62 replies to this topic

[Shinare]

OK, so I'm tired of waiting on the car audio industry to pull their heads out of their asses and bring to market a decent android honeycomb or better double din head unit with at least WiFi data if not 3G or 4G. I know there are some 2.2 Chinese head units on ebay but after falling for an $80 Chinese 2.2 tablet that is literally unusable (and I do mean literally, I got burned bad on that one) I really do not want to go down that road again. This really needs to be on a budget as well. I see crappy double din head units with NAV on sale at bestbuy for anywhere from $300-800. I'd like to actually get this all done for under $300.

So, what are my options for a 7" tablet? I'm thinking of finding a used Acer Iconia A100 or an OG Galaxy Tab. Both of those seem to be going for around $150 used on ebay and craigslist.

Double DIN install kit with harness for my car on ebay is about $20. Might buy more than one so I can play with modding it to hold the tablet.

I can probably get a headphone jack to RCA cable and buy a small 50Wx4 amp to hide behind the tablet in the dash and plug the RCA into that, and then the wireing harness of the install kit into the amp and plug into my car's wireing harness. Any ideas on what kind of amplifier I would need. Just something cheap would be fine. I'm not looking for an audiophile type setup here. Would something

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work?

I just want a reasonably responsive tablet I can get ICS on and listen to pandora, tune-in radio, SiriusXM app, use google maps (so GPS is a must), and watch netflix. None of which can be done with the crappy Chinese tablet I threw away 80 bucks for on ebay. heh

Any ideas? I know this probably isn't the best place to be asking, but when it comes to android, I trust you guys more than some car stereo forum.

[phatdaddyz01]

What will you do about power for the tablet? It will stay on all the time unless you manually turn it off or the battery dies, unless you devise a way to disconnect its battery & have it run solely on 12v from the car.

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[phatdaddyz01]

If you get a wifi tablet, you could either tether it to your phone for data or get a vzw mifi for it.

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[phatdaddyz01]

Bluetooth could be another option for your audio connection. I'm pretty sure you can get an adapter that picks up the BT signal & then relays it to your amp via an RCA cable. If you go with bluetooth, it would be easier to take the tablet out if you wanted to. BTW, any car audio amp will work but you will have to wire the remote turn on lead to your fuse panel since you do not have a head unit to hook it to.

Sorry for all the posts, but you kind of tapped into my 2 addictions (Android & car audio-or Boom Boom as my kids call it).

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[leviwg]

If you're asking for a tablet, I'd say nexus 7 all the way. I saw an article on I think android police dining that. The n7 is super responsive, great battery, and 4.1.1

[phatdaddyz01]

Check out this video, exactly what you want to do.

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[Shinare]

I was thinking for power to just buy a female "cigarette lighter" style plug and wire that to the fuse box for switched power, then buy a "car charger" for whatever tablet I get and plug it in permanantly.

I've been told you can get an app in the app store called "Tasker". Using that you can program your tablet to do things in response to events. You can have the tablet instantly "wake" and stay on (timeout set to 23:59) when power is applied, and instantly sleep/hibernate when power is taken away. It's $6.49 so it will be the most expensive app I've ever purchased, lol.

I'm not sure bluetooth would be much help. I'd rather it be hard wired in. I'm planning on making the tablet permanantly mounted in the car and make it look as stock as possible so that noone breaks into my car and takes it. I've already had on two seperate occasions a window broken to take stuff out of my car in the last year. Not even stuff worth anything >

[phatdaddyz01]

Check out the video, looks like what you're wanting to do (me too, but I'm not sure the boss would ok me hacking on the company truck).

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[phatdaddyz01]

If you're asking for a tablet, I'd say nexus 7 all the way. I saw an article on I think android police dining that. The n7 is super responsive, great battery, and 4.1.1

I agree, the n7 would be perfect for what you want. Brand new for $199.

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[DarkOverDroid]

+3 on the N7. I have the Acer Iconia A-100 with a bad headphone jack. If you read up online about the A-100 headphone jack issues you`ll see what I mean, factory defects.
Other than the jack problem, it`s a pretty good 7" tablet. Mine is rooted running JB 4.1.1 with an unlocked Bootloader and Oc`d kernel. Wish my Maxx did that.

[Shinare]

I like that Dodge Ram install you linked me to, however the audison bit one is $699 on ebay, youch! heh And thats not even an amp, its just DSP.

The more I think about this, the more I want to do it, but I also see drawbacks, like not being able to use it if my phone is gone (forgotten, stolen, dropped in toilet, etc) or i'm outta data for my plan for the month. I could get more data but thats more per month which is way more cost... Nav, music, movies all depend on data, so if thats not there I have a way to play angrey birds in my car and thats it. I've begun to second guess myself on this.

