Android Auto struggles plague Samsung Galaxy S26 launch

The launch of every phone leads to a wave of complaints as it becomes clear the sparkling new tech still needs some patching up. The Samsung Galaxy S26 range is, without doubt, the largest Android phone launch of this year, but even a juggernaut like Samsung is tripping over some basic issues.

Samsung Galaxy S26 owners across the world are discovering that their fancy new phones aren't always working well with Android Auto.

A wide variety of problems

It's hard to find where to start with these problems. Galaxy S26 customers have taken to Reddit, Google's forums, and Samsung's forums with their displeasure.

Some of the earliest complaints arrived around five days ago, with posts on the Samsung Galaxy subreddit, and the Samsung US forums. More arrived in the following days, and it seemed there were few commonalities to bind the complaints together. People were having issues with both wired and wireless Android Auto connections, across different cars. Those who were using wired connections often confirmed that they were using the same ports and wires that had worked with previous phones — often older Galaxy S phones, to boot.

On the plus side, one commenter discovered exactly what he'd done wrong, leading to a happy conclusion. According to his later comment, he found that if he started Android Auto from his car's infotainment system, then Android Auto would set up as expected. But not all stories had such happy endings.

It's worth pointing out that this happens with many phone launches, and it can be rare to find a phone that doesn't initially need a struggle to connect properly to Android Auto.

When you think about it, Android Auto is a complicated beast. Google's team has to create a system that can mesh with every compatible phone out there, with their wild mixture of specifications, and all the Android Auto cars, which also have their own specs. Really, it's a miracle it works as well as it does.

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This isn't to say you shouldn't be annoyed when it doesn't work — you absolutely should. But you can expect that they will be fixed eventually. Google is already on the case, after all.

Until then, you can go old school with your phone in a car cradle.