Seb3thehacker
206dd67d98
Deezer sometimes carried on out of the phone's speaker after the car was turned off. Apps that are buffering are paused too, and two seconds later any that started by themselves are paused again.
Gearslip
An Android Auto alternative built for everyone.
Fix or add your language on Weblate. Translations go through Weblate only; pull requests that edit them get closed.
Questions, ideas? Join the discussion on Matrix.
Warning
Gearslip is alpha software. It can drop the connection, freeze the car screen, or fail to start, and a new release can break a car that worked before. Set it up while parked, and keep another way to navigate.
Warning
On GrapheneOS, make sure USB-C port control isn't set to Charging-only. That setting blocks USB data, so the car never sees the phone, even with a data cable. Set it to allow data transfer.
Which cars work
Most cars work. Starting around 2020, some cars added newer security checks that reject the aasdk certificate, and in those cars Gearslip needs a certificate of your own. CARS.md lists the cars drivers have confirmed.
What Gearslip is
Gearslip is an Android Auto client for the phone. It speaks the Android Auto protocol directly to a car head unit, over USB or wirelessly, with no Google software in the path. Gearslip acts as a Car App Library host: an app that ships a car interface hands Gearslip a template, and Gearslip renders that template natively on the car screen. Nothing is mirrored from the phone. For apps without a car interface, Gearslip offers a separate screen-sharing mode.
 |
 |
| Your car apps in one place. | Vela Maps navigating, with the player beside it. |
 |
 |
| Metrolist in Gearslip's player. | A new message, read aloud at a tap, over the map. |
 |
 |
| Lyrics light up word by word as the song plays. | Browse the web while parked. |
 |
 |
| Ask for a place, a song, or an app. | Pick a route to a coffee shop. Each one shows its time and distance. |
Features
- Phone calls. Dial from a keypad, or search your contacts, then confirm before the call goes out. When a call comes in, answer or decline it on the car screen. During a call, the nav bar shows who you're talking to, and you mute or hang up from there.
- Navigation. Gearslip hosts real Car App Library map apps on the car screen. Organic Maps, Vela, OsmAnd, Waze, Flitsmeister, MAPS.ME, and MapQuest work today. While you navigate, a big turn card on the left shows the arrow, the distance, and your lane, and the map keeps the right side. Turns from Google Maps or Waze running on the phone show in the nav bar, and on the instrument cluster in cars with a screen there.
- Music. Browse, play, and queue tracks from a car-enabled media app, with a Now Playing view, an Up Next queue, and lyrics. Type a search, and apps that accept one play the best match.
- The web. A browser with an address bar, back and forward, and its own on-screen keyboard, for anything that doesn't ship a car interface of its own.
- Weather and the day ahead. A dashboard screen shows the week's calendar next to the current and coming weather.
- Voice. Tap the mic, or press the talk button on the wheel, and say "navigate to the nearest gas station", "play Daft Punk", or "call Mom". Say "help" for the full list. Speech turns into text on the phone, and nothing you say leaves it.
- Messages. New messages appear as a small card on the car screen. Gearslip reads each one aloud, and you reply by voice or with a quick reply. Music pauses while Gearslip speaks or listens. Speech runs on the phone, so it needs no Google account.
- Notifications. Only messages, missed calls, alarms, and reminders interrupt you. The rest wait on the dashboard.
- Your apps, your order. The launcher groups apps by kind: phone, maps, music, messaging, and the rest. Press and hold an app to move it, and hide the ones you don't use from the Apps card on the phone.
- Car controls. Steering wheel buttons, control knobs, and D-pads all work.
- Your phone's colors. The car screen and the phone app take their colors from your phone's Material You palette, and every card and button matches.
- Themes. Choose flat buttons or skeuomorphic ones that look like real keys.
- Small screens. Car display density makes text and buttons bigger in car apps.
- Your language. Gearslip comes in 19 languages besides English, some only partly translated. Pick one in Settings. Voice commands understand English only for now.
- Settings on the phone. The car's settings sit on the phone's home screen too, so you can set things up before you drive. A change on either screen shows on both.
Status
- Wired or wireless. Plug the phone into the car's USB port, or, in a car with wireless Android Auto, tap Connect wirelessly and pick the car. Pair the phone with the car over Bluetooth first. After the first wireless drive, Android asks once whether Gearslip may watch for that car; from then on, Gearslip connects whenever the car's Bluetooth does.
- Setup walks you through it. First launch asks for the Android Auto certificate, then one permission at a time, each with a plain reason and an Allow or Skip. A help screen inside the car answers anything setup didn't cover.
- Templated apps work. Gearslip renders the Car App Library's templates on the car screen, and it draws its own keyboard for search, sign-in, and text fields. Alerts, such as a map app asking whether a hazard is still there, show on the car screen too. It has been tested against several real navigation and media apps.