I think I'm just going to go ahead and buy a GNex7, double din kit and that cheapass amp i linked to and just see what happens without any modification to the dash. The worst thing that could happen is I'm stuck with a cool tablet, heh.

I'm going to get a POT as well, probably something like

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on ebay.

[Shinare]

OK, purchased almost everything but the Gnex7. Tried to buy from google but they want a credit card and I don't want to give them one. Google already knows way more about me than I wish they did. They don't need to know my card number. (they probably already do heh.) Too bad they wont take paypal. I'll see if I cant get one off ebay shortly.

Edit: DOH!! I didn't know you can buy one at office depot, heh. Will be stopping by on way home from work to get one. They have 2 in stock near my house. Sux to pay $18 in tax but oh well. Support locals, right? (not that office depot is a "local")

[Shinare]

Got gnex7 tonight and really like it. I hate to say it but I think its faster and smoother than my transformer prime and it cost less than half. Was pleasantly surprised to get a notification after setting it up that I got a free $25 to spend in the play store! Gonna buy that tasker app lol. Got everything ordered now except amp. Going to look around locally first tomorrow.

[tucstwo]

I apologize because the op was td;dr but based on this topics title, IMO, the only 7" tablet worth buying is the Asus Nexus 7. And you'll never have to worry about it getting ICS because it's already on Jelly Bean.

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[loociddreemr]

I'm totally excited for you! I saw the OP and was going to recommend the N7. I purchased one two weeks ago and I'm loving it. I would really like to know how this install turns out. I wish you the best of luck. I would recommend rooting if before you do the install so that you can have the full capability. The process requires you to use the hardware buttons along with a factory reset.

[Shinare]

was wondering if I needed to root and rom it. Still playing with the newness of it right now. Will probably want to put a new rom on it at some point but it just seems so nice already. I had to purchase an app that would allow free rotation of the home screen since it comes locked in portrait mode from Google for some reason. Very strange. should be getting a lot of my hardware in the mail next week sometime. Can't wait!

[acslam]

Well! Sorry I'm late to this thread but......

Pioneer has released this thing called Appradio 2, SPH-DA100. In short, a double din car stereo with a 7 inch touch screen, HDMI input and compatible with iphone/android. Admittedly, Pioneer made this work a whole lot better with iphone at first.....BUT!!!!!

About a week ago, a dev was able to re-write the phones driver for it, and produced a system by which you can completely mirror the phones screen on the dash - INCLUDING TOUCH CONTROL!

Google search for "ARLiberator" or "killnanny" (killnanny was the WIP name of the SW before the dev actually released it on the market), and you should come upon the appradio forums. That's the best place i've found so far for appradio info. Also, if you don't have it already, download Torque from the market, and get the OBDII adaptor it talks about. I have one from ebay, 13 bucks, and it's awesome - free app and 13 bucks gave me gauges, obd code reader, and performance meter, which would also be accessable through the dash screen.

Another option, for OBD diag and possible tuning, is this thing that superchips makes called the vividlinq. Google it, supposedly tuning from an android phone, about 300 bucks for the interface and free app in market. Do your research on this one though - As I understand it, it isn't very powerful, if your intention is to unlock more power from the car.

The appradio unit itself can be had for around 350 bucks new, and the unit itself does support steering wheel controls as well in case that's important to you. However, I'm not SURE if the dev has got that portion working in his ARLiberator app YET - I know he's working on it.

OH! Also - Escort now has a "smartradar" - radar/laser detector with remote display and android integration.

Look at an app called "scanner radio" - police scanner live feed from all over the country.

Razr+Appradio2/ARLiberator+Smartradar+vividlinq+carhome ultra = the nastiest in car audio/video/nav/tuning/diag/defense system that I can possibly come up with at the moment!

Yeah, I'm kiiiiinda obsessed with having a car thats as close to a spaceship as possible........

[HouseMD]

I'm building a 7in screen (not touch) into my car with Rasperry Pi and XBMC integrated into the car stereo. With a 32GB SDHC as my HD, and the XBMC setup, wired through my car stereo I can do it all for under $150.

[leviwg]

was wondering if I needed to root and rom it. Still playing with the newness of it right now. Will probably want to put a new rom on it at some point but it just seems so nice already. I had to purchase an app that would allow free rotation of the home screen since it comes locked in portrait mode from Google for some reason. Very strange. should be getting a lot of my hardware in the mail next week sometime. Can't wait!

Unlock it, root it, official cm10, or just root the latest ota and put a trinity kernel... the battery and performance under locked is amazing... the latest ota brings launcher rotation too.

[Torin_93]

This is something Ive really wanted to do as well! 7 inches is a little big I think but if I grabbed a used galaxy note 1 as a media source thatd be awesome. Maybe I could do something like this with my razr when I retire it.