Develop Bugs

Aux and Mic challenge

I'm somewhat surprised more has not been made over the issue of having the mic turn off when I connect a cable from aux to my car stereo. My car doesn't have bluetooth connection for the radio (only has phone connectivity -- 3 year old Camry). So when I want to have Pandora playing in the car over the car speakers, it will appropriately turn on bluetooth when a call comes in, but I can't get voice search to function using Google Maps.
This wasn't an issue with my Samsung Captivate although I don't know if this is an issue with the hardware or the fact that I was running Gingerbread previously.
Additionally, when I connect headphones to the phone I don't have an issue (it appears the headphones have a rather poor mic connected to it which is picking up the voice search command).
Solutions in order of preference:
(a) Some configuration in ICS that I haven't found yet that works like my Samsung Captivate.
(b) A y cable with male microusb on one side / male usb [power] and a male aux [audio] on the other. this would combine with a female usb to car charger. Don't even know if this exists.
(c) An aux cable with a built-in, decent, mic. Don't know if this exists.
Am I missing something? Does anyone know of accessories that satisfy (b) or (c) above?
I've been through similar issues before and had to cobble together the solution through multiple accessories. I'm rather disappointed, given how happy I am with this phone, that I have to go backwards given that this wasn't a problem with the Captivate. Either that or with all my searches I've not found the easy solution here to being able to connect to the stereo AND use voice search on my phone without jumping through hoops.
EDIT: ok. Found this thread after using alternative search terms
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1787592

I found the iBolt for the Samsung Galaxy S3 does exactly what I need. It has a y cable that splits from microusb to both power [aux] and charging [usb]. I'm glad that I don't have to consider creating one as folks have in other threads using resistors and soldering irons.
Nicer yet is that the dock handles the 4200mah extended battery from Qcell which I didn't think would be the case (no protective case).
I got mine at a Verizon store for $40, which is less than I'm finding it on Amazon so it seems like a win all around.

Bluetooh Or Usb audio reciver for car amplifire?

I have a motorcycle with a car stereo amplifier and I want to use a Windows 8 tablet (lenovo miix2 8) as my head unit/navigation.
◘My goal for this thread is to come up with a solution that uses the fewest amount of wires connected to the tablet.
◘I need to be able to charge the tablet and stream audio to my amp at the same time.
◘Ideas of products that might work:
1. Is having one USB cord going to the tablet, which it would send audio to like a sound card or something similar, and also charge it at the same time.
2. USB used just for charging, and use a bluetooth audio receiver for the amp.
3. I doubt there are compact products that could do this, but a wireless charge pad + a bluetooth audio reciveier to the amp(no wires at all).
(optional product, some kind of remote with a few basic buttons that would let change tracks or volume)
I honestly don't know anything about how usb ports work on tablets in general, but I think my tablet does allow for a device to be attached to it and charged at the same time, but I dont know for sure.
Any suggestions for products I may be able to make one of my three options work?

I have had awful experience with Bluetooth for this situation. I can get it to connect to one BT device after a reboot, but if I want to swap to another BT device I have to reboot again. Sometimes I can get it to reconnect to a different device without a reboot but it requires so much fiddling and just waiting for the bloody thing to stop trying to connect to a device that isn't there, that a reboot is always the fastest and most assured option.
I love the concept of Bluetooth, but its usability renders it almost useless IMHO.

usb seem best

I think usb is gonna give you better sound. Not much, but will do the job
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

