Waze made its way to Android Auto on head units late last year. However, it remained missing from the standalone version of Android Auto that ran on smartphones. But that is no longer true, as Waze has brought its traffic app to Android Auto on your smartphone. Of course, you did have the ability to just use the Waze app on your smartphone outside of Android Auto before, but now it is part of the app.
The Android Auto app works the same as the head unit, but it’s running on your smartphone, so the only thing you need is a car mount to use Android Auto in the car. It still allows you to use navigation to get around town, as well as listen to your favorite music and respond to texts and calls. Now instead of being stuck with only Google Maps, you can also opt to use Waze instead. Of course, like the other apps that work with Android Auto, it does need to be installed on your smartphone for it to work on Android Auto.
Waze is an Israel-based company that crowdsources mapping data to let you know when there’s traffic, construction and even cops ahead. That way you can save time on your travel and not get stuck in traffic. Google saw how important this service was, and decided to acquire Waze in 2013 for about $1.1 billion. The app has brought some features over to Google Maps, but the majority of them are still only available in Waze and not Google Maps. Which is why many are still opting to use Waze over Google Maps. So having the choice of using either service in Android Auto (no matter which Android Auto platform) is definitely a nice thing here. If you don’t already have the Android Auto downloaded, you can do so by using the link below.