Crazy Goat

(Making this a separate post for those who already read the previous one) Found an app which does exactly what I need - which is to create gestures to replace the home/back/app tray buttons. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goodmooddroid.gesturecontrol It's a little on the expensive side ($5.00) - but then I can do some relatively simple gestures to control the tablet. Also - I think I'm going to buy another Nav Bezel since I demelled out the front lip. Since I can emulate all of the button features without needing to see it - an unmodified oem bezel is a perfect match for the screen while hiding the home/back/app tray. Edit - the app works perfectly (requires root) and I have multitouch gestures for home, back, recent apps, and even hiding the system tray and status bar! When you hide the tray and status bar you get the full screen real estate. Because of this, it doesn't look as tacky to have dremelled out the lower lip of the bezel. If I was forced to look at that system tray (but not be able to hit the buttons) it'd drive me mad. These are the gestures I have now: Four finger swipe up hides the status bar and system tray Four finger pinch takes you to the home screen. Three finger double tap opens recent apps Three finger swipe down triggers 'back'

Dremmeled the vent pieces last night - had to take about half an inch or so out of each side to allow the tablet room. The interior vent-fins used to control air are untouched and unaffected by this modification. (Maybe a little bit of air leakage - but it shouldn't cause harm unless the air is particularly humid or hot. I may seal the ends with electrical tape just for that reason.) Right now it's being held in place by the tape/resting on the lip of the navigation controls - and held in by the vent pieces. I'm still thinking of how best to mount it internally. I think I'll find some kind of metal bracket piece to affix to the back of the nexus and drill it into the sides of the vents with screws. Unfortunately there's not enough vertical space to show both the status bar and the home/back/app tray on the Nexus 7. (You can still see the home/back/app buttons but there's not enough clearance to push on them with your finger because the navigation's control panel gets in the way.) I have three solutions. The first of which is to use an app to emulate the home/back/app buttons with gestures. Jellybean has these gestures built in with a feature called 'Explore By Touch' - I can go to the homescreen by swiping up and to the left, etc. The problem is that this feature requires another feature to be enabled (called TalkBack) which makes the OS friendlier to blind people, but speaks out selections, forces double clicking, creates two finger gesture problems, and all sorts of nonsense. So I'm still looking for an alternative or find a way to only enable the explore by touch feature. The second option is to physically modify the hardware on the navigation buttons to be more flush with the bezel - allowing me more clearance to hit the buttons on the home tray. The third option is to just hide the status bar behind the bezel - it doesn't really serve a meaningful purpose in a carputer, so it's an acceptable loss. But at least I'd have plenty of clearance for the home/back/app tray. http://i.imgur.com/Drc4J.jpg SCHM1AN - Be sure to look at where I made my cuts in the back piece, try to avoid the wifi antenna in the top corner near the power and volume buttons. I didn't actually take that into consideration when I was making my cuts - but I managed to miss them for the most part. I have no plans of wiring additional/better antennas unless absolutely necessary. http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/UViY1ZeTrC1JPYso.huge

New video is up - describes the wiring problem I encountered, and runs through the software I'm using with the build. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBvvOLTjmD0]HOW TO: Nexus 7 Car Install - Wiring Complete - YouTube[/ame]

For sure - I'll document the process to the very end, and then create a thread with all of the necessary tools, parts, and videos on how to do it. At this point - It will likely involve a brace spanning the bezel/air conditioning tunnel pieces. This is because the tablet is wider than the space between the bezel and the air conditioning tunnel pieces. So I'll have to drill into those pieces creating a 'slot fit' that will partially hold the tablet in place. I've done another famously-crude drawing to illustrate my point: http://i.imgur.com/XBhYo.jpg I'll try to get that video up later today.

Hey guys! Thanks for the kind words! I haven't had an awful lot of free time to work on it, but right now I'm designing the backbrace to mount the tablet. I just finished all the wiring last week and recorded some short videos I'll edit together to describe the difficulties I faced! Hopefully that'll inspire others to take the leap! I'm always available for questions and more detailed diagrams of the process.

Just uploaded a video describing the progress on my Nexus 7 car install. I've made some modifications to the hardware for remote power/volume buttons and relocating the usb and headphone jacks to the rear. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C7f7PIRGus]HOW TO: Nexus 7 Car Install - Carputer Progress Report - YouTube[/ame] It's a long video - but you can skip about. I wanted to be thorough.

Hmmm - interesting! I didn't know that was a problem with Jelly bean. This app has open and closed apps flawlessly for me, you should definitely check it out! It's great for killing apps that might otherwise have background processes that could drain the battery.

The app is called "Settings Profiles" - its quite powerful. It works on a Cause and Effect model where you set conditions (such as power state change, arrival at a location, time, an app starting, etc) and then the action you wish to take (applying a profile with various system settings changes, start or kill an application, etc). When my car turns on, it wakes the tablet - bypasses the lock screen, enables all of the radios, sets the brightness to auto, sets screen timeout to 30 mins, and starts my gps navigation app (NavFree USA). When my car turns off, it disables all of the radios, changes the screen timeout to 15 seconds, sets brightness to minimum, closes the GPS app, and starts the system standby app to put it to sleep immediately. It's been pretty rock solid so far. My only complaint is that it has an 'infinite' setting for screen timeout which doesn't appear to work in jelly bean. I bet there's a way to do it, but it doesn't work in this app.

Are you using "settings profiles" to do the power management? I noticed that I can use the app to disable Bluetooth, wifi, and GPS when I turn the car off - but airplane mode indeed will not engage. Also - I found that it was inconsistent at locking the screen/going into standby when the profile kicked in. To fix this - I downloaded the app Standby Touch Advanced (free), reverted the lock screen setting in the profile, and instead set an action (for the battery discharge condition) to start the app when the profile activated. So it looks like this: Condition: Battery Discharging/Unplugged Action 1: activate profile 'idle' which shuts off wireless radios and gps and turns brightness to minimum Action 2: Start App Standby Touch Advanced Been having major issues with battery life with renegade OS processes in 4.2 - hope that gets resolved. Nothing A reboot doesn't fix.

I was going to use the android hardware connected to the oem touchscreen - but the overall quality and resolution of the kenwood LCD was too poor for me to bother. I am about 50% complete with my nexus 7 install. I have the bezel dremeled, the nexus 7 has been fully configured with the necessary power profiles to turn on and off with the car, and I have the cables in my possession. All I need to do now is fabricate a mounting plate, and wire the cables inside the dash! I think I will also sand and paint the bezel since there's some sanding marks from the pieces I had to dremel. The horizontal width of the oem bezel opening is identical to the nexus 7 - but I had to carve out most of the vertical trim plastic to fit the screen.

Hey Haight - I'm doing a Nexus 7 carputer project on my 2008 Legacy 3.0R - and will be removing the factory navigation and LCD. I live in Hillsboro, OR - so you could get your hands on mine awfully easy.