{"id":246498,"date":"2026-05-15T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/15\/my-4-favorite-android-auto-settings-are-seriously-useful-but-hidden-by-default\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T07:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:45:08","slug":"my-4-favorite-android-auto-settings-are-seriously-useful-but-hidden-by-default","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/15\/my-4-favorite-android-auto-settings-are-seriously-useful-but-hidden-by-default\/","title":{"rendered":"My 4 favorite Android Auto settings are seriously useful &#8211; but hidden by default"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/android-auto-hidden-developer-settings-my-favorites\/\">My 4 favorite Android Auto settings are seriously useful &#8211; but hidden by default<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/android-auto-hidden-developer-settings-my-favorites\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/android-auto-hidden-developer-settings-my-favorites\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-15 07:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall u-block\">Artie Beaty\/ZDNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Follow ZDNET: <span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span> on Google.<\/p>\n<h3>ZDNET&#8217;s key takeaways<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>You can customize your Android Auto through developer mode.<\/li>\n<li>This mode is usually for developers and app creators.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s easy to access, and you can make significant improvements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For most users, Android Auto is simply an easy way to handle navigation, music, and messages while driving. But if you&#8217;re willing to tinker a bit, you&#8217;ll find several settings that can completely change the look and functionality of your car&#8217;s infotainment system.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Just like your Android phone, Android Auto has its own developer mode that lets you access settings not intended for everyday users. And like your phone&#8217;s version, you can actually make some significant improvements. It&#8217;s not difficult to access, and it only takes a minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: I&#8217;ve used Android Auto for years, and these 5 changes solved my biggest issues<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how to dive in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Android Auto app doesn&#8217;t appear among your regular apps, so you&#8217;ll need to go through your settings to find it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>From Settings, search for Android Auto.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Tap it, then select &#8220;Additional settings in the app.&#8221;\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Scroll down until you see Version, then tap it 10 times.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Choose OK.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once you have that enabled, here are some of the biggest changes you can make.<\/p>\n<h2>The best Android Auto developer setting changes<\/h2>\n<h3>1. Force Day\/Night Mode<\/h3>\n<p>This is my favorite developer setting, and the one most drivers could use immediately. By default, Android Auto automatically switches between day and night mode. Depending on your car, this might be triggered by the time of day, ambient lighting, or your headlights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: Android phone slow? I changed 2 developer settings for an instant speed boost<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With this setting, you can permanently set it to day or night, or use &#8220;Phone controlled,&#8221; which follows your phone&#8217;s system settings (like scheduled dark mode, sunrise-to-sunset theme, or always-on dark mode). If you&#8217;ve ever been frustrated when your Android Auto map switches to dark mode on a&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/android-auto-hidden-developer-settings-my-favorites\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My 4 favorite Android Auto settings are seriously useful &#8211; but hidden by default https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/android-auto-hidden-developer-settings-my-favorites\/&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/883794ebebd9ecfe399e9e7b8e8acc29c768ed23\/2026\/05\/14\/02de51d2-f5cb-47fd-ade0-05b0b60ef5c9\/messenger-creation-edc0c1d7-6d66-4100-9481-89c56e0a0648.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-246498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246502,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246498\/revisions\/246502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}