Stop relying on streaming apps for Android Auto—local music players are drastically better

Most of us rely on the convenience of Android Auto to manage music in our cars, and given that streaming is so dominant at home, it’s natural to default to apps like Spotify or YouTube Music on the road as well. However, streaming isn’t the best solution for driving: listening to music stored on your phone provides a much better experience.

Streaming apps love to interrupt your music

Buffering, Dropouts, and Ads

One of the most annoying aspects of free music streaming services is that they constantly bombard you with repeated ads.

It doesn’t matter if you’re running a quick grocery run or visiting extended family who live in a different state; commercial breaks are annoying, especially when you’re driving on a straight, empty highway for hours, and music is the only thing keeping you entertained.

However, ads are far from the only thing that will interrupt your music. A much bigger problem is reception.

Music streaming services work great when you’re cruising the city streets and have a perfect 4G or 5G internet connection. However, not everyone has the opportunity to enjoy this luxury, and this is certainly not the case on every trip. If you frequently drive your car on country roads, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

There are many areas with poor reception, such as deep valleys, canyons, and states with huge stretches of highway that have no or poor coverage. Weather can also change signal strength: good luck getting stable reception in the middle of a heavy storm or when a power outage knocks out backup power to a cell tower.

The moment your internet connection is lost or you experience a signal drop, your smooth music streaming experience turns into moments of buffering, stuttering, and ultimately complete silence.

Another problem with free streaming plans is that they often come with severe restrictions on the songs you can listen to. You can get a limited number of skips per hour, forced random play, daily limits on the number of songs you can manually select, and the navigation itself is often limited.

Even audio quality takes a hit: On top of the already reduced quality you get if you use a wireless connection, free plans generally limit the bitrate to a point where it becomes quite noticeable, especially if your car is equipped with an advanced audio system.

Granted, you can get around these issues somewhat by paying a monthly subscription to unlock premium features, regardless of your preferred streaming service. Spotify Premium, for example, removes ads and lets you download music for offline listening, so you can still listen to your tracks, assuming you’ve planned and downloaded your music in advance.

If you’re trying to limit the number of services you subscribe to, like me, it can be difficult to justify paying for a service that you can technically still use for free.

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Price

Starting at $12.99/month, or $6.99/month for students

Spotify offers both a free, ad-supported plan and a paid subscription tier. With Spotify Premium, you can remove ads and download music for offline listening, making it a good option when you’re driving and don’t have a stable connection.

Local music players are fast, simple and reliable

Reliability surpasses the convenience you get with streaming

Credit: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek

Let’s be realistic: most often, a daily car trip only takes ten to fifteen minutes, or even that. Do you really want to waste time fiddling with Spotify? If the app crashes or doesn’t sync properly, it won’t continue to play what you had streaming at home, and even if it does, there’s a good chance you’ll want to change your playlist. And once you start driving, your already brief music listening session will be even shorter because of those unavoidable commercials.

Switching to a local music player removes all that friction: it’s as plug-and-play as it gets. You get in your car, press play, and your entire music library or carefully curated playlist begins playing. There are no ads to interrupt it and you can skip as much as you want or choose a specific song you have in mind.

Another often overlooked benefit of local music is that the audio quality is significantly better. The free Spotify plan caps the bitrate at 160 kbps, but it can go as low as 24 kbps if set to Auto, which is honestly the option you use if you don’t want low signal strength to interrupt your music playing.

At 160 kbps, the heavy compression has a noticeable impact on audio quality: higher frequencies can sound a little muddy, and bass lacks punch.

Now compare that to a typical MP3 file, which can go up to 320 kbps. Simply put, it can hold about double the data, which translates to crisper highs, more natural vocals, punchier bass, better dynamic range and even a more defined soundstage which all make a noticeable difference in your car’s audio system.

While one could argue that the differences aren’t always obvious in a car environment due to road and traffic noise, they become more noticeable once you’re on the road. I can easily tell if I’m listening to Spotify or my MP3 music player without even looking at my screen, based on sound quality alone.

Technically speaking, lossless audio like FLAC is also becoming an option, but in reality you can only take full advantage of it if you plug in your phone and have a really good sound system. It’s also worth noting that music players that support DVC (Direct Volume Control) can take your local music listening a step further than streaming.

Really, the only downside to switching to local players is that you have to build your music collection yourself. This is what puts most people off, but it’s not as difficult as it seems. It can even be a fun hobby, and there are tens of thousands of free songs you can find online to start your collection.

Continue streaming as backup, not your default

Useful when needed, useless most of the time

Although I’ve mostly switched to listening to music stored locally on my phone via Android Auto, there are still a few situations where I’ll switch back to Spotify. For example, if I want to listen to a specific song that I haven’t downloaded and I really want to, I’ll just use Spotify.

The other case is when I have passengers who want to listen to a specific song. Since my music library is relatively small, I usually just ask them to find it on Spotify and play it from there. But if you ask me, I can’t wait for them to get out of the car so I can get back to my local music player.