May be off the wall...

Is it possible to hack a head unit, as in to edit the GUI or even change the software? If so how would one go about doing this? I am assuming head units have some type of harddrive or flash disk built in?

Also what would it take to bypass the actual software if editing it is not possible and adding your own?

 

1 - it's different for every head unit
2 - i don't feel any results would be worth the effort, so many small parts that you'd need very specific other parts just to interact with, much less edit anything
3 - if you're wanting complete control and all, build a carputer....

 

Pioneer released the avicf90bt a couple years ago and it was STUPID slow to load up when the first models came out. They sent us an SD card for the units to decrease loading time, it was a program of some kind on the sd card. Somehow a friend of mine got into something that looked similar to a windows/windows mobile setup when he was messing with it. He tried to figure out a way to hack into it but never really did. There has to be a way though. Also pioneer used to have the avic z1,z2, and z3's which were double din nav units with a built in hard drive. We used to have a friend of ours convert the z1's and z2's into z3's (which had more features). I'm not sure how he did it though.

 

Funny I stumble upon this now. If anyone is still wondering....have a look at the gpspassion forums. This kind of thing is entirely possible, and it centers around the units which have a GPS system installed - specifically, most, if not all, of these GPS units are basically a 400mhz computer processor that runs a version of windows CE.


They tend to boot up the navigation software by reading an SD card (literally, sometimes there is an actual SD card, in a slot, INSIDE the unit) which has a boot sequence that completely bypasses the windows GUI. The Mio 320 GPS units were really popular for this, but it can be done with many others - you basically change the contents of the SD card to include a startup instruction that points to a version of the windows ce explorer program.

Now I'm not saying any of this is easy or simple, varies much per each device, and some can't be done at all. But to give you a basic idea of what you would be dealing with......look up a unit called the Innovatek IN-723GPS. Hint - search ebay for innovatek 723. This unit is almost exactly what you're talking about, they found out they could save manufacturing costs by just not licensing the gps software!

It's also damned near uncharted territory, as I can't find anyone who's actually used one.

I'm damned close to buying one myself just to be a pioneer!

BUT....

Another option to consider is this - an iphone, android or windows based phone all have apps available for them that can make them really convenient, powerful carPC's.

More and more, these phones are starting to come with a video output. You can take most any standard deck with a video screen and feed the phones video out to the monitor. Figure on putting the phone on your center console like a touchpad, and possibly getting a deck with bluetooth to make calling easier, and you've got a neat little car PC system for cheap.

Also, if you have a phone like this....or get a system setup like this.....check out the bluetooth obdII converters on ebay. I picked one up for 35 bucks, and now my phone/car computer system can even bring up diagnostics on screen.

 

Anybody tried anything lately? more interested in the start up sequence, just something when starting the car, thats pretty much all im after, but wouldnt mind guidance in other matters i may want to take on!

 

nowadays everyone, just slaps a android tablet or an ipad in place of the double din and calls it a day, there are a few (less then 5 I know of) android based headunits (not counting the Froyo based ones coming from china) that you could use that might be rootable, but non are worth the effort frankly, and what good is bypassing the radio skin and booting Windows CE (which is just as outdated as Froyo), I just can't see this being worth the effort compared to the price of a nice 7 inch tablet.

 

so how would that work with then if you wanna do a boot sequence then? basically what im thinking is when i turn the key a picture of my choosing pops up for say 5-7 seconds then i can use it, just something to make it more personal ya know? however i am NOT a techy but i am up for challenges, if they got an easy way to do it though ill be interested in looking into it, but i havnt even so much as driven a car in 3 years so ive been completely out of the game on new things for cars over the past 3 years..

 

Kenwood double DIN (DNX and DDX series) have had that capability for years. You can upload an image into the HU for use as the startup image that is displayed for several seconds before the main screen displays. You can also have a separate image for the background behind the menus and other interface screens. I used a Trans Am logo as the startup image to make it seem more like a factory installed HU.

 

well there are different ways, the most common option with android tablets is to have them wired with a car charger that only gets power when the car is on and use an app like Tasker to set a trigger to turn the screen on when charging and set an autoplay trigger on the music program as well, so this way there is no "boot logo" to wait for (unless the tablet battery drained while the car was off, in which case you would need to have a way to manually access the power button to boot it up, and if you are rooted you can usually set custom boot images, I still need to do some looking to see if anyone has a better solution to the possible power drain issue, so for now I would keep any design easily removable from the car, see youtube for some ideas).

if it's just about backgrounds then quite a few of hte double din radios allow you to edit the backgrounds, I know my old Avic D3 was supposed to be capable of it, but I never could get it to work (it was very touchy about resolutions and file types).

 

I agree with this.

 

this is exactly what im trying to do, have something nice aftermarket but appear just as a factory upgrade, i dont want anything super flashy, its the little details that make a difference...plus i dont have anything super flashy anyways