havanahjoe

It does not. At this point, that is the one thing that AutomateIT is failing on. Tasker appears to have a rule that allows you to automatically switch wifi networks (I have two wifi networks in my car, one for the backup camera, the other for the internet from my phone). I looked into options that would allow me to connect an IP camera to my internet hotpsot, but couldn't find a camera that would actually fit as a backup camera.

 

There is a method of using an OTG cable, and some sort of AV module to plug in the camera, but with my Nexus 7, I would have to root it for that to work. I would say that is the best solution, but I am not too keep on rooting my tablet.

Rooting a Nexus device is the easiest thing ever. Are you concerned about security?

It may have been said already but I just wondered how people have managed to charge while using OTG cables? I'm hoping to finish my install next weekend and the only thing stopping me is this 1 problem.

I've been using T1mur's kernel and an OTG cable I got from eBay for $10 I believe. The kernel is the trick. I'm also using a 2 amp charger from Amazon that is able to charge the battery even when Waze is running and I am streaming music.

The kernel also has a very low power deep sleep mode that drains the battery VERY slowly when the car is off, so even if you don't use your car for a couple of weeks, you'll still have a usable charge.

So your ac doesn't work?

AC works perfectly fine. The ducts are there, they're not screwed into the vent trim piece.

Don't have the soldering skills to crack open my tab. As long as I can get at the home button to wake the screen up I'm good. Power I can control to sleep and turn on with rooted apps

The screen should never turn off if you disable the screen timeout in the settings. You can use Tasker and secure settings (or other apps) to wake up on power and sleep on loss of power. I don't have access to my buttons and have not needed them. I do have easy access to the tablet by removing the bezel. I didn't attach the vents to the ducts, so the whole thing just pops off when needed and stays in place the rest of the time.

Dissected the N7 and extracted the I/O board. So far looks doable, waiting on my shipment of receptacles from digikey to arrive (today hopefully) and start planning out how to rework it. Fun fact, the N7 actually functions/boots without the I/O board even being connected, but the digitizer control is on it so you can't use any touch functions and no USB, obviously.

 

I'm also waiting on my bezel from AVOjdm, and have been looking at the pictures online which left me with a question: What are you guys doing for the fitment between the bezel and the tablet? The bezel sits on the face of the tablet, so I would think it would rattle or otherwise press the edge into the screen. I was thinking something like a rubber trim or weatherstrip would be good, but the bezel seems to be a narrow edge.

 

Are you guys leaving a small gap between it, or just fitting it tight against it? Any flex/movement/rattle issues?

Nice! I took my apart to see if I could reattach the board in such a way that I could get the USB cable out of the way, but that ribbon cable on the opposite side of the board made that impossible. Your idea should work perfectly.

I have my N7 mounted on the mounting plate with velcro. I used some washers to give it the right amount of tilt, but I have nothing between the bezel and the tablet. The bezel fits very snug on the dash, so it won't move, and the tablet seems to be still enough mounted with the velcro.

I have not noticed any rattling. I don't think there could be any, but it's possible I'm not noticing. Some trim between the bezel and the tablet would definitely help make sure no rattle could ever happen, but I don't feel it's necessary.

Alrighty guys... just got my 08 tested for the first time today, and got some very surprising results. I passed!

 

Full Stage 2 tune with MBC. That being said, I put EVERYTHING back in place (MBC was hidden, but the stock BCS was plugged in and mounted, the hose ends were hidden). Swapped the stock cats back on too.

 

The great thing about this... I have a Protune, and they disabled the BCS CEL, and the Cat efficiency CEL (P0420), and any others relating to the BCS or Converter efficiency. Let the car warm up with the stock cats a little bit. Drove over gently, and passed with flying colors.

 

So what can we deduct from this? The new SMOG testing is a giant scam, and without a sniffer test, had I passed the visual, I could have been running gutted cats or catless and still passed! Assuming the tech ignored the smell...

 

Anyway, just wanted to report my success story and maybe ease the worry for someone else who's about to get smogged. As long as all your readiness codes are set, and you pass the visual (which is very tech dependent) you should be golden.

I passed the visual but failed the sniffer, but the station I went to still does the sniffer test.

I thought there had been some wording about looking up some values in a DB for 2008 and newer cars so they could tell if the ECU had been modified. Maybe that's not implemented.

It would be nice, ie less of a PITA, if the newer tests weren't that thorough, but why move to a method that is worse at detecting 'harmful' emissions? There's gotta be something off here, either the tech did not do a proper inspection (maybe new inspection guidelines haven't been released) or the machine didn't do a proper analysis of the OBDII data.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy you passed (and hopefully I will too if I get an OBDII test), but we might not have it as easy in 2 years if the new tests are fully up to spec by then.

