You can finally use Waze on your phone while connected to Android Auto

Ben Schoon | Nov 24 2025 - 10:15 am PT

Waze is picking up a trick from Google Maps in allowing Android Auto users to select locations for navigation on their phone’s screen, or access other parts of the app, instead of solely relying on the car display or voice.

Rolling out in one of the newest stable Waze updates for Android, users can now use the Waze app on their phone to select locations for navigation while connected to Android Auto. Previously, Waze on your phone couldn’t do this, with the Android Auto experience running independently.

Waze has been testing this for months in beta and in limited stable rollouts, but it appears to be widely available as of now. We noticed some reports of the feature re-appearing earlier this year, but a new pop-up is appearing for some users this week. We were also able to open and use the Waze app on our Pixel 10 while connected and running Waze on an Android Auto display.

This functionality isn’t a new idea, though, as Google Maps has done the same thing for a while. Users can open the Maps app to input and select their destination, with directions then showing on the car’s display through Android Auto.

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At one point, Maps was disabled when Android Auto was running, but Google changed this back in 2023.

This is helpful for numerous reasons, but especially for those in vehicles without a touchscreen (with rotary controls in place of that). If you’re not seeing this live on your device, try force-stopping the app and re-opening it. You may be able to use the app while Android Auto is connected even if the pop-up doesn’t appear.