Hey, folks! I've vaguely followed EVPlay for a bit when thinking about buying a Gen2 Rivian, but I was on the fence considering an R2 so I didn't dig too deeply. Once I learned that the R2 will not feature a native FM tuner in its hardware stack, I realized I'll more than likely end up with an R1 rather than an R2.
My primary use cases are simply around having full control over a device I own, and continuing to support my abhorrence of subscription payment models. As such, my questions!
I'd like to potentially use the native EVPlay OS for most use cases, rather than wired or wireless Android Auto. As a result, my Android Auto questions:
- It sounds like there's a bit of latency with wireless Android Auto. Is that still the case?
- Is wired Android Auto more performant and less laggy?
My EVPlay native OS questions:
- Does the current generation of HW (available for $425) include native GPS available to a Google Maps application without a personal phone connected (i.e.: when just connected to the puck + car hotspot)?
- It sounds like a nice little keyboard is included (lovely if so!), but could I be wild and pair my own Bluetooth based keyboard/mouse/trackpad? Wondering about being a nutter and carrying a lightweight Apple Keyboard and Trackpad.
- Is it feasible to trigger audio input on the native OS via the EVPlay UI when doing things like inputting an address in a Maps application -- VIA a button on the steering wheel?
- Presumably you can click a microphone icon in Google Maps to provide input?
- Is it fair to say if it's in the mainline Google Play Store, you can install it? Basically curious about Pocket Casts, Plex, PlexAMP ... I'm pretty simple!
My wider questions:
- Is trying to / planning to try and stay with the native EVPlay-only UI a fools errand, or a first-class citizen in the ecosystem?
- How's the update process for the native OS? I suppose I really mean AndroidOS here, not necessarily the updates I've seen posted in the change log area.
- Does the device support side loading? I don't do much, but occasionally I install a thing or two through FDroid.
- Any concerns / plans around Android's upcoming lockout process around side loading?
Finally, I'd just like to say thank you for producing such a product as this. It makes me happy to see there's a community of folks doing stuff like this. Thank you!
I recently purchased a 2026 R1S and the EVPlay. Happy to share my results so far.
Native Android experience:
- you need to buy an external gps puck and set it on your dash. Using mock location and an interface app like GPS Connector you can get it working fine for Google Maps and other apps. Note that it took a lot of fiddling with settings and some command line work using Termux to get the GPS to be fully reliable.
- Still, I find that occasionally after starting a vehicle it takes a few minutes for the puck to acquire a satellite fix. That's annoying. I'm experimenting with different ways to initialize the location, but in retrospect I wish I'd have bought the newer generation of GPS pucks that allow for predictive orbit data. Older chip: u-blox 7 (used in the common VK-162 USB GPS dongle). It lacks support for free Predictive Orbits assistance data and has no backup battery for retaining ephemeris/almanac data, so it suffers from slow cold starts. Newer chip: u-blox M9 series, specifically as found on the Waveshare NEO-M9N receiver (~$35). It supports free Predictive Orbits AssistNow data and includes a BBR (battery-backed RAM) for retaining satellite data between power cycles, both of which substantially reduce cold-start time.
- Be aware that the EVplay vehicle in motion restrictions are too aggressive in my opinion and limit what apps you can run when driving. Most browsers and YouTube music and many media players won't work when driving.
- To make the interface easy and safe to interact with one-handed while driving, you want to invest some time in the right launcher interface and shortcuts. I use Nova launcher, floating gboard, the Panels app for highly customizable shortcuts available on swipes from edge bars, Tasker for things like auto-launching a bunch of apps at startup, etc.
- Sideloading works fine. Google Play apps are all available and installation works fine.
- Voice commands using Google assistant or native Gemini work great. I cannot initiate them via the steering wheel button, but am happy with a hotspot on the bottom left corner of the screen enabled using the panels app or something similar that with a single tap can launch assistant or Gemini, interactive mode, etc. Requires the wired microphone from the EV play box. Also, all of the microphone buttons in Google apps like gboard, Google maps etc work fine too.
- Be ready for heavy use of Termux for command line customization of all sorts of things
- Screen brightness is too high at night and doesn't seem adjustable
- I've struggled a lot with managing phone calls through the native Android experience, because the device lacks a cellular antenna. Have experimented with Google Voice forwarding but the experience is not great. You can detect an incoming call and flip to the rivian UI but it requires changing the rivian Bluetooth connection which is hard to do quickly and can't be programmatically reset to Evplay after a call. Where I'm landing is to flip over to the Android auto experience when I want to make or receive a call. I had hoped to avoid Android auto completely but it works smoothly with phone calls and messages and also voice commands to initiate phone calls and messages. And because it runs on a separate Android app called autokit, I can easily automate flipping back and forth between that and the native Android experience.
- Google Assistant won't send text messages or initiate phone calls successfully, because the device lacks a cell antenna. This is even if you have Google messages synced to your phone. Unfortunately, there's a remnant dependence on a cell antenna for your Google Assistant to work properly in these cases. Again, this is an argument for using Android auto for its ability to initiate text messages and phone calls via voice.
- In summary, it takes a lot of work and a lot of flexibility to make the native Android experience useful. That said, I do like how customizable it is, I like the access to the full Google Maps experience and other full experience apps like Google Earth and Gaia GPS. I like having the desktop visible with custom backgrounds. I like being able to see my message threads in apps like Google Messages and WhatsApp. I like the control I have through Tasker and Termux. I like having access to all apps, not just those integrated with AA.
AA experience (with my Pixel 10 Pro):
- Works fine for me wirelessly after a lot of setup fiddling about.
- No noticeable lag in responsiveness. With some fiddling you can get the screen resolution to look good
- I'm not happy with how long it takes to connect... can take a few minutes. I might experiment with going in wired mode to make that faster
- I haven't tested the battery draw yet
- Voice commands all work great with the wired microphone connected to the EV play
@pincer87 what excellent answers! Thank you very much, indeed, for spending time giving such a detailed response.
To generate further back and forth in the event that it helps anyone in the future:
- Great info on the slow GPS puck cold start. How slow? Any sense you can share? A few minutes, eh? That's legitimately annoying as someone that gets in their vehicle and wants to be in drive and moving within seconds.
- A little terminal fu, whatevs. Fine by me.
- All those deets on particular hardware... excellent references for the future. Will dig in if need be. Your references here are an invaluable starting point. TY!
I suspect I can intuit your reply to this final question: Which UI do you ultimately spend most of your time?
Again, thank you very much. What a great reply.
Sure thing, glad to contribute to the good community knowledge base here.
GPS often works within seconds, no problem at all. But occasionally I get in the car and it can take something like 3-5 minutes to get a fix. Not 100% sure why yet...maybe when cold starting in a concrete garage with no good satellite signal. But in those cases switching to AA works, so my phone's GPS seems not to be having trouble. My theory was that initializing it with predicted coordinates would help, but for that I think I need the more advanced GPS device.
Maybe 50/50 time split now between the two UIs. It's not ideal to navigate three UIs (Rivian, AA, Android) with two different buttons (hardware and touchscreen). But my personal goal is never to pick up my phone (yet another UI) while driving. For me it's both a convenience and safety goal. E.g. AA Google messages is so optimized for safety that you can't read a text thread. Sure, the safest thing is not to try. But many of us resort to picking up our phones when we need to see the full thread, which for me is less safe than having it show up on the big screen. There's lots I shouldn't do with my phone in the car, but I do anyway. Shifting all that to the big screen, with easy shortcuts, split screen formats, etc, is my strategy. And my setup now achieves that, though still trying new things to make it smoother.