Severe UI freeze on Samsung Galaxy Tab A (SM-T295, Android 11) with Galaxy A55 (Wireless Android Auto)

[likhitxmamu]

Hi @andreknieriem,

First of all, thank you for your work on Headunit Revived.

I’m trying to convert an old Samsung tablet into a dedicated Android Auto display, but I’m experiencing extremely poor performance and I’m hoping you can help determine whether this is a compatibility issue, a configuration issue, or simply a hardware limitation.

Device Information

Receiver Device

• Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 LTE (SM-T295)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 429
• Adreno 504 GPU
• 2 GB RAM
• Android 11 (Stock Samsung firmware)

Phone

• Samsung Galaxy A55
• Latest Android version (currently Android 16)

Connection

• Wireless Android Auto
• Wireless Helper v1.8.1

Symptoms

The connection process itself is very unreliable.

• Tablet boots normally.
• Opening the receiver app is fine.
• Wireless connection takes around 10-15 minutes.
• During connection it repeatedly connects/disconnects several times.
• Eventually Android Auto appears.

Once Android Auto is displayed, the UI becomes almost completely unusable.

Examples:

• Google Maps updates at roughly 1-2 FPS.
• Dragging the map takes 2-3 minutes before the movement happens.
• Pressing Play/Pause on music takes 1-2 minutes before the UI responds.
• Starting navigation freezes for several minutes before the animation begins.
• Every touch event appears to be delayed by minutes rather than milliseconds.

It feels like the rendering thread is completely blocked.

What I’ve already tried

I’ve spent considerable time optimizing the tablet.

• Disabled Samsung bloatware
• Disabled Device Care
• Disabled Dynamic Lock
• Disabled Samsung analytics services
• Installed a lightweight launcher (KISS Launcher)
• Disabled unnecessary background services
• Battery optimization disabled for the receiver app
• Developer animations disabled
• Receiver app set to unrestricted battery usage

Memory before optimization:

• MemAvailable ≈ 723 MB

Memory after optimization:

• MemAvailable ≈ 805 MB

So RAM availability improved significantly, but the Android Auto performance did not.

My Question

Is this behaviour expected on a Snapdragon 429 / 2 GB RAM device?

Or does it sound like:

• a video decoder issue?
• a rendering issue?
• a compatibility problem with Samsung Galaxy A55 / newer Android Auto versions?
• or a known issue with wireless negotiation?

If there are any recommended settings (codec, decoder, renderer, resolution, DPI, FPS, SurfaceView vs TextureView, etc.) that could improve performance on older Snapdragon devices, I’d be happy to test them and provide logs if needed.

Thank you again for developing and maintaining this project.

[andreknieriem]

Hi sorry, I did not look to often in the discussions.
So on your device it should run ok and fast enough. I have a very cheap and bad chinese tablet here and it runs quite will for testing.

So my question is, what are your settings?
I think you should use 720p and h264 as video codec and check what surface you use. Try another one. For me on my real Headunit GLES20 is a wonder. It runs smooth in 60fps, on surface or textureview it stutters.

[likhitxmamu]

Hi André,

Thank you very much for your reply.

I appreciate you taking the time to look into this.

Here is my complete setup:

Receiver Device

• Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 LTE (SM-T295)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 429
• Adreno 504 GPU
• 2 GB RAM
• Android 11 (Official Samsung firmware)
• No custom ROM
• Bootloader locked

Phone

• Samsung Galaxy A55
• Latest Android version
• Wireless Android Auto

Connection

• Wireless Helper v1.8.1

What I have already tried

Before posting this issue, I optimized the tablet as much as possible:

• Disabled unnecessary Samsung applications
• Disabled battery optimization for Headunit Revived
• Disabled animations in Developer Options
• Installed KISS Launcher to reduce background memory usage
• Freed RAM (MemAvailable increased from about 723 MB to around 805 MB)

I first tested Headunit Reloaded Beta 3.2.0 using:

• Resolution: 720p
• Video codec: H.264

The UI was extremely slow (approximately 1–2 FPS), so I thought it might be a beta issue.

After that, I installed the latest Headunit Revived v3.1.0 (stable) (this was suggested to me by another community member, not because of this discussion).

I also tested 720p + H.264 on the stable version.

Unfortunately, there was no noticeable improvement.

The symptoms remain the same:

• Android Auto eventually connects.
• The UI is extremely slow.
• Google Maps updates every few seconds.
• Touch input is delayed.
• Music controls respond after a long delay.
• The interface is almost unusable.

Current Settings

Could you please tell me which settings you recommend for:

• Renderer (GLES20 / Surface / TextureView)
• Video Decoder
• Video Renderer
• Hardware Decoder
• FPS
• Any other settings that I should change

You mentioned that GLES20 works very well on your head unit.

I will test every renderer and provide feedback.

If you would like, I can also provide a debug log or screen recording.

Thank you again for your support.