This is more of a project to see how it goes but we recently had our car in the shop and had a rental with full backup camera and apple car play.. It made us really interested in getting some of these new features both for convenience and for safety.
I hadn't even considered a retro fit since most of them look super tacky for the backup cams and as for the deck, I didn't think it was possible..
Turns out there are companies cranking out Android based decks that match the dash of specific models of cars, have full compatible wiring harnesses and EVEN hook to the CAN bus to use the steering wheel buttons.
Simmarly the backup cams come with options to clip into the licecnceplate light locations instead of on top of the plate, making them look a bit more like factory.
I will let you know how it goes but I am somewhat excited to give this a shot.
This is the deck I am going to try to install in my Mazda 5
https://www.seicane.com/2009-2012-mazda-5-android-gps-navigation-system-with-dvd-player-radio-mirror-link-multi-touch-screen-obd-dvr-rear-view-camera-tv-3g-wifi-usb-sd-bluetooth-s168005
I've done a few of these, including some backup cameras in review mirrors with LCDs built in as well as deck installs.
Somethings I've learned over the 30+ installs I've done of Radios, Car Starters, Alarms, Backup Cameras, HUDs, Review Mirrors over the years (and you may know this already):
- Wiring Harness Kits - This will save you so much time, hunting and such when installing after market - especially with Radios
- Loom/Wire Shrink Wrap - This will make your installs clean, help with organization, and with connections
- Soldering + Optionally Paste - Always do this over a T-Clip/Tap/Splice device as you ALWAYS pay for it later
- Investigate thoroughly your cars Anti-Theft features - you'd be surprised what is already there, and what you may need to by-pass for after market - usually only applies to Car Starter/Alarms but I've dealt with Anti-Theft sensors on built in Radios in the last few years
- Always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS! - disconnect your battery when dealing with Any of these devices installs. Especially now-a-days with the magnitude of Sensors and Airbags, you want to make sure you never have your battery attached until you are ready to test. You only want power when you are hunting for wires or when you have everything ready to test final install
- Airbags - Speaking of such, if you have to remove them for what ever reason to get at something, always have your vehicle sit for about an hour without power, and then you should be good to remove as their capacitors should be dissipated by then
- Speaker/Video vs Power Wire - If you can, always run these opposite sides of the car if you are running them for any lengths. This is usually the case with any electronics, but in a car this can be even more challenging in tight spaces
- Test Light - SO SO SO handy when trying to figure out what wire does what. Usually not to hard if you have a Wiring Harness Kit for the job you are doing but I usually find there is a need for it once or twice during all my installs
- Mic - I'm assuming most people that install after market Radios now include ones with Hands free. If so, they usually have a Mic that plugs in with a lot of wire. Unless stated, these can be by default directional. People usually take the easy route and install this on the driver's door windshield panel at the top - which if you want anyone else in the car to talk through the mic you might want to consider running this to where your review view mirror is
- Power for Rear View Cameras - Lots of installs will mention use the tail light power, reverse light power, brake power, or license plate power to run these. Some modern cars though don't run constant power to these any more, because of capacitors and leds allow for less power or fluctuating power. What this usually translates to is a "snowy" or "wobble" effect in your picture when using it. If that happens you may need to find a more constant power or run your own
- Running your own power - if for what ever reason you have to run your own power, make sure to use the right gauge and fuse for the power you are running - even sometimes the one that comes with the wiring harness or device isn't the best one to use - check your power requirements of the device you are buying, especially if you aren't buying a well known brand - so many options out there from companies I've never heard of now-a-days
Well that's my brain dump. I have way more info for specific scenarios, so let me know if you have any questions.
Good luck, this is something I like to do on the side cause I enjoy it, but I know for a few people around me that have tried to do this in the past, it can be frustrating as well.
Well all the power tapping is relevant for the backup camera install for sure, I have been going over model specific teardown videos for my car and also purchased a panel popping kit. The videos I have found for my car seem to indicate the power is there and I shouldn't need to hut for it.. YouTube is great for this as long as your car is common.
Thanks for the full list, a lot of that I knew and is a reason I haven't tried in the past. Always good to go over everything.
I went with Seicane specifically because they include model specific wiring harnesses for install, the deck it self should be plug and play in my car. I found the deck being sold in a few places, but seicane was about the only one that had it updated and had the extra parts / support.
Not touching the airbag, I did contemplate swapping out the controls on the wheel for the set that has extra buttons but I don't really want to deal with that. My car does not have the bluetooth option but it was available for the higher trims, so I could in theory just add it to my steering wheel.
