Maps & navigation
Live GPS from the phone, search as you type, real road routing with turn cards and arrival time.
CarHey · for Tesla
Your phone, on the big screen.
YouTube, phone mirroring, maps and widgets in the Tesla browser — served straight from your Android phone. No box, no jailbreak, no API keys.
How it worksAndroid app · coming soon
How it works
Three steps. Then it just connects.
The phone is the server. The car is the screen. They talk over the phone’s own hotspot, so nothing sits in between.
- 01
Start CarHey on your phone
One tap starts a small web server on the phone. It keeps running in the background with the screen off.
- 02
Join the phone’s hotspot from the car
Your Tesla connects to the phone like any Wi-Fi network. Car and phone now sit on the same private network.
- 03
Open car.btalabs.dev in the Tesla browser
The page finds your phone and opens the dashboard. Or scan the QR code in the app — no account, no sign-in.
NixTube
YouTube for the car. Without the setup.
A big-screen YouTube made for touch: search with suggestions, categories, an up-next queue with autoplay, and a one-tap hand-off to your phone.
- No API key
- Search, categories and suggestions work out of the box. Nothing to set up in a Google console.
- The official player
- Videos play through YouTube’s own embedded player — the uploader’s settings, ads and view counts stay intact.
- Share from the phone
- Found something in the YouTube app? Share it to CarHey and it starts on the car screen.
- Picks up where you left off
- Continue-watching and saved videos live in the car browser, never on a server.
Mirror
Every app on your phone. On the car display.
When something isn’t a web app, mirror it. CarHey streams the phone screen to the car and sends your touches back.
- Any app
- Navigation, messaging, streaming — whatever is on your phone appears on the car display.
- Touch that works
- Tap and swipe on the Tesla screen; CarHey sends the gesture back to the phone.
- Sound through the car
- Audio stays on Bluetooth, so it plays through the car speakers at full quality.
- One tap to start
- Press Start in the car and confirm once on the phone. Fit or fill the screen, back, home and recents built in.
And the rest
A dashboard, not just a player.
Music & car audio
Now playing from any app on the phone, with controls, plus a picker that routes sound to the car.
Widgets
Clock, local weather and a seven-day forecast, speed and phone battery — on a wallpaper you choose.
Speedo & trip
A full-screen speedometer with heading, top speed, distance and drive time.
0
accounts, API keys or subscriptions needed to start
1
phone — it is the server, the GPS and the sound system
10 min
the longest anything is stored in the cloud: your hotspot address
Questions
Good to know.
Do I need a YouTube API key or a Google account?
No. NixTube reads search results the same way youtube.com does and plays every video through YouTube’s official embedded player. Sign-in is optional and happens inside YouTube itself.
Does it work while the phone screen is off?
The dashboard, NixTube, maps and widgets do. Mirroring shows the phone’s actual screen, so the screen has to stay on while you mirror.
Where does my data go?
Nowhere new. The dashboard is served by your phone over the hotspot. The only cloud piece is car.btalabs.dev, which stores your phone’s private hotspot address for ten minutes so the car can find it.
Which phones and cars?
Android 8 or newer with a hotspot, and any Tesla with the in-car browser. Other cars with a modern browser work too — CarHey is just a web page.
Can I watch while driving?
Video is for passengers and for when you are parked. CarHey shows a reminder when video plays while the car is moving. Follow your local laws.
CarHey is an independent project by BTA Labs. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Tesla, Inc. or Google LLC. YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC; Tesla is a trademark of Tesla, Inc.
Coming to Android.
CarHey is in private testing. Want to hear when it ships?