Problem - The infotainment system in my new 2026 Honda Passport Trailsport Elite pairs quickly in wireless mode with a OnePlus 13R phone running Android Auto. Unfortunately, when streaming Sirius XM app or Pandora app, within a few minutes (sometimes as long as 10 minutes), the sound will begin to “hiccup” for a few seconds, then with increasing frequency until all sound eventually terminates and the screen will display an error message saying something about “no device found”. Given enough time, the phone will resync but the pattern of instabilities never ceases.
FYI #1: I tried a different phone OnePlus 13R phone and a Pixel 4a phone and in both cases, the wireless Android Auto was identically unstable.
FYI #2, wired Android Auto seems to work fine, but plugging in the phone every time I drive the vehicle is NOT desirable.
Troubleshooting - I spent in excess of 30 hours troubleshooting this unstable performance of the vehicle's wireless Android Auto. The instability issues are well documented on the internet; my ChatGPT research seems to point to potential design deficiencies of the wireless Android Auto system, possibly something that will require hardware or software (firmware) correction, as opposed to tuning of phone or vehicle settings. For the sake of full disclosure, these are some of the things I tried:
1) I tried disabling the vehicle Wi-Fi hotspot option using the infotainment system setting. At times this seemed to produce some positive results but ultimately this never stabilized the performance of wireless Android Auto. I left it OFF though.
2) I routinely rebooted the vehicle infotainment system. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto.
3) After streaming interruptions, I tried cycling the phone's Wi-Fi to OFF then back ON. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto.
4) I cleared cache for multiple phone apps, including Android Auto, Google Play Services, Sirius XM, and Pandora. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto.
5) I set the overall battery plan to High Performance mode to ensure there was no battery throttling on the phone. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto so I changed it back to the default of Balanced mode.
6) I turned OFF any battery saving restrictions on the phone and Sirius XM and Pandora apps. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto, but I left them unrestricted.
7) I tried using a wireless Android Auto adapter (brand AAWireless) as a substitute for the "defective" factory broadcast of wireless Android Auto. For vehicles that have no wireless projection of Android Auto, a wireless adapter usually works flawlessly (it works flawlessly on my 2025 KIA Telluride). While I eventually got the AAWireless adapter to pair with the 2026 Honda Passport Trailsport (with some difficultly), as soon as I turned off the vehicle, it would not sync again. The AAWireless manufacturer says this is a known problem with the Honda Passport Trailsport. I don't believe there is an infotainment system setting that will allow the owner to turn OFF the broadcast of the 5 GHz secure and hidden Wi-Fi Direct transmission and I am left to conclude that this is why the AAWireless adapter does not work, i.e., potential conflict in the broadcast of two separate 5 GHz Wi-Fi transmissions. Perhaps a different wireless Android Auto adapter would work, but I don't have one to use for testing.
Summary - The vehicle is currently at the dealership for the 4th time where they are attempting to debug the problem. As an engineer, my gut feeling is that this won't be resolved with a "setting" change. I fear the infotainment system is defective, possibly due to an insufficient power of the wireless broadcast (but that is just a guess). My REAL question is whether this is a problem across the entire model line OR simply a problem with my specific vehicle. Any constructive feedback on the wireless Android Auto feature would be appreciated.
P.S. The dealership has lent me a 2025 Honda Pilot. It has wireless Android Auto and it seemingly works flawlessly!
FYI #1: I tried a different phone OnePlus 13R phone and a Pixel 4a phone and in both cases, the wireless Android Auto was identically unstable.
FYI #2, wired Android Auto seems to work fine, but plugging in the phone every time I drive the vehicle is NOT desirable.
Troubleshooting - I spent in excess of 30 hours troubleshooting this unstable performance of the vehicle's wireless Android Auto. The instability issues are well documented on the internet; my ChatGPT research seems to point to potential design deficiencies of the wireless Android Auto system, possibly something that will require hardware or software (firmware) correction, as opposed to tuning of phone or vehicle settings. For the sake of full disclosure, these are some of the things I tried:
1) I tried disabling the vehicle Wi-Fi hotspot option using the infotainment system setting. At times this seemed to produce some positive results but ultimately this never stabilized the performance of wireless Android Auto. I left it OFF though.
2) I routinely rebooted the vehicle infotainment system. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto.
3) After streaming interruptions, I tried cycling the phone's Wi-Fi to OFF then back ON. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto.
4) I cleared cache for multiple phone apps, including Android Auto, Google Play Services, Sirius XM, and Pandora. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto.
5) I set the overall battery plan to High Performance mode to ensure there was no battery throttling on the phone. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto so I changed it back to the default of Balanced mode.
6) I turned OFF any battery saving restrictions on the phone and Sirius XM and Pandora apps. This never seemed to stabilize the performance of wireless Android Auto, but I left them unrestricted.
7) I tried using a wireless Android Auto adapter (brand AAWireless) as a substitute for the "defective" factory broadcast of wireless Android Auto. For vehicles that have no wireless projection of Android Auto, a wireless adapter usually works flawlessly (it works flawlessly on my 2025 KIA Telluride). While I eventually got the AAWireless adapter to pair with the 2026 Honda Passport Trailsport (with some difficultly), as soon as I turned off the vehicle, it would not sync again. The AAWireless manufacturer says this is a known problem with the Honda Passport Trailsport. I don't believe there is an infotainment system setting that will allow the owner to turn OFF the broadcast of the 5 GHz secure and hidden Wi-Fi Direct transmission and I am left to conclude that this is why the AAWireless adapter does not work, i.e., potential conflict in the broadcast of two separate 5 GHz Wi-Fi transmissions. Perhaps a different wireless Android Auto adapter would work, but I don't have one to use for testing.
Summary - The vehicle is currently at the dealership for the 4th time where they are attempting to debug the problem. As an engineer, my gut feeling is that this won't be resolved with a "setting" change. I fear the infotainment system is defective, possibly due to an insufficient power of the wireless broadcast (but that is just a guess). My REAL question is whether this is a problem across the entire model line OR simply a problem with my specific vehicle. Any constructive feedback on the wireless Android Auto feature would be appreciated.
P.S. The dealership has lent me a 2025 Honda Pilot. It has wireless Android Auto and it seemingly works flawlessly!
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