I tried Android Auto offline while on a road trip, and it beats mobile data in 2 ways

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Last weekend, my wife and I decided to visit the cozy upstate town of Catskill, just off the Hudson River in New York. But instead of doing the usual and letting Android Auto and all its Gemini wisdom guide us, we agreed to become minimalists for a day.

Not to the extremes of using a physical map to navigate the two-and-a-half-hour road trip, but with our phones tucked away, notifications turned off, and using Android Auto offline only. Just months ago, we found ourselves underprepared for a drive through the desert valleys of the West Coast, so we figured this would be a great follow-up.

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Let me be clear: Using Android Auto offline is not a lifestyle everyone should proactively adopt, as I quickly discovered there are far more limitations than benefits. But there was also a charm to using the automotive software in its rawest form. And at times throughout the ride, we were both surprised by what the operating system could handle with no data.

The biggest advantage of running Android Auto offline is still being able to navigate with predownloaded maps, especially in areas with little to no signal. In fact, Google Maps still does a decent job of offering multiple routes and pathways to destinations -- a useful feat for when you'd rather not go through three toll passes in New Jersey to save yourself 10 minutes.

And you don't necessarily have to download your whole route, either. We were familiar with the drive getting out of the tri-state area, so I only downloaded the second half of the route, including any restaurants and gas stations along the way.

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The ride was mostly smooth, with no hiccups or questionable reroute suggestions. I say mostly because the one bit of information that was sorely missed was traffic reports, as an accident along the FDR Drive set us back 30 minutes.

You also can't freely seek Google Assistant or Gemini for nearby recommendations or scans of local restaurant menus, as I like to do nowadays. But the idea of just wandering about and reading the menu stands as we passed by them had its own charm.

Using Android Auto and CarPlay typically takes a heavy toll on your phone's battery, as the constant GPS scanning, networking searching, audio streaming, and even sunlight beaming against the device can raise the internal temperature dramatically (and leaving your phone on a wireless charger adds to that).