The Ultimate Car Setup

OK. So 2 years ago I saw a thread on the Nexus 7 tablet forums where someone essentially turn it into a car deck. At the time it was complicated, convoluted and buggy to say the least. Since then its been a thought exercise to make this work. How I wanted it to work. This is what I wanted:
Simple plug&play. One USB connection to carry high quality audio out from the device while still allowing it to charge. This is the most difficult. On the Nexus 7 it required a special kernel and plus the accessories had to be connected in the right sequence. Not exactly the one action set up I was going for.
The easy way to accomplish this was to use a standard USB charger and then use the headphone jack to send audio to the Aux input of the stereo. Great in theory! However the phones/tablets I have used always allowed alternator whine into the sound. Not ideal either.
Third common way is to use bluetooth audio. My Pioneer deck does support this. But we all know the quality of the sound from this is OK at best. Play some ripping guitar or something melodic and you can really hear the compression (watery, slurred "S"s sound). Not good enough for me.
Now when I had first read about this concept I started accumulating various adapters and parts to play with. First was a Behringer 202 External DAC. Its low cost but had decent reviews. Perfect for my installation. Plus the added benefit of several output format options, so a deck with an optical input could also be used if yours has one. With this I got a simple USB OTG with the Micro USB charger Y-cable. The one that has a standard female USB, the charger connection and the one to the device. Now this whole thing never worked properly. I ended up using the OTG cable with the DAC, but on my home stereo where I could place a Qi Pad under the Nexus (and my S4 before) to charge and the DAC for audio. At least I was using what I spent money on. Just not the way I wanted.
Fast forward to yesterday morning. I have had my Nexus 5 for a few months but had not tried this set up. The fussing with kernels on other devices and units over the years had me giving up. But I figured why not try with the DAC and standard charger connected (they were just sitting there after all). Low and behold it worked! And I mean perfectly! It was a big light had been turned on and the world was beautiful! Then I tried my M8 and it failed......but the Nexus 5 for the win! Oh, and even when connected to the power the DAC turned off when I disconnected the phone. So it shouldn't drain my truck's battery (though I parked on a hill tonight just in case!).
So! Here is my car installation that I was finally able to complete. I have included photos of the installation and the parts I used. It's in a list format that I hope follows the pictures. it will take me a post or three to get it all in! So bear with me.
Ingredients:
Nexus 5 (I am running Liquid Smooth for my ROM, I have not tested it on other ROMs at the time of this post).
External DAC. Like the Behringer 202 I used, but I would assume most would work.
USB OTG and Charging Cable
RCA to 3.5mm headset adapter.
Standard car charger. I have a Belkin 1A one that works like a charm. In theory you could use the USB on the stereo if included, but you may not charge reliably.
Standard USB to Micro USB cable
iBolt xDockPro for the HTC. This is optional, but i like the iBolt and their right angled USB is the right way for the Nexus. Which made the set up cleaner.
Car Home Ultra from the Play Store
So. The first photo shows all the stuff I used (minus the car deck and truck).
Second you will see I am in fact using the HTC Dock
Next is the DAC I used
Followed by the adapter cable
The the RCA adapter
The before picture. The sticky pad for the mount was there cause I was already using my iBolt with just a charger tucked in.
This one you will see I have taken the y-cable and connected it to the iBolt adapter. My dash had the room for this, you may need an extension as the y-cable is really short!
Dash is coming apart!
To be continued (I can only post so many pics at once!

Part Deux!
So the next photo shows my deck's AUX input. Now I bought this unit because it had a rear jack. So connected the headphone plug into the AUX jack.
These next four pictures are just to show which power supply I used and how the USB cable is run up to the y-adapter. Now it would be possible to use your stereos USB for power if equiped. I didn't for two reasons. First, the phone/stereo may think your connecting a flash drive (both unit could be trying to be the "host"). Second the stereo may not put out enough amperage to run both the phone and the connected DAC. So I just went with the separate supply. Plus its easy to disconnect it should I need too.
This is me connecting the DAC. Now I wanted to show this particular step as you can see the power light is NOT lit even when connected to vehicle power.
RCA cable is now connected to the DAC.
The set up all buttoned up!
To be continued.....

Trio!
This post is more about the proof of concept and the Car home Setup. Here it is!
Basically once the hardware was all set (1 & 2) I fired it up, and used Play Music (and others) making sure Bluetooth was NOT paired yet. Sounds AWESOME! Makes a night and day difference! Then I paired it for hands free while making sure the media wasn't connecting. Now went into Car Home Ultra and just set it to launch with the my stereo's bluetooth connection. My only next goal I need to finish is to get an NFC tag to control Bluetooth on the iBolt. Car Home is set to turn WiFi off automatically when its running, but my set up is reliant on BT running all the time (or have me remember to turn it on/off, but defeats my plug'n'play concept).
That's the gist of it. If you would like more details or suggestions please let me know!