Will share for sure. I was just consulting with some more surface-mount experts, and ended up ordering a small handful of vertical mount receptacles from digikey. Going to experiment a bit with various fitments and see which one works best, and then probably just solder what we would think of as a right angle receptacle straight on and out the back, but in terms of surface mount is a vertical receptacle.

 

It's helped by the fact there's nothing at all on the back panel there in the first place, so it shouldn't be a huge feat.

 

If you can borrow someone with experience in surface mount soldering, they could probably knock it out for you in <5 minutes.

That's true. There's a gal at work that could do it, but she's been out for a few months. Would be awesome to move the cable on mine, this is the only annoyance I have in my current setup.

Just wanted to post a thanks to everyone here, as I'm putting together a setup and the knowledge shared saves a lot of time and effort.

 

For havanahjoe, looking at the iFixit teardown of the 2013 Nexus 7 (which is what I have coming), the leads from the USB port are fairly well exposed when you remove the back cover.

 

I'm actually just going to remove the cover and attach a second port to those leads. Then I can just drill a small hole in the cover (or remove it for cooling reasons) and put a secondary port off the back.

 

Nice picture of the port and the leads: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/CAyTOSXbdnSAN4P4.huge

I did notice that, but my soldering skills would be rated at a 2 at the most haha. Those tiny connectors looked like too big of a task to tackle. I'm definitely interested in seeing how yours turns out.

Try different sunglasses.. it kind of deppends on your sunglasses to and on which way they are polarized (vertically or horizontal).

 

How much is it sticking out? You can modify the micro cable and make it a lil shorter.

This is what i came up with:

http://merko.name/i//uvlhfq.jpg

http://merko.name/i//urldbf.jpg

I tried doing that with my first OTG cable and ended up breaking the whole thing haha. I should try it with an extension. The main problem is that the cable is not that big of a deal, it's the connector, and even shaving it down would take up a big part of the vent mechanism and hinder its movement

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/havanahjoe/IMG_20140715_170229_1_zpsls0vpirv.jpg

Right now it works pretty well horizontally, but not vertically.

What happens if you fail? Is it a real PITA, or just annoying?

Yeah, I wonder this too. Can you just come back later? You just have to pay for the inspection?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Passed last week!

 

Visible parts left on;

Headers

3 port ebcs

TMIC

 

had to swap out the dp, cbe, and cai back to stock parts. No sniffer was done, was in and out in 15 mins!

Did you have a catted aftermarket DP?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

^ thanks for that feedback havanah

You're welcome!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Good luck with it! I haven't seen the new Nexus 7 (I am super cheap so I opted for the old one), but I hope the sun visor works for you

Thanks!! I had the new one as my personal tablet and got a cheap original modem off Craigslist for the install. When I started setting the old one up, I found it to be very slow compared to the new one. The screen resolution of the new one was also much better, so I decided to use the new one instead since I really didn't use it much.

There are two downsides to the new one:

- The USB port cannot be relocated as easily as the older model, so I have the cable sticking out on the side (which makes the passenger vent non-functional)

- The screen is polarized and is pretty much impossible to see with my polarized sunglasses. I don't think the older model was that bad.

Other than that, Timur has a kernel for it so I have the same deep sleep and USB DAC functionality. I love it.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Screen protector will not actually reflect the heat a whole lot. I have had my Nexus 7 in 105 degree heat before and never had a problem with it, but I suppose if yours is having a problem you could buy a heat sink fan like you would use on a computer (example...http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065). I would mount this behind the tablet and fairly close to it so it's blowing directly on the back.

 

I am not sure if you did this, but I rearranged the insides of my Nexus 7 so I no longer have a back on it. If you were to get a fan, pulling off the back case would help air flow get to the tablet. My tablet below for reference...

Thanks for the tips! I think it doesn't help that mine is a 2013 and the screen is I believe darker than the original model. I can take the cover off, but I'm not sure that will help. The screen is VERY hot to the touch when it is rebooting (shutting down because of overheating and booting back up because it has power), so it seems to me like it is just absorbing the heat from the sun.

For now I'm parking at work in the shade, but the easiest solution will probably be to use a sun visor.

Can't remember having any heat issues on my tablet in my car..but i dont have the same car as you guys have, so the position is probably a lil different.

 

Have you tried FM radio on your Nexus 7? (Not internet radio).

