Don’t buy sketchy wireless Android Auto adapters – what to look for

Wireless Android Auto adapters are super useful, but you have to be careful with which ones you buy. Nowadays, there are more options than ever, but a lot of them are sketchy, and you probably shouldn’t bother in the first place.

Just a couple of years ago, there were only a handful of wireless Android Auto adapters, costing in the ballpark of $100. About a year ago, more options started popping up for as little as $50 and, in our testing, they weren’t completely awful.

In the time since, the market has continued to open up, with countless options available when you search “wireless Android Auto adapters” on Amazon. You can find countless options for around $50-$60, often with big discount coupons available. And, in many cases, you seem to be getting a functional piece of hardware.

But there are some reasons to be cautious.

In viewing some of these listings, we noticed a couple of trends. For one, many of these devices have a lot of reviews that aren’t completely candid or organic. A lot of the reviews, as Amazon discloses, are from customers who received a free product in exchange for their review. That doesn’t inherently mean the review is not truthful, but in some cases, such as the “KooDux” adapter and the “BaseSailor” adapter, a large percentage of the reviews are from customers who received free products, not ones who bought the product and then left a review.

More concerning was a listing from “Veqotya,” which has nearly 7,000 reviews and a 4.5-star rating. Good right? Yes, at least it would be if those reviews were for this product.

Instead of being for a wireless Android Auto adapter as the listing currently says, the vast majority of those reviews are for a pill holder, meaning this product listing was updated from another completely different product to this adapter. This is technically against Amazon’s terms of service, but many sellers have found that Amazon doesn’t enforce the policy.

There are red flags beyond that, such as the fact that almost none of the imagery on the listing actually shows Android Auto.

The obvious appeal of many of these no-name Android Auto adapters is price, as they’re often the cheapest options available. However, with AAWireless and Motorola MA1, the top Android auto adapters, now running $65 or less on average, the value of these no-name options starts to fade away. Personally, I’d recommend skipping most of these random options, or at least doing your due diligence in digging through the reviews for more information.

More on Android Auto:

• Hands-on: AAWireless TWO builds on the best wireless Android Auto adapter
• Android Auto 13.0 update is now rolling out
• Handy Android Auto trick lets you easily look ahead on your Google Maps route

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