Wireless Android Auto was draining my Samsung phone’s battery: Here's how I fixed it

Published Nov 3, 2026, 6:30 AM EST Former radio and TV guy (I Heart Radio and PBS). Now a writer, researcher, and musician who writes about the absurdity of our modern world and other offbeat topics. Specializes in weird music, the old web, retro video games and tech, and researching strange, yet interesting things. His work has appeared in Vice, Tedium, Star Trek.com, Today I Found Out, Typebar, SyFy Wire, and How To Geek. Currently working on a variety of music, web, and writing projects. Visit him on the web at https://djbuckfreelance.neocities.org/. A while ago, I heard about wireless Android Auto users experiencing unusual battery drain. I was skeptical at first, as I’ve never experienced it with my phone. However, recently, I used a newer vehicle with built-in wireless Android Auto and a different Android phone. As soon as I did, I noticed the problem and decided to investigate. Wireless Android Auto was mysteriously draining my Samsung phone’s battery A mysterious drain on your battery Apparently, Android Auto on newer vehicles can force your phone to constantly compress and stream data, even when you’re not using it. It’s all about the settings on your phone and how they work with Android Auto when you have it active on your device. It seems to be more prominent with electric vehicles. When you have a wired Android Auto connection, your battery doesn’t drain as much. But a wireless connection can cause some battery issues, apparently. Android Auto typically drains about 8-15% of a battery over the course of an hour, according to BGR. It also uses a lot of system resources. But I’ve never truly had many issues with it. However, that resource-heavy usage, combined with how long you’re driving and the type of connection you’re using, can actually cause some battery drainage. If you use Android Auto often, this probably isn’t too surprising. The battery drain didn't extend to my other phone It turns out other Samsung users have the same issue Now, it goes without saying that I’m a huge fan and regular user of Android Auto wireless. I use it daily, despite some of its quirks. So it was a bit surprising to see this issue occur on one of my devices and not the other. The weird thing is that the wireless battery drain issue happened on my Samsung phone, but not my Motorola Moto G in either the new or old car. I was looking into it and found that sometimes Android Auto can turn WiFi back on by itself, but that’s just a part of its operational cycle. Back in 2024, someone posted on the Chevy Bolt Forums about a similar issue with this. And guess what brand of phone they were using. If you said, “Samsung,” you get 100 points. They don’t mean anything and are kind of worthless, but it’s fun to be correct sometimes, right? Anyhow, the OP in that post talked about how their phone battery was being drained when Android Auto auto-connects in the background. I’m pretty sure (rather, I’m reasonably confident) that this is the same problem my Z Fold 5 is having. So now I just need to do something about it. Getting ahead of the problem Exploring workarounds and solutions to the battery drain It starts with disabling auto-connect. What I did for this was basically just to turn off Start Android Auto while locked. I opened my settings and searched for “Android Auto.” When I found it, I navigated to Startup and turned that setting off. If you don’t want to do the search for some reason, it’s under Connected Devices on Samsung. I also set Android Auto to only start automatically if it was used on the last drive, just to be on the safe side. Other recommendations, like disconnecting Bluetooth manually and then seeing if your phone reconnects itself when you go inside, can also give you an idea if the device is constantly trying to reconnect. You can also disable Wireless Android Auto as a last resort, or unpair your phone and see if the battery issue remains. A task management app like Tasker can be used to automatically shut off Android Auto when you’re not using it. Tasker is great for stuff like that, but I haven’t used it for a while. For my phone, it turned out that turning off Start Android Auto while locked helped with the battery drain issue. I tested it for a few days with the setting off and noticed my battery wasn’t draining as fast. I did notice that my battery was going from 80% down to about 50% overnight before I switched the setting off. Now, it's only draining to about 76% overnight (from the 80% baseline). It was a bizarre, unexpected issue with a very simple fix. Of course, using Android Auto with a wired connection (while disconnecting the phone completely) can also help with battery drainage issues, but that kind of misses the point. Battery issues with Wireless Android Auto can be hit or miss Although my Samsung device was affected by the battery drainage issue, it’s probably fair to say that it will depend on the device you use. But if you find yourself having issues like this, it might be time to take a look at your Android Auto settings and monitor things as you use AA. So if you’re starting to experience these kinds of problems, Android Auto might actually be the culprit, and you can do something about it.