The full set of features I am putting in include:
- built in hands free.. The deck has both a built in mic and a remote mic.. A number of reviews say the built in works, but I really want to be sure it works well as my current setup is not clear enough for siri to work most of the time.
- Android 7.1 deck capable of running a number of apps (plex / google maps / playstore) May not even use that with Carplay however.
- Apple Carplay adapter (with the install of a driver/app enables Carplay support)
- Bluetooth ODBII, there are a number of apps that should let me put fuel consumption on the screen etc.
- Backup Cam
I was really tempted to also add the Tire Pressure monitor kit as there wasn't really much effort to install, but really not a huge plus in my mind. Also easy to add later.
This all sounds pretty cool to me. How much was the deck and wiring kit?
Quote from: Thorin on June 28, 2018, 07:58:37 AM
This all sounds pretty cool to me. How much was the deck and wiring kit?
$852 for all the options I listed.
I linked to the deck, the wiring kit is included.
They charge in USD and use PayPal as their credit card processing, don?t trust the CAD conversion setting on the site.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180709/a4c532d591914299eb8510f33aa7a707.jpg)
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180709/62724eff75fefd519dafa6ec9b1f8eb6.jpg)
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180709/cc43c08a983cdb26326951c7d1ea5394.jpg)
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180709/0eb6283b375056ede31f551efe1034bf.jpg)
Nice! I saw your picture on FB last night. I'm impressed (but not surprised) you got it all back together so well and quickly!
I will have to take it back apart to finish installing the backup camera so not done yet.
Fortunately it does mostly just snap back together with only a few screws to deal with.
Man, that is a nice custom fit. Now your car's all new and ready to drive another 100,000km, right? :)
Quote from: Thorin on July 09, 2018, 10:30:46 AM
Man, that is a nice custom fit. Now your car's all new and ready to drive another 100,000km, right? :)
I hope so.. I also have the OBD2 module so if something is wrong, I should know what it is.
Not ready to do a review on the deck yet but here are some first impressions.
Hardware / install was very good.. Everything just plugged in and worked.
Software is a mixed bag, it is running a nice clean android install however it looks like a number of the supporting apps are side loaded and pirated LOL.
Actually pirated, or just sideloaded cause geting google play certification is actually kinda hard?
Looks like I killed the car when tapping power for the camera.
Hope it is just a fuse.
Yeah, it'll be a fuse somewhere, although it could be a fusible link in which case it's harder to fix and more expensive.
Is there just absolutely no power to anything in the car? Or it won't start? Or there's just no power to whatever device is attached to the line you tapped for power?
Found two fuses I killed.
Turns out the car will not start without the. ?Meter? fuse which apparently is connected to both the backup lights and the instrument panel .
Fixed. Now back to troubleshooting the stupid backup camera
Good luck man!
Well I am stuck on two issues still.
1. No video from the backup camera.. I have realized to fully troubleshoot this I am going to have to find a small monitor that takes RCA / composite video in.. I don't have anything portable like that anymore. been keeping an eye out at value village etc, but most stuff was broken.
2. The Carplay dongle draws too much USB power when combined with a phone.. Worked around it with a powered USB hub but that prevents the deck from sleeping / powering down for some reason.
O the joy of off brand tech...
I'm sure you've tried this, but hey, just to be on the safe side:
- swap the pin out on the video?
- have you tried turning it off and back on again? ;)
Got the backup camera working.. Purchased a portable DVD player for $67 and was able to narrow down the fault
So what was it?
Quote from: Tom on July 15, 2018, 12:31:51 PM
So what was it?
The camera came with a super universal power / video cable to cover many different car installs.
This included a relay controlled at the front of the car.
The instructions for MY deck and car only call for powering the camera from the backup light and the DECK switches input based on the CAN-BUS NOT the camera turning on.
For what ever reason the power was not coming out of the connector so I just cut it off and bypassed it in the back of the car after confirming the video hookup worked and the cables and camera worked independently (via AV in on a portable display) with a separate power adopter (had one of those multi plug / voltage AC/DC bricks).
Edit: added the photo of the kit.. Not illustrated is a third trigger cable on the relay at the front in that bundle after the rely box. The directions in the package with the adapter also conflicted slightly with the illustration here provided from seicane.
Quote from: Tom on July 10, 2018, 08:36:55 AM
Actually pirated, or just sideloaded cause geting google play certification is actually kinda hard?
