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-   -   DIY: Tablet as an In-Car-Entertainment Console (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/car-entertainment/155747-diy-tablet-car-entertainment-console-3.html)

Absolutely fantastic and superb. I just cant get enough adjectives for this DIY. Your thread was a treat to read, more so as for quite some time i am scouting a touch screen HU for my Liva which will have inbuilt navigation, bluetooth calling and all the other features. But I was really disappointed at the quality of touchscreen interface. I just kept wondering why is the touch screen of car HU's not as good as my mobile or tab. And your thread gave me an apt reply.

I only have question though, can a reverse cam also be integrated into this setup? If so, I will b very tempted to try this for my car.

Its the s/w limitation, even with wall charger its measured to use only half of the capacity somewhere ~1100mA. The custom rom will help the tablet to use the capacity upto 1.8A.

OK, but I was hoping to upgrade to android L, the new material design looks nice.

Yeah, with the custom ROM I guess you can connect a USB or WiFi camera.

I have a similar setup running on my ecosport and have encountered the following issues :

Power : Charge drain is higher than the charging rate, even in the fast charge mode. I am running separate supplies for N7 and my 7 port USB hub. I have changed the cabling twice just to be sure but it's still bad

Device detection : after every power event ( read power down and subsequent power up) devices like USB cameras and/or Griffin Powermate power up however the data transfer doesn't happen till N7 is rebooted

Apps : absence of (or at least I couldn't locate) apps that allow seamless switching of camera from front to rear when gear position is changed (OBD captures that). Likewise I have been wanting to get an arduino to rotate the front camera with steering angle

Any help/ ideas will be really appreciable

Even I have the same issue with charging but I'm on stock android, I assume you are not using stock since you have a web camera connected, which ROM are you using? See previous posts for more information.

You could use an arduino to read from OBD port and communicate the reverse gear information to N7 via bluetooth SPP or use an android ioio board if you want to do it via USB instead of bluetooth. I'm able to read all CAN information from the OBD port using an arduino and a CAN transceiver.

Then create an android app using "APP inventor" which is really easy for people who have no programming background, this app can open the USB camera app when it receives the trigger either from the ioio board or arduino.

I am on timur. A few edits are required in some system files to enable webcams. I am using a Bluetooth obd and will be using arduino with motors to rotate the camera, will try app inventor once I have the boards delivered

Wouldn't it be distracting if the webcam keeps moving with the steering wheel? I guess that's why some OEM's show trajectory lines based on steering wheel angle that are overlaid on the video feed

Sara.Ramli,
Excellent DIY. You have managed something which most of us only keep thinking including me (Had thought of going on this path but abandoned it at the moment due to lack of time. Here is what I had thought ). A quick question/suggestion though on your setup.
- Since you are using the stock headunit's amp and Figo's factory headunit support's bluetooth (music and calls), you could have directly connected the Tab to the headunit via bluetooth for music and calls. This would have made integration easy and DAC would not have been needed in the setup + factory units Radio(FM) could have been used. Any particular reason for going this route?

Maybe the camera app (since your front camera is on all the time) is consuming the battery. Try using apps one by one to see if any particular app is causing the high power drain.

Maybe adding a delay to the power up of Devices (i.e the tab starts first and then after few secs the power is delivered to devices to start them) would resolve this.

I was considering this for steeper angles that essentially indicate a turn. Some extra visibility through the camera will be especially useful for cars with higher seating position

Ford has done extensive work on such apps through the openxc platform however one needs custom OBD hardware for that, which is not only expensive it is rare to find even in the US



I have done this investigation and yes the screen on is indeed one of the culprits however the whole point of this ROM with fast charge is to optimise power use and maintain charging at an acceptable level. If I use music + torque, It drains down in about 250 Kms of use. When apps like sygic and ionroad are added it comes down to 100 kms


Device detection isn't a challenge hence a delay may not help, data transfer is. Maybe some data stack somewhere needs to be refreshed during the wake up event

Had read somewhere that even in timurs rom the fast charging depends on the amount of data being transferred in parallel with the charging. If possible try switching to wireless charging and see if that helps !

Rated 5 stars.:thumbs up
Does Nexus 7 work like bluetooth enabled head unit just for picking up calls?
I have not found any android apps.
sara.ramli, thanks for all the details related to electronics. This thread inspire me to replicate the same in my car. Just need to find the appropriate OBD interface. But, Instead of Nexus 7, I would prefer a Galaxy Tab with AMOLED display just to have that black contrast screen with low power with my own custom app like S Voice. :)

There's an app called "tablet talk". Using it you can make calls and receive text messages through a paired phone

Brilliant job clap:

Seeing that it is a tamil song and you are in chennai.
How well does it handle heat ?

I've always thought about doing this, but the temperatures my car withstands ended up discouraging me.

Would be great if you can post some details on that.

Wow this is ingenious !!! Kudos to you and your father on achieving this feat. This should help all the bhpians out there who wish for such an infotainment upgrade in their cars !! :D

I have used N7 with stock rom and Sygic for full day drives without any apparent reduction in charge. Maybe it is some other app or your charger that is the culprit.