📱 Bluetooth Drive Triggers
Start drives the moment your phone connects to your car’s Bluetooth.
If you pair your phone to your car’s Bluetooth audio, AutoDrive can start a drive the instant the connection lands — before the motion classifier has had a chance to react. This is the fastest detection signal either platform exposes, typically within a second of the car turning on.
The list of devices that trigger a drive is self-learning — there’s nothing to configure up front:
- The first time you finish a drive while connected to a Bluetooth device AutoDrive hasn’t seen before, an alert appears: on iOS at the end of the trip, on Android the next time you open the app. "Save ‘[device name]’ as a drive trigger?"
- Tap Save as my car and the next time you connect to that device, AutoDrive will start a drive instantly — no waiting for motion detection.
- Tap Not now to dismiss; the prompt will surface again after the next drive with that device.
- Tap Never ask about this device for one-offs (a rental car, a friend’s vehicle, a Bluetooth speaker that happened to be paired) and AutoDrive will stop offering it.
Bluetooth triggers complement, rather than replace, motion-based detection. AutoDrive still uses the motion classifier as the primary signal — the Bluetooth path simply lets it skip the wait when your car is paired. Disconnecting from Bluetooth does not end the drive (so a brief stop where you leave the phone behind doesn’t truncate your trip); the drive ends through the normal idle-detection path.
On iOS, no additional permissions are required — AutoDrive reads the audio routing state, which doesn’t involve scanning for Bluetooth peripherals.
On Android, AutoDrive listens for Bluetooth ACL connections to your paired devices. The optional Nearby devices permission (Android 12+) lets the app read the device name so the “Save as my car” prompt can show it; if you decline the permission, the trigger still works for any device you save (the allowlist is keyed by hardware address) — we just can’t show the friendly name in the prompt. There’s also a one-time caveat after a cold start: if you’re already paired before launching AutoDrive, the very first connection won’t fire the trigger; activity recognition picks up that drive instead.