So it's not just my Ford Fiesta that sends lots of noise to the charger? I am a little relieved, but it sucks to find out that this is somehow a "standard"...
Nice setup there!

daniel_loft said:
So it's not just my Ford Fiesta that sends lots of noise to the charger? I am a little relieved, but it sucks to find out that this is somehow a "standard"...
Nice setup there!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a fix. They make something called a "ground loop isolator" that can usually fix the noise generated from you alternator. Here is an example, quick google search brought it up. http://www.amazon.com/PAC-SNI-1-3-5..._sim_pc_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1FEVW0RPFQ5W3V742E6G
You could put a more temporary/portable set up like mine, wouldn't be hard if your still having issues. Put all the parts together, stuff it all in an old cassette or floppy disk case with a few holes for the cables to stick out of.

Yeah, now the challenge is to find ways to make it work on more devices. It's really unfortunate that the M8 doesn't on Sense based ROMs (I plan on trying a GPE ROM in a few days to see if that makes a difference).
And I may now invest in a proper proclip mount so it's not up on the dash like that. But it works like a hot damn as is for now. Even with LTE on, display always on and streaming audio it charges, though pretty slow. Still. Better than not at all. And I can always turn the screen off if I wanted to give it more juice.

I have my Nexus 5 w/o the case using an iBolt mount I already had and a cheap qi charger and works great.

Nice Setup... I was actually looking for something like this. Thanks for posting

There are a lot of microUSB to USB + aux splitters on amazon for the Samsung Galaxy phones. Would these have worked all the same? Or does the Nexus 5 not have a docking capability that would sense the plug?

For those that don't know BlackBerry sells a blutooth adapter that uses power from the usb charging port on your after market stereo. I use it on mine. This thing is crazy small I hide it in the gap behind my stereo and the reception is good you have around a 10ft radius depending on where you hid your dongle.
http://shop.crackberry.com/blackberry-music-gateway/9A172A11438.htm

Nice I see you have a Colorado. I have a Nexus 7 in mine. I can say that after hours and days of troubleshooting ground noise I could not get rid of it. I had to use a ground loop isolator
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app

help with modernising Parrot Asteroid Tablet

G'day guys,
I've done a heap of google searching in an attempt to find out whether anyone has attempted what I'm trying to achieve. Ofcourse there appears to be zero information so I'm turning to XDA in hope of being pointed in the right direction. I drive a Ford Falcon so wanting to put a double din android head unit in is essentially out of the question without irreversibly modifying anything. Which I'm not going to do.
I've installed a Parrot Asteroid Tablet into my car. The whole system works quite well, it does exactly what the box describes. I have done the obligatory root and install the Playstore to get some real usability out of it. My problem is the tablet is woefully outdated in terms of internal storage, processing power and its running Android 2.3 (it's severely limited on available apps these days). Basically once i rooted and installed the Playstore plus a couple of other small apps, it has run out of internal storage and I've discovered its quite difficult to move any apps over to the SD card.
Now to my crazy and I think difficult plan.
Basically i would like to upgrade the tablet to something far more modern, either a small tablet or phablet. Why I think this plan may work, not that i think i will be easy. The Parrot tablet communicates with a box that sits under the dashboard in my car which contains all the bits that are plugged in to get all the functionality (bluetooth mic, usb hub, aux in etc.) The tablet communicates with the box via mini USB (this is where i think my plan may have some merit).
The first thing I have tried is getting a micro USB OTG cable and a mini USB cable and plugged my Galaxy Note Edge straight in to see if i could get any communication or atleast sound output from my phone. Of course that didn't work. The only thing that happened was the screen illuminated, no sound output, no charging, no recognition of the usb stick which was plugged into the box full of music.
I'm not really sure what the next step would be making this plan work, that's where I'm hopeful you guys can help.
Any help or guidance to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
Stefan

Install a Nexus 7 2013 and go from there.

mikereidis said:
Install a Nexus 7 2013 and go from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did think about doing that, if i could get it to work with Parrots Ebox that sits under the dash. Unfortunately in Ford Australia's infinite wisdom, they thought it would be a great idea to design a car where it is extremely difficult and time consuming to do anything to the stereo (it was an absolute nightmare just to install an amplifier). Being a car that was sold only in Australia and New Zealand means there is also next to no aftermarket support for doing things like this.
Basically my one and only real option was to install the Parrot Asteroid Tablet because there is a plug and play loom for it which makes it communicate with the factory stereo. In reality I'm not really sure its feasible to install a Nexus 7 in the same way.