- Gearslip can be a head unit's home screen. On a head unit that runs Android, or a spare phone or tablet on the dash, turn on Use as launcher in Settings > Connection. The car screen fills the display, and an All apps page opens everything else.
- Gearslip works with LIVI, the open-source head unit used in homemade car dashboards.
- Some apps refuse Gearslip. Spotify and Google Messages use a version of Google's car library that accepts only Android Auto itself. Spotify still plays through Gearslip's own player. TIDAL lets only approved apps browse its library.
- Calls use the car's Bluetooth, as they do in Android Auto. Pair the phone with the car to hear calls through its speakers.
- Music reaches the car over Bluetooth or through Gearslip. Setup asks which. Bluetooth is the default: Android never asks for permission, and your map app's voice reaches the car too. Through Gearslip, the sound travels over the car connection, cable or wireless. It sounds a little clearer, with no delay, but each drive Android asks you to share your screen, which lets Gearslip send the sound. Gearslip never reads the screen; capturing playback is the only way an ordinary app can pass another app's audio along.
- Gearslip needs no adb, root, or Shizuku. Every feature relies on an ordinary Android permission or an on-device consent dialog. For audio through Gearslip, setup offers two optional adb commands: one removes the audio dialog for good, and the other keeps notifications visible while audio plays.
- Updates come from GitHub. Once a day, Gearslip checks this repository's latest release. When a new version is out, it downloads the APK, checks it against GitHub's SHA-256, and installs it through Android's own installer. Turn off automatic checks in Settings.
Verify your download
Check that your copy of Gearslip is genuine with
AppVerifier: share this block to it, or compare it
with the output of apksigner verify --print-certs.
app.seb3thehacker.gearslip
4C:C5:6E:BD:D1:3A:54:D2:60:EC:A9:B7:E2:B2:AE:6B:30:E2:F2:25:BF:DA:8F:50:8F:07:09:ED:F0:84:94:8B
Usage notes
Gearslip can send short notes that show which cars it works in. They stay off unless you turn them on, in setup or in Settings.
- When they go out. When you open Gearslip, at most once a day, and after each drive. Nothing runs in the background.
- What they carry. The Gearslip version and which boxes you ticked, plus whatever those boxes cover: the Android version and whether the phone runs GrapheneOS, the phone model, whether a car connected that day, and each car's head unit, model, year, screen size, and connection result, with whether that drive used the cable or wireless and whether music went through Gearslip or over Bluetooth. If you tick it, how each drive went: how far the connection got, how long it lasted, and how it ended. Settings shows the exact note. Untick a phone detail, and the server drops the copy it kept.
- What they leave out. Your name, accounts, location, contacts, messages, and anything you type or play.
- How phones are counted. A random number counts each phone once. The server keeps only a salted hash of it.
- Where they go. To Gearslip's server. Like any website, it sees your IP address when a note arrives, and it doesn't store it.
Turn the notes off, and they stop at once.
How Gearslip is made
Gearslip is my beloved child. I decide what it does and how it looks, and Claude writes nearly all of the code. I test every change myself before it ships: in a real car, with both a GrapheneOS phone and a stock Android phone, and on LIVI, the open-source head unit software. I watch the phone's temperature too, so a new feature doesn't cook it. Then I beg my friends to try it in their cars, so it works in as many makes, models, and years as possible. If something breaks, that's on me, so please open an issue.
Contributing
Bug reports from real cars help most, and pull requests are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md explains what to put in a report, which branch to work on, and the one-time agreement you sign before your first pull request merges.
To help translate Gearslip into your language, join Gearslip on Weblate. No coding needed. Please don't send translations as pull requests: Weblate holds its own copy of every language, and changes made in git collide with it.
Building
./gradlew :gearslip:assembleDebug
The APK lands at build/Gearslip-debug.apk.
A release build needs a signing key. Copy keystore.properties.example to
keystore.properties, fill in your own values, and run
./gradlew :gearslip:assembleRelease. Git ignores both the properties file and the
keystore. Without them, the debug build still works.
Writing apps for Gearslip
docs/BUILDING_APPS.md specifies how to write apps that Gearslip can render: templated apps, media apps, and the Gearslip app protocol.
How Gearslip talks to cars
Gearslip is an independent program, written to work with car head units. What it knows of the protocol comes from public open-source projects such as aasdk and open-android-auto, and it contains none of Google's Android Auto code.
Gearslip ships without a certificate. On first launch you choose where yours comes from: download the one the aasdk project publishes, or import a file of your own. The certificate stays on your phone. Gearslip never uploads, backs up, or logs it.
Trademarks
Android, Android Auto, Google Messages, and Waze are trademarks of Google LLC. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB. Gearslip is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of these companies. All other names belong to their owners.
License
Gearslip belongs to Twink Software LLC and is licensed under AGPL-3.0; see LICENSE. The LLC also sells a separate commercial license for private use outside the AGPL's terms; see NOTICE.md.