I kept the stock stereo and can use that for FM radio, but with unlimited data and Google Music streaming, I have not listened to regular radio in a long time.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I've had my 2013 Nexus 7 installed for about a month now, and things are going great. The only issue I keep having is that the sun hits the tablet VERY hard during the day, and I find that the tablet has shut down due to overheat protection very often.

Anyone else experience this? How do you get around it? My options as far as I can tell are to use one of those windshield shades or always park in the shade.

I wonder if a screen protector will reflect some of that heat away.

People have passed the sniffer with a catted DP without issue.

Passing the visual is down to how hard they look.

 

I swap my stock on, but don't reflash (no need if you're only driving a couple of miles, and no need to deal with readiness codes) to avoid the potential drama.

Is the sniffer test still being done or are they doing this OBDII test now?

I'll just take it to a local shop that I hear is more lenient and see what happens. If I have to swap the DP, I'll do that and retest.

Time to bump this up again since I just got my Smog renewal. Due in August and I am stage 2 with a catted Perrin DP. Everything else is stock.

Has anyone done the new test with a catted DP? Should I reinstall stock DP and flash stock tune? I think I have my stock DP somewhere...

Did you get your tablet talk to work?

 

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

I sent an email to the developer asking about intents so that I can integrate through Google Now. Haven't heard back yet.

Spent some time with Tasker and added a music widget on top of Waze that automatically hides when I interact with it. Just like the stock nav would hide the clock and temp display to get them out of the way when you touched the screen.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETlhFQsfCyg]Widget Auto-Hide[/ame]

Could you set up a Tasker command using gnow? Or use utter in conjunction with Tasker to achieve this? Just a thought

 

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

Hmm. I hadn't thought about that. I definitely need to explore using Google Now to trigger Tasker tasks. I don't know if Tablet Talk allows external commands, I'll have to look into that too.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Finally got all set up in my Subaru.

- I'm using an OBDII Bluetooth adapter to get the car's data into the Torque app.

- When the tablet resumes, Tasker resumes the music automatically and launches Waze. This can be changed to do whatever I want.

- For the gestures, I have GMD which allows me to do next/previous using swipes. A pinch takes me home.I need to play with this more and add more gestures.

- I have other gestures through Nova Launcher: two finger swipe up brings up the app drawer, two taps brings up Google Now, two finger swipe down launches the quick settings panel.

- To get data, I am tethering from my Nexus 5. When the tablet turns on, it connects to the Nexus 5 over Bluetooth, and this triggers the WiFi Hotspot as well as Tablet Talk. When the Nexus 7 disconnects, Tasker turns the WiFi hotspot off and disables Tablet Talk.

- The audio is being sent to the original headunit from a USB DAC at the 3.5mm Aux jack in the armrest through a very short audio cable. This pretty much eliminates ground loop noise. Using the original HU, I keep steering wheel volume control. If I add a Joycon EXR, I can enable a whole range of remote control through the steering wheel buttons, so this will be a future project.

- Tablet Talk lets me see incoming calls, and make calls through my phone, and the audio is handled by the Parrot Bluetooth kit that has been in the car since I got it. I still need to figure out a way to enable Google Now to dial from the tablet, right now it tells me this device is not capable of making calls. I can make calls from the Tablet Talk interface

Here are some pics of the progress:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/havanahjoe/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20140503_100708_zpslazkjfv2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/havanahjoe/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20140503_144058_zpsdh2ns7kk.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/havanahjoe/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20140503_035619_zpshniwztxk.jpg

And a video of some of the features mentioned above

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM3GCuJ1ZqI]Nexus 7 in Spec.B[/ame]

My phone has a Micro USB, Micro HDMI port on it if that helps. The reasoning for this instead of just using a tablet is the fact that everything is already centralized on my phone. It makes far more sense to me to use one device to do everything and just extend from it. All my important data, files and music is in one location easy to update and use where ever I go. Sure there are cloud services that can do this but they are mobile data intensive and data is expensive in canada. If I use a tablet everytime I want to update, change or alter music, important notes or do anything else that involves the changing of librarys I then have to do it on every device I have. I'm trying to minimalist my devices as well.

 

If I get a tablet in my car I know alot of time I will end up reaching for my phone anyway for making calls and doing other things. Another important reason is this way with the OBDlink MX the bluetooth runs just through the phone so I can remote start it from outside the car, get in plug in the phone (which I do anyway) and one or 2 other cables and its all centralized and good to go. I would rather run some cables under the dash to the cupholder bays and mount the display then have to constantly miss out on stuff because my 2 devices are running dif apps and one has a more out to date music list. Might sound crazy to you but I would find that infuriating. Or spending time in my car moving data from and 2 the tablet every time I wanted to update/change things.