Yet another android tablet as a head unit

Hi,
I'd like to introduce my project...
I'm building a vintage kit car using the BMW Z3 (2000 model year) as the base car. I want the car to have access to tech but for the tech to be hidden in the centre console, actually on the underside of the top of the console. The concept is that when no tech is needed (for example at shows) the car will retain its vintage looks but when tech is required (i.e. when being driven) the tech becomes available. I'm imagining a top section of the console which will hinge up and reveal the tablet. There isn't going to be much space on the underside of the console which is why I'm going for a tablet rather than one of the many Chinese android units.
As an aside, I've just ordered an Icebox Octa core 64G Rom / 4G Ram unit (TTF1983 ) for my facelift (2015) Vauxhall Insignia which I expect to arrive in the next week or so.
I've already researched other people's projects which has helped me to get to where I currently am. Where I currently am is ordering many of the bits and pieces which I expect to need.
My tablet project is intended to be a much simpler affair than the Icebox unit:
DAB and FM radio
Rear and, hopefully, front camera
Sat nav
OBD II
Mirror my phone if needs be
What I won't need includes:
Steering wheel controls
Air con management
Electric roof control
Pretty much everything else that an android head unit offers
What I might need is:
BT Phone but in a convertible that's going to be a bit of an issue any way
Because the car will only be used sporadically I need an effective power management system, one which will kick in after perhaps a month's lack of use.
My tablet of choice is a Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (SM-T800) which I happen to have lying around, it's currently running stock Android 6.01 . The tablet is a wifi model so the plan is to hotspot it to my Galaxy S8 when I'm on the road
I've already ordered
a 12V to 5V 3A dc-dc converter
a 4 port USB2 hub
an OTG Y cable to take power from the dc-dc converter to feed the tablet and to move data between the devices
an easycap UTV007 video capture device (for the parking camera units)
a USB to USB relay to allow the easycap to feed the video through to the USB when reverse is connected
an 'intelligent' video selector which has two video inputs (front and rear cameras) and one video output (to the head unit via the USB relay). The unit keeps the relevant camera connected to the output. I need to take delivery of this and play with it to see what it can really do.
an ELM327 bluetooth OBD II device
a NooElec Smart DVB+ device
a Creative Soundblaster DAC
I know that I'm going to need a decent amplifier between the DAC and the speakers (suggestions and recommendations welcome). I might also want a manual volume control, possibly with a push button mute facility. I've probably missed a bunch of stuff...
I've rooted the tablet and tweaked it (overwritten lpm) so that when the ignition is switched on then the tablet will boot. I've used MacroDroid to tell the device to switch off 10 seconds after the ignition is switched off (unless the ignition gets switched on again within those 10 seconds)
I'm looking very closely at the Agama Car Launcher to pull much of it together. There are some aspects of this launcher that I'd like to see improved. For example I'd like to be able to get back to the home screen from the maps screen (or other screens) CarWebGuru places a button on the screen to allow this. It would be nice also to have a split screen so that I can have maps on one side and Audio / OBD / any other app on the other side. I'm aware that I might not get all that I wish for
One thing I'd REALLY like to see improved is the cold boot time which is currently 50 seconds. I might consider a custom ROM if anyone knows of a ROM that will fire up quickly, or any other tweak which will significantly shorten the cold boot time. 10 seconds or less would be nice. I've looked at Cyanogenmod 12.1 or 13 with the quick boot utility but I understand that the quick boot is basically hibernate and may not survive a month without the ignition being switched on.
Hopefully I've given a reasonable overview of what I'm looking to achieve and hopefully there will be people out there that can help tie everything together and troubleshoot when the time comes.
Russell

nice project, good luck with it..

Keep us posted on your project progress...

Wondering how this is coming along?
My question for you is, will the tablet charge and use data via the OTG cable simultaneously? Did you need to run a custom kernel to enable that?
thanks.

Quite in consonance with what I've been wanting to achieve. Nevertheless, the plan was frustrated by other priorities. Would love to see how this emerges. Meanwhile here's a basic experiment I've tried.