TL;DR
- Google is testing new Android Auto icons to display cellular status, in line with Android 16’s icon design.
- We’ve spotted a range of new icons that display the phone’s cellular connectivity strength on the car’s screen.
- The new icons also affirm Google’s work on a light theme for Android Auto, which has been a work in progress since last year.
We recently identified a new set of icons in Android Auto to indicate signal strength. The icons appear rounder, distant from the currently sharp-edged ones you see on Android Auto. We also see new typography indicating the cellular network type, and individual bars for signal strength instead of a shaded triangle.
Take a look at some of the new additions here:
These icon changes align with the status bar icon updates Google rolled out in Android 16. Despite the update on the phone side, Android Auto’s icons continue to carry on the older appearance because these icons are stored as part of the Android Auto app rather than being derived from the phone. That is why you might already see different icons if you use a Samsung phone. However, most other Android devices, including Pixel phones, still use the outdated set.
Notably, while Google has added new icons for network status, we’re still seeing older icons for battery, suggesting some wait before the changes roll out to users.
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The new icons are spotted in version 16.3.160744 beta of the Android Auto app. It goes without saying that there’s no guaranteed timeline for the release. We hope to get a glimpse at Google I/O 2026, if not earlier, but we wouldn’t wait with bated breath.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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