 

then I got to worry about the tablets memory and all that, and someone swiping it. but a monitor that is relatively cheap would be fine. if they did steal it really the window they broke is the bigger concern, as there are lots of cheap good res bright monitors coming out of china.

 

Plus tablets dont run direct 12DC so the tablet prob would not have a auto on and auto shutdown feature that most 12v dc monitors can do.

 

Only reason I can think to get a tablet is the battery and the GPS, but who is to say the gps will be better then my phones? and battery I can allways just install one if I cant get a monitor that has a internal one, and I can prob get a better GPS with a good sized antenna on a monitor.

 

anyway that is sort of my viewpoint on it. tablet is good in some ways but in others its sort of a drag. I would rather prefer to use my phone for everything.

 

So I could use the micro HDMI to run the display, I would need a USB to run the touchscreen? can that ever be done through bluetooth or through the HDMI? if not I would need to get power to run back to the device in host mode or get a usb splitter that goes from 1 to 2 and then dock it in that way?

 

Music could just run into the aux as always. as for the mic don't have that figured out yet, if your running touch through USB is that all that USB will do? or can it multitask and run other things through it as well?

 

Now If I can slave a cheap android tablet to my phone that would be something I would consider.... I could get a cheap capable android tablet easy from china for under $50

I would suggest you start a thread asking these questions over on xda-developers or an Android forum where you might get some more insightful answers.

Here is what you will need:

- OTG compatibility: Does the Droid 4 support OTG?

- HDMI out AND USB: Is your USB port active at the same time HDMI mirroring is on. I would assume the answer is yes

- External touchscreen compatibility: There are two things to worry about here. First, you will need a touchscreen that is known to work with Android ICS (you're running a pretty old version of Android already) and second, will the resolution of the HDMI output work well with the native resolution of the touchscreen.

- HDMI to Touchscreen: I doubt the screens out there have an HDMI port, so you will need an adapter to convert the HDMI to whatever the screen uses, so an HDMI to VGA or Composite adapter will be needed.

You can use Bluetooth controls, there are bluetooth remotes and keyboards that will work, not sure about mice.

With an OTG cable you get a regular size USB port, and then using a USB hub you can plug whatever USB devices you like and they will all work. You can then plug in the touch screen's HID interface, a USB DAC, a USB Flash Drive for extra storage, a USB Keyboard, a USB game controller, etc. A USB DAC will give you a line out and a line in. The line out you can plug into the aux adapter (and having a short 3.5mm audio cable will reduce ground loop noise dramatically), and the line in you can use with a microphone.

The Host mode, flash drive auto mount, and USB DAC functionality requires some tweaking and works best with a special kernel, so you will need to modify your phone to make the best out of all this. Not sure if someone has built a kernel that enables this functionality on your Droid 4 (check with XDA).

Now, going back to some of your concerns about the tablet. A 12V to 5V 2000mAh cigarette adapter is cheap, and you can use that to power the tablet. The kernel that everyone is using on their Nexus 7 made by Timur takes care of the auto on and off with car power. When the tablet gets power, it will turn on, when power is cut, it hibernates it and the power loss when idle is minimal. There is a kernel for the 2012 version of the Nexus 7 available, and the 2013 version has one in beta (that's what I'm using) that will be available to the public later this month.

A used 16 GB 2012 Nexus 7 is about $100 USD (or less), a refurb 16 GB 2013 Nexus 7 is running about $150, since the new model is probably dropping soon. How much will a specialized screen be? If you install the tablet properly, it will look like a nav screen and probably not look very swipe-worthy.

You can use the same USB Hub scenario with the tablet. You can add a cheap 32 or 64 GB flash drive with all your music, and you can have a USB port for your phone. I'm sure there are apps that will let you sync music between your phone and your tablet, but if you have a removable flash drive, you can take that to your computer and manage your music that way.

I'm guessing your WiFi doesn't reach the car and that's how your apps will get out of date and out of sync with the phone, so keeping the apps up to date will definitely be an issue in a fixed tablet install. You can always use APKs on the flash drive, or find a WiFi spot from time to time to keep thins updated.

The one big drawback I see to your phone to touchscreen setup is that there are not a lot of Android phones that have an HDMI port. What will happen when you upgrade your phone? Your setup will not work anymore. The Nexus 4 had MHL support in its micro USB port, but if you used that, the USB functionality was disabled. The Nexus 5 supports a different standard called Slimport, but it has the same problem, when using a Slimport adapter, you lose USB functionality.

