Android Auto Light Theme Surfaces For The First Time In Years And Looks Nearly Finished [Gallery]

One of the features Google has quietly been working on for Android Auto is a light theme, but we haven’t seen it in years. As it turns out, things have progressed, with a new peek at the design showing pretty drastic updates.

The last time we saw a light theme for Android Auto was back in early 2023, just after Google had released its big dashboard “Coolwalk” redesign for the platform. At the time, this light mode was messy with unpolished edges and icons that didn’t properly change. It was clearly a long way from release, and we haven’t seen much around it in a long time.

Android Authority has now enabled the light theme again with some big updates over the past couple of years.

The updated look has some clear Material You color accents throughout, has all of its icons (including the recently surfaced climate controls) swap colors to match the lighter backgrounds, and extends into Android Auto apps such as Spotify, YouTube Music, the dialer app, and more.

While there are still a handful of visual oddities (likely a result of the aspect ratio the theme was enabled on), this all looks nearly ready to release to users. But, as it stands today, there haven’t been any signs of that happening. There’s also no toggle in Android Auto yet to swap between dark and light modes, leaving the question open as to when this mode would be enabled and if users would have a choice in the matter.

Presumably, we’ll hear more about this in the coming months.

What do you think of a light theme for Android Auto?