speakers for a moment, for a call or its own voice, Gearslip
paused the music and gave up its claim, so the car never handed the sound back.
It now keeps the claim and plays the music again once the car is done.
Waze asks whether a reported hazard is still there with an alert, and
Gearslip dropped every one (#54). An alert now shows as a card across
the top of any screen, with its buttons and a bar for the time left.
The car opens Gearslip on the phone each time it connects, over USB or
through auto-connect. Once video is up it now moves to the background,
unless the phone was already showing it or a question needs the driver.
Older head units (2017 Pilot, 2020 Civic, 2024 Mirage) never show our
screen while the media channel is closed, which it is when music goes
over Bluetooth. If the screen hasn't come 5 seconds after asking, open
the channel and ask again.
Seb3thehacker