Google seem to be having a nightmare with the Android Auto support in Android 13 with certain brands, in my case Sony Xperias. My main phone only connects over USB 1 time in 20...
For those that like a quick answer here's what worked for me, I'll explain a bit more below. This is an Amazon Basics OTG USB-C to USB-A adapter with a basic USB-A to USB-C cable plugged in. Since trying this my phone connects first time every time.
So some history and background...
I have 3 generations of Xperia. The Android 9 and 11 phones connect first time everytime. My current daily phone was Android 12 at the time of buying the van and was fine, then it upgraded to Android 13...
But what about wireless I hear you say? Well in my case my daily phone is a works phone so chunky data really needs to go over my 4G WiFi hub - and if you do point to point WiFi to do wireless Android Auto you can't do that. I had hoped that the MIB3 head unit would route the data to it's own LTE connection, but no. Oh well.
The issue is clearly a timing one, a modern phone USB port is trying to do a lot of things from charging to data as client, data as host, video etc. During the process of figuring out what's just been plugged in something times out.
I had partial success with disabling wireless Android Auto on the phone to give it more time, right up until Google removed that ability. Thanks Google.
Lots of other folks found specific cables helped, either high speed rated ones or the original phone vendor's decent quality ones. I tried several and sometimes they seemed to improve a bit but no real improvement.
2 weeks ago I was sat in the van once again reregistering everything as a recent phone update had made it considerably worse and nothing was helping. And I sat there with all three phones and pretty much cursed in frustration that the older phones with the dumber USB-C worked and the new hottness didn't and I suddenly thought "can I make the connection dumb?"
Then I remembered that the basic USB-C adapter I got for the van for MP3 music, before I got a USB-C native memory stick, was actually an active device not just a plain cable (it appeared on the MIB3 screen as Mirrorlink) so I grabbed it and the other cable in the picture. My thinking was if the phone and the head unit only had a much smaller set of capabilities to negotiate on a connection should happen much faster...
First attempt I had the adaptor on the phone side. This didn't go well and confused the head unit so much I had to lock the van and have a cuppa while it properly shut down and I panicked I'd bricked something in the van.
Second attempt, bang, straight in like my older phones. And it's carried on doing that ever since. I'm not 100% happy as I don't like the weight of the dongle on the van sockets long term, which is why I stopped using it for music. But for now, until Google get it sorted, it'll do.
For those that like a quick answer here's what worked for me, I'll explain a bit more below. This is an Amazon Basics OTG USB-C to USB-A adapter with a basic USB-A to USB-C cable plugged in. Since trying this my phone connects first time every time.
So some history and background...
I have 3 generations of Xperia. The Android 9 and 11 phones connect first time everytime. My current daily phone was Android 12 at the time of buying the van and was fine, then it upgraded to Android 13...
But what about wireless I hear you say? Well in my case my daily phone is a works phone so chunky data really needs to go over my 4G WiFi hub - and if you do point to point WiFi to do wireless Android Auto you can't do that. I had hoped that the MIB3 head unit would route the data to it's own LTE connection, but no. Oh well.
The issue is clearly a timing one, a modern phone USB port is trying to do a lot of things from charging to data as client, data as host, video etc. During the process of figuring out what's just been plugged in something times out.
I had partial success with disabling wireless Android Auto on the phone to give it more time, right up until Google removed that ability. Thanks Google.
Lots of other folks found specific cables helped, either high speed rated ones or the original phone vendor's decent quality ones. I tried several and sometimes they seemed to improve a bit but no real improvement.
2 weeks ago I was sat in the van once again reregistering everything as a recent phone update had made it considerably worse and nothing was helping. And I sat there with all three phones and pretty much cursed in frustration that the older phones with the dumber USB-C worked and the new hottness didn't and I suddenly thought "can I make the connection dumb?"
Then I remembered that the basic USB-C adapter I got for the van for MP3 music, before I got a USB-C native memory stick, was actually an active device not just a plain cable (it appeared on the MIB3 screen as Mirrorlink) so I grabbed it and the other cable in the picture. My thinking was if the phone and the head unit only had a much smaller set of capabilities to negotiate on a connection should happen much faster...
First attempt I had the adaptor on the phone side. This didn't go well and confused the head unit so much I had to lock the van and have a cuppa while it properly shut down and I panicked I'd bricked something in the van.
Second attempt, bang, straight in like my older phones. And it's carried on doing that ever since. I'm not 100% happy as I don't like the weight of the dongle on the van sockets long term, which is why I stopped using it for music. But for now, until Google get it sorted, it'll do.
