u/wmunn

https://www.reddit.com/r/plexamp/s/uKrfgrlaFZ

# Momentum — a native Plex music client for Android Automotive OS (looking for closed testers)

Momentum app - now playing screen

I've been building a from-scratch Android Automotive OS app that streams music straight from your own Plex library into your car's head unit — no phone mirroring, no Android Auto relay, just a native app running on the car's own hardware. It's called **Momentum**, and it's the public spin-off of a personal build I've been daily-driving in my own EV for months. I'm at the point where I need real testers on real (or emulated) AAOS hardware before I can push toward a production Play Store listing, and I wanted to lay out exactly what's working today rather than ask for a leap of faith.

## What's validated and working right now

- **True FLAC direct play** — no transcoding. Streams your library's original files (FLAC, MP3, whatever you've got) over WAN/LTE or LAN, confirmed via server logs showing `decision=directPlay` with zero re-encoding.

- **Plex OAuth sign-in** — the standard `app.plex.tv/link` PIN flow. Works against your own server; nothing about your library or server topology is hardcoded into the app.

- **Automatic server discovery** — finds your server's LAN, WAN, and relay connections itself and picks the fastest, the same way official Plex clients do. Handles the WiFi↔cellular handoff without losing playback.

- **First-run playlist setup** — on first launch, Momentum pulls your actual playlists from your server and lets you assign four of them to quick-access slots. No assumptions about playlist names.

- **Full library browse** — dedicated tabs for Playlists, Artists, and Albums, pulled directly from your library (tested against a library with 764 artists / 2,616 albums with no issues). Tap an artist or album and it plays immediately — no drill-down required.

- **Voice control** — "Hey Google, play [song]" or "play [playlist]" routes straight into the app once it's the active media session. Also handles mid-queue song jumps and falls back to a live Plex search if the phrase isn't already queued.

- **Typed search** — a keyboard search panel for anything voice doesn't catch.

- **Star ratings** — rate a track in the car, see it reflected back in your Plex library.

- **Shuffle and repeat-one**, a live "Playing Next" queue you can scroll and jump around in, and startup persistence — the app remembers your last playlist and track position across power cycles.

- **Driving-distraction compliance** — while the vehicle is in motion, swipe navigation, star rating, and the search panel are gated off (with an in-app message telling you why); playback controls, shuffle/repeat, and voice commands all keep working. This is required for Play Store's automotive review and has been validated end-to-end in-vehicle.

- **Real crash reporting** — Firebase Crashlytics is wired in, so if something breaks on your device, I actually get a stack trace instead of a shrug. This matters a lot for a car app: there's no USB debugging or logcat access once it's running on a locked-down automotive head unit.

Everything above has been confirmed on a real Blazer EV running on OnStar's built-in LTE modem, not just an emulator — including cellular-only operation, no home WiFi involved.

## One thing to know before you sign up: FLAC over WAN needs a small server-side tweak

If your library has FLAC files and you want them to direct-play (not fail or get transcoded) when you're accessing your server remotely, Plex Media Server needs a client profile override that most setups don't have by default. It's a one-time deal: drop a small XML file into your Plex server's `Profiles` folder and restart Plex Media Server. Takes under five minutes, and I'll walk you through it directly if you sign up — just flagging it now so it's not a surprise on first stream over cellular. If you're only ever testing on the same LAN as your server, or your library is MP3, this doesn't apply to you.

## What I need from testers

- Your own Plex Media Server (owned/administered by you or someone who'll help you tweak the one profile file above)

- A Plex account with access to that server

- a real Android Automotive OS vehicle/head unit, an AAOS emulator

- A Google account you're willing to opt in to a closed testing track with

**The catch on commitment:** Google requires 12 opted-in testers active for 14 continuous days before I can move this toward a public listing — so signing up and staying opted in for that stretch is the single most useful thing a tester can do, even more than finding bugs.

## How to sign up

Reach out to me directly — PM me here on Reddit — and I'll send you the opt-in link and the FLAC profile instructions if you need them. I'll keep this updated as more testers come on and as features land.

Thanks for reading this far — happy to answer questions about the setup, the server-side pieces, or anything else before you commit.

update: removed the comment about the bug that was present, that has been addressed and is fixed / validation.
Also of note, testing will no longer work on phones or tablets, as adding in the vehicle in motion restrictions that google requires for AAOS apps on the play store, mean phones and tablets will no longer be able to install it.

Over the past few months I accidentally ended up building a pretty interesting personal playlist-generation system around my own Plex library.

This is NOT “type outlaw country into ChatGPT and get generic slop.”

The entire thing is built around:

• my own long-term curated library
• my ratings and listening behavior
• deep-cut discovery from places like this subreddit
• Plex sonic-analysis data
• local Python tools
• iterative refinement of sequencing and artist balance

What surprised me most is that I discovered transitions and rhythmic flow matter way more than genre labels alone.

The system started because I got frustrated with:

• random shuffle feeling incoherent
• repetitive smart playlists
• losing hidden gems inside a huge library
• modern recommendation systems overpushing obvious artists

So I started experimenting with:

• artist saturation caps
• “bridge artists”
• groove continuity
• driving/focus atmospheres
• controlled discovery injection
• sonic-neighbor sequencing

And honestly, some of the results have been shockingly good.

A bunch of artists I discovered or rediscovered through this subreddit and related threads have become major parts of the ecosystem:
Lucero, Jeremy Pinnell, Pug Johnson, Ian Noe, Corb Lund, JD Clayton, etc.

It’s become less about “AI playlists” and more about building a personalized adaptive listening environment around authenticity, momentum, groove, and long-form flow.

Curious if anyone else here has experimented with anything similar around their own library.