I hope I'm just being thick but I can't for the life of me work this out. I tried plugging my phone into the USB and firing up android auto. The phone indicates that songs are playing but the Columbus unit doesn't do anything. 

Can't make it work via bluetooth or aux cable either. Baffled.

Start with the basics such as rebooting the phone and then seeing if the Columbus recognises that the phone is attached.

Have you set AA to auto start and did you go into the AA music menu on the Columbus to begin playback??

 

 

Yep I tried rebooting phone.

Android auto is set to autostart and indeed it comes up with spotify and I can press play on the phone.

I do not appear to have an android auto music menu on the Columbus

 

Ideally I'd like to use bluetooth so I can have the USB charge the phone but the Columbus does not seem to recognise my phone as a bluetooth audio device. I forget the exact message. The phone is paired and I can make calls via bluetooth.

Got it working with the cable. I hadn't found the smartlink option before so now android auto is working and music is playing via spotify.

 

I still can't get it to connect via bluetooth for media though. As I said phone calls are working fine. Any ideas on that?

You can't control spotify via bluetooth.   What you have to do is start plying the plalyist on the phone and then select bluetooth under media.  you can skip tracks and stop playing, but thats about it.  Android Auto is a lot smoother, and you can keep it playing though that while going back to the main columbus menus

ah ok, in that case I'll stick with the cable now that it's working. Thanks.