You may or may not be aware that there are dongles you can get to make your wired Android Auto work wirelessly.

I've bought 2 of the most popular and used them both in my Maxima and wanted to share my experience for anyone interested.

My setup:
2019 Maxima SL with factory head unit
Pixel 6 Pro

These dongles just plug into the USB A port you could use to connect wired. Your phone connects to the dongles and voila your Android Auto now magically works wirelessly.

First up, the MA1 by Motorola with help from Google. This is truly a plug and play device they've made. Setup is so easy, make sure your phone works wired with your Android Auto on your Maxima, unplug it and plug in the MA1 and then pair it over Bluetooth. Its pretty much that simple and it just works(typically, more on that later). There's nothing to adjust, no updates nada.

Next the AAWireless. This was originally a crowd funded device. Setup is just a smidge more complicated. It requires an app and then you follow instructions through the app on how to pair the dongle. The app is forever required but it does offer you quite a few potentially important options if you run into issues, options I found absolutely necessary in the end.

On both units the default after pairing over Bluetooth is they will connect to your phone over 5ghz WiFi. Basically how Wireless Android Auto works is you end up connected over WiFi while your Bluetooth connection is handed back over directly to the head unit for calls. This is all done seamlessly on both devices.

The issue I ran into with both of them is specifically that default 5ghz WiFi. When this is interfered with Android Auto basically turns itself off on your head unit as everything attempts to reconnect. Turnpikes are notorious for interfering with the 5ghz band, there are also some houses I would drive by where my connection would always drop. This issue was true on both devices.

Fortunately in the AAWireless app you can swap it to run on 2.4ghz and it has run perfectly since then. Unfortunately the MA 1 just won't work for me.

Both devices cost pretty much the same and they both technically work with the Maxima head unit. Unfortunately because of issues with 5ghz interference in my area AAWireless is the only one of the 2 that will work for me.

If you were positive you wouldn't encounter this issue and just wanted the easiest device to use then the MA 1 is the answer.

​​​​​​If you don't mind a little more techy option that has a bunch of tools you can use if Android Auto doesn't work flawlessly from the jump then definitely AAWireless is the way to go for your Maxima. Also something cool you can do with it is adjust the DPI and force Android Auto into split screen. Functionally this lets you have a quarter of the screen with something like Amazon Music and the rest as Waze. The MA 1 can't do this and you can't do it just stock wired up to your head unit either. The app also lets you update the firmware. Hypothetically we may reach a future where the MA 1 doesn't work at all and you can't update it while the AAWireless you can.

Note I haven't tried Carsifi and don't expect to but I believe it also has the option to use 2.4ghz.
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Thanks for the well-written and informative report. The 2019+ head unit was made by a different mfr so it might be better than the earlier units at making this work. Anyone tried this on 2016-2018s?

 

I believe 2018 is the first year you'd be able to unless you did a head unit swap as it has to support Android Auto wired already unfortunately and it can't be added otherwise to 16s or 17s.

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I have the MA1 and it has worked flawless in my 2018 platinum. Even switch between the sebring convertible and maxima all the time. Highly recommended.

 

That makes sense, my issues were not head unit compatibility related but strictly 5ghz interference related with the MA1.