MatsuDano

Wouldn't recommend it for two reasons:

1) These tablets can get finicky on the charge. I had a 2amp USB charger and it still didn't take.

2) When I used the official car charger for it, the phantom draw when the car was off killed my battery twice. With the inverter it never draws without power.

I'm so stoked to see someone else tackle this.

I could have sworn it was 6.5". I'll look for my source, but will humbly concede if I'm wrong. Also, if I'm wrong it means it's a good way to go!

As for covering up the buttons, you could bondo and respray the whole thing so it becomes invisible. FastWRX.com has the nav bezel if you are looking to buy new. I don't know how the prices compare to other OEM vendors. I'm looking forward to hear your progress.

Dade, be aware that the opening in the stock Nav/Spec B. unit is 6.5" and doesn't maintain the 16x9 aspect ratio of the thrive's screen. You can try to shave off the additional half-inch, and I'd definitely be interested to see it if you go this route.

On the software front, this bad boy does a pretty good job as well.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=AutomateItPro.mainPackage&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsIkF1dG9tYXRlSXRQcm8ubWFpblBhY2thZ2UiXQ..

It maintains my power profiles, as well as radios. Explore it.

Don't mind me, just whoring out my android...

http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3818486&postcount=73

Sounds awesome, I'm stoked someone else is tackling this idea.

Keep in mind though, the way mine went dimensions meant everything. The HTC flyer is 195.4mm wide, even wider with the otterbox. A double din slot is 180mm wide x 100mm high.

BecauseCTIdentityCrisis

Silver Spec. B on the souther side of the berlin turnpike, near the meriden line. I gave you a thumbs up and a herp derp grin.

 

Also, red '05 LGT on 174 in newington, just before the New Britain line.

Silver Spec. B on the souther side of the berlin turnpike, near the meriden line. I gave you a thumbs up and a herp derp grin.

Also, red '05 LGT on 174 in newington, just before the New Britain line.

Spotted someone driving my car. So I called the police and reported it stolen.

:slowpoke: April fools?

I see where you're coming from.

For those specific examples, I can only really cite this: during any media playback, as long as the navigation lady isn't on mute, google maps will interrupt any sound and use real-time voice navigation. For music control, google play music has quick controls that can be used on the pull down information bar.

All of it at once, I have no idea if there is something like that for ICS, let alone crummy gingerbread.

I have a feeling that the native google apps will have some kind of integration like that in the near future, but for as it is now and custom development over at XDA, I have no idea.

There's also app switching, which has been vastly improved in ICS. it's no substitute for having a good GUI with everything at your fingertips, but it's getting closer.

Without a proper front-end, the tablet isn't well suited to a car. And considering the audio and USB jacks are on the edge, making these connections with the tablet in the dash would be tricky.

Using the car dock home, you can custom size any shortcut to an application. Applications wind up being hit or miss.

If anyone is looking to do this, consider the toshiba thrive 7. It's 2mm thinner giving a little breathing room and it's honeycomb based, meaning no ties to the softkeys.

When I get a little time, I think I might pick one up and get Tommy to fabricate some plastic to seal it all up nice and clean.

Here's a quicky write up and a handful of pictures.

This was an interesting experiment of mine. After perusing through the interior sub-forum for many moons, admiring the homebuilt CarPCs, I decided to try my hand at it in a unique way. I’ve always liked the idea of the functions that the CarPC had, but understood that it had many limitations. HDD vibrations, power, interface options, expense, and physical space were all things I had to consider when approaching this project. It was then I notice that the physical dimensions of one of the touchscreen monitors used was extremely similar to the 7” tablets first being released. I compared several tablets online and developed a list of criteria. GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 16GB memory, “quick” processor, android operating system, and landscape mounted charging and audio ports. I narrowed it down to two candidates, the WITS AE-81 and the Samsung galaxy Tab (now the OG GT). I went with the Samsung for the initial VZW support.

