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Looking in to getting one to replace the original double din unit, it seems like I can have some sort of CarPlay or a much cheaper unit with DAB+ without it. Now I do use waze a lot but I'm happy to use the screen on my phone & the audio from the phone, what I don't want is if I plug my phone into the USB from the radio so I can use it for music is for waze to mute or cut the radio out for 10 seconds every time it says something, I know I could change the audio settings on waze every time I fire it up but that would be tedious right?
Anyone had similar issues or should I just spend more money & get integrated Waze?
Cheers.
Pretty sure that using any satnav via a car headunit will result in the music muting while travel directions are operating, otherwise voice directions will just get confused and inaudible. I used my phone as my satnav for two years for my job, which had me driving well over 100,000 miles, and I used a number of apps, CoPilot, Here, Navmii and TomTom, which is the one I used most, in fact I still use it and subscribe to it for updates, etc.
My new car has CarPlay and the Android equivalent, it’s the first time I’ve actually used any direct link from my phone to a car infotainment system; I always just plugged my phone into an available USB port and stuck my phone to the screen, and I have to say it blows me away every time I get into the car - if I’m playing music on my phone, and I get into the car and start it up, the music just starts playing where I paused it last time.
With satnav it’s a tiny bit more involved, there has to be a matching app available in CarPlay or, I assume, Android’s version; I set up my route on my phone before I get in the car, to make sure my destination and everything is correct, then swipe the car screen to get the TomTom app, then plug the phone into the car’s USB port, it won’t work via BT.
As soon as I do that, it’s running on the car’s screen, and I can then use whatever audio source I want, like the radio, or my own music stored on the phone, and it’s seamless.
I’m not a fan of the little screen many cars have in the dash, mine has a ‘floating’ screen that sticks up from the top of the dash, which is bigger, and easier to see without distracting me, (it’s a Ford).
I have had situations where I’ve had to drive a car without any USB port, only a 12v auxiliary to power the phone, using the phone speaker for spoken directions, and I can promise you, trying to hear what the directions are, negotiating a complicated road system while the radio is playing at the same time and volume is next to impossible! It’s a major distraction, you end up having to turn the radio down anyway, so missing a few seconds of a song when it goes a bit quieter is a small price to pay for driving safely.
No idea about a dedicated Waze app on an integrated system, it’s not on CarPlay at the moment, but I genuinely think, having driven many, many miles using satnav, that not allowing it to mute slightly for clarity of spoken directions is daft, and not something I would ever consider doing.
I have a pioneer Ddin head unit in my car, the CarPlay works brilliantly, i use waze for my normal commute as it warns me of traffic holdups and potholes etc.
Hard to imagine going back to a normal head unit after it tbh.
Having Siri available to put a specific album etc on, or ‘hey siri, shuffle all songs’ is phenomenal.
Never thought about it muting the music when it’s telling me which way to go, but i suppose it must.
Dunno about Waze but I use Google Maps via Android Auto. You mute the navigation voice and it stays muted until you un-mute it, it's a one-shot setting.
Thanks, for the replies, just to clarify about the mute thing, I currently use a Parrot & the things mutes the audio source for a few seconds every time I get a notification, so on my way to work it's constant with emails etc so there is no point in having the radio on, if I use the phone as the source then it's better as it only lowers the audio instead of just cutting it out.
Cheers.
In Google maps there's a setting to not route the directions to Bluetooth even when connected for the phone or music. On Android, don't know about iOS. Works well, you'd have to have the radio up really loud to miss the directions. Maps is getting more and more of Waze's functionality now Google own that, so it might be worth swapping over for a bit to try it.
In the Android Auto setting, there are quite a few settings for notifications.
You can turn everything off (no notifications), or have a visual indicator but no noise, or the other way round.
You could set the settings so you get no notifications at all.
You can then set the navigation on mute as well. This is an on-screen button while navigating so only takes a couple of screen presses to activate