There are apps that let you sync things between tablet and phone, like Tablet Talk which displays phone call and SMS information on the tablet and talks to the phone over bluetooth or wifi. If you already have a bluetooth hands free, you can initiate a call from the tablet.

I am looking to buy a 7" touchscreen monitor for mounting in my car that I can use to control my android Droid 4 phone from.

 

Plan is that I plug my phone into the touchscreen monitor and use it like a car PC. I could then use the phones bluetooth to link up things like a keyboard, OBDLink MX (so I can use the android app for it to see veh performance). Sound can still run though my cars aux like it does right now with my phone or I can link it up another way. If i get this setup it would prob be the most plug and play and most useful car PC's ever.

 

Hopefully I could find a monitor that also has: GPS, Mic (for handsfree talk), internal battery. The monitor should also be 12v DC for easy wiring.

 

So can anyone help provide me with information on how to Vet monitors for use with android? I need to know what sort of features/touchscreen types the monitor would need in order to run my phone from it using the touchscreen. That way I can start effectively vetting monitors online and find the best ones to suit my needs.

 

I cant really get any further without reliable information about how to do this.

 

The droid 4 touchscreen specs are as follows:

Display Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors

Size 540 x 960 pixels, 4.0 inches (~275 ppi pixel density)

Multitouch Yes

(Ice Cream Sandwich)

 

Any help would be appreciated!

 

Also would I be able to buy a cheap android tablet and run my phones display into it? if that tablet supported multitouch from the phone? that might be another way to get one that has a battery in it.

 

What do you guys think? anyone have any experience with this or good advice?

A touchscreen with a USB HID can be used to control an android device in theory, since it would pretty much emulate a keyboard and a mouse. The main problem is sending the video from the phone to the touchscreen. I don't know of any Android phone capable of driving an external display. Maybe Miracast?

You will also need an OTG cable for your phone, which would give you the ability to use a USB DAC that would give you audio and even a mic input all through the USB port on your phone. The kernel would need to support host mode and charging in host mode so your battery doesn't die.

IMHO, this is the wrong way to attack this. A tablet is a much easier solution that does not require you to do anything to get it to work. Plugging and unplugging something every time you turn the car on or off is tedious for me.

It would be simpler to make your phone share its Internet connection to the tablet and use a Bluetooth kit to route your calls to the car.

Hopefully someone can chime in with more suggestions on making it work your way.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I decided to tackle this project in my Spec.B. I ordered the JDM Nav Bezel from avojdm (I was impressed that it got to San Diego in 3 business days!), a $10 USB DAC, a Y OTG Cable, a USB hub, the Amazon 2Amp charger, a right angle connector and some heavy gauge USB cables.

I was planning on using a 2012 Nexus 7 I got for cheap off Craigslist, but I have a 2013 model that I use as my personal tablet, and after using the 2012, I found it to be pretty obsolete. I decided then to sacrifice my personal tablet (don't use it that much anyway) and install the 2013 in the car instead.

Timur has already ported his kernel to the Flo/Deb Nexus 7s, so I signed up for his beta. Public release will happen sometime in May.

I'm still waiting on some parts (cables mostly), and my main concern at the moment will be getting things plugged into the USB port of the tablet since there's not a lot of room between it and the vent. I want to avoid cutting the vents, and unfortunately Flo has no easy way to pop out the ports like Grouper (2012 model). Looking at iFixit teardowns of Flo, the USB port is on a board that has 4 ribbon cables going to it, so not going to be that easy to move.

I am following EquinnoxX's instructions for mounting for now. I have the same brackets. Haven't removed my stock NAV yet so I don't know how much room I will have in the cubby to put the power supply, and USB hub, but it shoudn't be an issue. I will be running a USB cable to the armrest where the DAC will reside and a short 3.5mm audio cable will plug into the AUX input.

Here's how it looks in a fitment test:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/havanahjoe/fitmenttest_zpsc2e0682c.jpg

I might add a Joycon EXR down the road to map the steering wheel controls, but for now I'll stick with GMD gestures and Trigger/Tasker automation as well as Overlays for floating widgets on top of Waze.

The 2013 Nexus 7 doesn't have the silver edges, so it looks good in the space. It is just the right size to leave no gaps visible, and there's also no need to modify the bezel to have the edges of the screen fit properly. I can access the bottom of the screen nicely, where in the 2012 model the edge of the screen was too close to the bottom of the bezel.

I will post updated pics and process once I'm done.

Here's a daytime pic, you can see that the edges are not as visible. This is not perfectly centered yet:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/havanahjoe/DSC08206_zpsbd55bf19.jpg