 

I played around with the GT for a while trying to get a feel for how it would function in the car. There were a few apps I downloaded, but more of that later. Late one night, I couldn’t sleep. I decided that it was going to happen. Using the tools at hand, I disassembled the center cubby. Taking it out was rather simple, the tabs came out easy using a plastic BMW trim removal tool. There was a single wire harness for the clock which came off no problem. After the assembly was out, removing the cubby and the clock came first, to be left with the ring and vents. A simple mockup proved it would be a tight fit, but a perfect fit.

 

So next came the issue of wire routing. The power and audio ports were on opposite sides of each other and hugging pretty tightly to the side vents. So at 2am, I did the natural thing and went to wal-mart to buy a dremel. Unfortunately, the only one available was a wireless. Never again. Anyway, after taking apart the vents, I made two holes for connecting the wires in through the vent and another for an exit route into the cavity back behind the head unit. It was rather simple, but if I were to do it again I would have taken the time to use a more precise tool.

 

After it was possible to connect the wires, I was thinking of a way to devise a mount. I bought two 90 degree brackets with screws and heavy duty Velcro. Affixed to the back of the tablet was the one side of the Velcro, and the bracket had the other side. Then it was mounted again o the vents. Making a total of 6 holes in the vents, 2 completely plugged. It did not affect air flow through the vents in a detrimental way, but I’m still wary of pumping hot air through the top vents, should it bleed into the tablet space.

 

Underneath, a long 1/8” stereo audio cable was run under the radio and center console trim into the aux-in plug. For power, I fitted a compact single plug power inverter into the space behind the coin holder and plugged it into the 12v power from the coin holder. I had to use an inverter as the SGTOG does not take power from anything besides a Samsung branded charger. I found the car charger had a slow bleed to it which killed my battery twice. The power inverter did not do this bleed, but it does get warm.

For the current interface car dock home v3. The current app list includes Torque (car diagnostics and logging, along with a bluetooth obdii adapter) Google Play Music (duh), Pandora (duh) Google Maps Navigation , urbanspoon, youtube, stock web browser, and Beautiful Widgets.

 

It takes more effort to remove than a single DIN HU, but no more than 10 minutes in time. If it has battery, the screen turns on instantly and stays on for the duration of power to it. When there is no power to it, it goes into sleep mode turning off the screen. If there is no battery, it has a 30 second boot time. Full android marketplace is also available.

 

Progress coming up includes plastic fabrication from Papa’s Customs and perhaps a tablet replacement. I recommend use a 7” honeycomb or ICS tablet. The SGTOG is not friendly to ICS or HC and not the best in availability for custom roms.

 

I'm not great at these things.

Pics

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/WP_000010.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110417_201250.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110417_201244.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110417_004812.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110416_202215.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110415_234934.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110414_202459.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/danoh5656/CarPuter/IMG_20110414_212007.jpg

good question. I have no idea actually.

Work sucks the life out of me, then i go home. Whenever I want to go far, I have my girlfriend come with me and I drive her car.

Possibly. It just said 2.5GT, to which I thought "why would you switch those badges?" Did the 2006 model have the regular 2.5GT badge in the back?

AFAIK, the 2006 Spec B's didn't get a Spec. B badge. I could be wrong though. Mt buddy Jen had a 2006 and hers didn't come with one.

I've found it helps with reducing glare to the eyes, but it still washes out the screen something fierce. It makes it slightly more useable on my screen which came out as a very reflective surface.

I'd buy it again.

Silver 2.5i lowered with some kind of nice-ish wheels on the 15 up by berlin CT last night. I waved frantically and beeped my horn at you but you seemed like you were too busy being a boss with the company you had in your passenger seat.

No real updates. I'm running car home as my homescreen application and that does things like prime the GPS location, turn off backlight timer, and max out volume. It's automatically programmed in the logic to turn the screen on when power is connected.

I also use an app to automatically bypass the lockscreen function so I don't even have to do that when the car turns on.

Most used apps so far are Torque, Winamp (for wi-fi syncing library), pandora, google maps (is the best, true that, double true), wi-fi hotspot, and urbanspoon.