As a troubleshooting step from I was asked to do a factory reset.
The ?offline? gps app with the strange name was cleaned off.
They also provide an APK download for Torque on the OBD2 sensor page. It doesn?t look official. (It?s an old version of pro)
Everything part of the clean base image seems legit.
Playstore works. I have installed Plex and browsed around for other stuff.
Haven?t spent much time customizing yet. Just happy the core stuff is working like the backup camera.
I still hope for a more clean solution to the CarPlay power issue but that is technically an add on
Ah, so a bit of piracy then. Not great, but at least it's not like a complete rip-off.
Quote from: Tom on July 16, 2018, 09:33:56 AM
Ah, so a bit of piracy then. Not great, but at least it's not like a complete rip-off.
Ya it is a bit odd.. Seems like they did create a clean core product but AS SHIPPED it did have a side loaded GPS that I suspect was pirated and as I noted the OBD2 device page has a download for what also appears to be a pirated copy.
I have reset the unit. I am using google maps with offline maps cached (when not using car play) and I have purchased Torque pro from the Play store since it has improved a lot and is an great app.
Coolio! Let us know how it all works.
Hopefully it doesn't fail right away :( cheap stuff can be cheap.
Outstanding is getting the dash cam to auto record. The included app only supports manual recording. Lots of apps in the play store however few support mapping the camera correctly or just crash on load
The power issue with the CarPlay dongle is still outstanding. Annoying but I have a workaround. Just wanted to finish that off by making it part of the car instead of more dongles / visible cables.
Summary so far:
Pro:
- deck it self was easy to install
- deck looks good in both fit and finish
- backup camera works, it is automatic hand even lowers the music volume when in use (configurable)
- radio app is very nice, includes over the air track info like other modern decks
- Canbus integrates, steering wheel controls work
- google maps makes for a great GPS if you sign in and use offline maps.
Con:
- accessory issues with Dash / Cam
- accessory issues with power and CarPlay Dongle
- some oddness with Android in general. Apps do not know if it should be a phone / tablet or its orientation some times. Lots of odd issues with selecting cameras or some UIs not working in landscape mode.
- poor directions / issues with backup camera install
- can?t change which apps are cycled when hitting the mode button on steering wheel. Notably there is a Bluetooth A2DP app and a phone app for call control.
- notable sun glare on screen. Might look for a screen protector to see if this can be reduced.
I think I have a proper solution for the CarPlay power issue now.
Instead of putting the Y power cable between the deck and the dongle I put it after. It now powers the phone and still lets the deck shut down.
I figure I can now purchase a USB flush mount and 12v hard wired USB power supply to nicely hide this in the dash.
Only thing not working the way I want now is the dash cam, and I think I can let that go to a degree.
Ugh, even google can't seem to figure out tablet/landscape mode. It's one of my pet peves, esp since facebook gets it so wrong.
Is there a drop down notification/settings panel? If there is, just lock the orientation. if not.. I imagine theres a hack you can do to lock it, maybe an app or some root config file...
Apparently USB dash cams are a bit of a hack in android. Basically a custom driver forces the USB camera to appear as one of the native ones. However many recording apps don?t let you select the front or back camera and fail if the main camera is not detected.
If Android's HAL treats any cameras super special, its all a big hack. but this is android so it shouldn't be too surprising.
On normal linux a camera is a camera. some just have different properties.
Some tidy up.. Didn't like having a blue USB extension cable coming out from under the glove box so I installed some USB ports into a blank that was in the center console.
I 3D modeled my replacement blank from the original part. It took about 3-4 iterations before I got the fit right but now it just snaps in.
Okay, that's damn cool
NICE
For those interested a few more of the parts buried in the dash.
Hard Wire Power Cord Cable Charger Adapter (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B06ZZ36GXR/ref=pe_3034960_236394800_TE_dp_1)
Only supports 3A total but seems to solve the power leak issue I had before and has no problem powering the hub, the Carplay/Android Auto dongle, and my iPhone 7.
Dual USB 3.0 Flush Mount Cable (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B074SL4B1Z/ref=pe_3034960_236394800_TE_dp_2)
Smaller than I had expected, which is why I ended up making my own plate.. I was hoping to just slot this in and replace my AUX in but I would have needed a backing plate for that as well.
ORICO 4 port USB3.0 Rectangle Hub (http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=48_794_259&item_id=103517&language=en)
This hub is interesting as it is small, can be used as a passive hub but also has a micro USB input for additional power.