If there is one route we often travel by car, it is Pamplona – Madrid via Burgos and vice versa. Hiking is done in summer, but be careful from October to April because things get quite complicated: rain in Álava, snow in Pancorbo and ice when passing through Somosierra. So, in addition to checking out different weather forecast apps before leaving the house, there is also a weather app I have installed on my Android phone that we can’t miss: free, intuitive and above all, extremely visual to see the weather in real time on Android Auto.

Until relatively recently, we limited ourselves to forecasts before getting into the car, mostly because weather-related information was pretty scarce in Android Auto: Ask Google Assistant, tap the Weather icon to do essentially the same thing and a little more. So we install Weather and Radar, A free app available for Android Auto and Android Automotive.

What is it and how does it work? Weather and Radar in Android Auto

Weather and Radar One of the most popular weather apps on Google Play (4.5 rating and over a hundred million downloads) and is also successful on iOS, where it is the most downloaded weather app. Although there is a paid version called Weather & Radar Pro, in practice the most noticeable part is the presence of ads.

After installing the application on the mobile phone and accepting the relevant permissions, the next time we connect it to the car, its icon will appear in the Android Auto menu without you having to do anything special. If you look at the image that appears right after this paragraph, which shows us arranging the icons alphabetically, it appears right after Time, but In terms of user experience, I’d say it’s light years away from Google’s.. The truth is that Google should take this into consideration and get its act together, given the poverty of its app on the one hand and how good such apps are for driving.

As I mentioned above, if we talk about measurement applications for Android Auto, we encounter a wasteland with some exceptions. Since version All 2023.3.1 available Google for infotainment systems so we can check the weather during our trips and the truth is is a visual delight.

A gorgeous interface that will help you advance your route ahead of time

So, when you open the app from the console, you find a red dot indicating our location, with an arrow indicating the destination of the route, on an orange route that normally indicates major roads. We can already see some of them in this picture interesting weather data like temperature or upcoming milestones just like when evening approaches. However, if you look at the bottom right corner, you will see a dot in different blues.

A common resource of Android Auto navigation apps is to zoom in or out on the map, something we find in the bottom corner. If we move a little further away, we will see something else in perspective: It is currently raining a lot to our right, so there is a possibility that we will encounter rain as we progress along our journey.

As you see, Colors are very intuitive to understand at a glance what’s going on. Therefore, the first function of Weather & Radar is to report the weather in real time. On the map, color rain blue, snow pink, frozen rain salmon, and sun rays yellow circles.

This image defaults to a Simplified map showing roads and some weather like mountainsbut we can change the layer by touching the first button in the upper right corner. Thus, textures that attempt to reflect unevenness can be simplified and converted to a greener color scale for mountainous areas and weather (sun).

If we touch the button right after, view the weather forecast for the next few hours: Will it be sunny, cloudy, rainy and also hot? This is the next useful function that can help us decide, for example, whether we should stop now or delay the necessary stop a little longer to get out of the rain. Or if it is snowing and the forecast is not promising, it is advisable to stop and, for example, put on chains.

Although we normally check the weather of our location in real time on the map with the rain, snow, wind and temperature radar supported by the Android Auto Coolwalk interface, we also Split screen viewing possiblefor example to combine the browser with this weather app.

My experiences so far Weather and Radar are optimal: At the interface level, I think having information at the moment is simple, intuitive and clear. Its operation is smooth and its adaptation to the Google infotainment system is good. And now, the icing on the cake: it failed a bit at predicting the weather.

Weather and Radar

Your time at a glance! Weather & Radar app gives you 90 minute, hourly forecast, weather today and tomorrow, 7 and 14 day weather in Spain and anywhere in the world

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