How to listen to internet radio in the car with Android Auto

By Adam · October 6, 2026

The easiest way to listen to internet radio in the car is through Android Auto. Install a radio app that supports it, connect your phone to the car by cable (or wirelessly, if your car allows it), and the app appears on the dashboard screen next to Maps and your music apps. You choose a station on the car's display and change stations from the steering wheel. If your car doesn't have Android Auto, Bluetooth from your phone still works; you just do the choosing on the phone before you set off.

SomaFM's Folk Forward is on for most of my drives, so this is the setup I actually use.

What you need

• An Android phone running Android 9 or newer, with a mobile data plan. Android Auto is built into the phone, so there's nothing extra to download.
• A car or aftermarket stereo that supports Android Auto. Your owner's manual or the manufacturer's website will tell you.
• For a wired connection: a decent USB cable. If the connection keeps dropping out, swap the cable before you blame anything else.
• For wireless: Android 11 or newer, a phone with 5 GHz Wi-Fi, and a car that supports wireless Android Auto. Plenty of cars only do the wired version.
• A radio app that supports Android Auto. Not all of them do, so check before you rely on one.

How to set it up

1. Install the app and set it up while parked. Open it on your phone and save your favourite stations first. Picking from a short list on the car screen is far easier than searching from scratch at the lights.
2. Connect your phone. Plug into the car's USB port (some cars have more than one, and only one carries Android Auto) or follow your car's prompts to connect wirelessly. The first time, your phone will walk you through a few permissions.
3. Open the app on the car screen. Tap the app launcher and choose your radio app.
4. If the app isn't there, open your phone's Android Auto settings and find Customise launcher. Make sure the app is ticked. Where those settings live varies by phone; searching "Android Auto" in your phone's Settings is the quickest way to find them.

What you can do from the car screen

Android Auto keeps things deliberately simple while you're driving: short lists, big buttons, and playback controls that also work from the steering wheel.

In Musika you can browse your favourites and your own custom stations, search for a station, and see the station's artwork in Now Playing. The next and previous buttons on the steering wheel move between stations, the same way they'd skip tracks in a music app.

One note if you're on an older phone: Musika itself runs on Android 8, but Android Auto needs Android 9 or newer.

How much data does internet radio use in the car?

It depends on the stream's bitrate, which the station sets. Roughly:

• 64 kbps: about 29 MB an hour
• 128 kbps: about 58 MB an hour (the most common quality)
• 320 kbps: about 144 MB an hour

A one-hour daily commute at 128 kbps comes to a bit over 1 GB across a month of working days. That's modest on most plans, but worth knowing if yours is small.

Two Musika settings help here. You can ask for a heads-up before a stream starts on mobile data, so nothing plays on your data allowance by accident. And if you drive through patchy coverage between towns, a larger buffer lets the stream ride out short dropouts instead of stopping.

Does Radio Garden work with Android Auto?

No. Radio Garden doesn't support Android Auto, so in the car you're limited to playing it from your phone over Bluetooth. If you like Radio Garden's globe for discovering stations but want something that works on the dashboard, I've written up how Musika compares to Radio Garden.

No Android Auto in your car?

You can still listen, with a bit more setup before you leave:

• Bluetooth: pair your phone with the car, start a station on the phone, and it plays through the car speakers. The car's media buttons often control play and pause too, though that varies by car.
• Aux cable: if your car has a 3.5 mm input, a cable does the same job.
• Phone mount: if you do need to change stations, a mount keeps the phone in view rather than in your lap. Better still, pick your station before you start driving.

Try it

I built Musika because I wanted a radio app with no ads, no account, and no fuss, and that includes the car. It works with Android Auto out of the box, and the full list of what it does is on the features page.

Head back to the blog, or to the Musika home page.