Car Hacking Update.. Exciting, Right?!
Well, the hardware I needed to add Apple CarPlay to my ride didn't show up on schedule. In fact, it's STILL out there in transit somewhere. Thanks USPS! So all I was able to do over the weekend was the hacking to add the tweaks. But that was the less intensive part of things, at least in terms of disassembling the car--I only had to remove a couple pieces of trim to get to the rear of the head unit, whereas I think I'm going to have to remove most of the center console to replace the USB hub for the CarPlay thing. It's probably just as well--this way I have a few days to see how the tweaks work and get used to them, before I add something else to the mix as well.
The process went fairly smoothly, at least. Once I got to the back of the head unit, I had to connect two unused terminals of a connector back there (and a ground wire) to a little USB adapter, which functions as a serial port for a laptop PC. Took me a little bit to get those connections right, but once I did the rest was easy enough, a few simple commands via terminal emulator (tricky only because the display was a constantly-scrolling wall of text and I couldn't see what I was entering, or the system's response). But after that I was able to install the tweaks via USB drive, and voila!
Since it was all new to me, I figured I'd install pretty much everything that was available and then weed out what I didn't like or wouldn't use. So I installed various UI tweaks to remove annoyances and add controls and options, and most of that is great. There's a nifty speedometer app that displays lots of info, and I was able to resize some icons, change some graphics and colors, and add my own custom wallpaper image. Pretty cool, and it all seems to work well, without noticeably bogging down the system. I even got the video player working, though obviously I don't see myself using that much (if at all). I like the look and feel of it. I'm definitely curious to see how CarPlay fits in, though I guess that install will have to wait until next weekend, assuming the parts finally show up.
A few pics so you can see what I'm talking about?
Not my photo, but this is the interior of my model, to give you the general idea of the infotainment system. On the touchscreen here is the stock main menu, and down below the shifter you can see the Commander module, which puts the physical controls for the system in a nice location, easy to access without looking or stretching while driving.
This is my main menu post-tweaks. I stumbled upon a background image I think is pretty sweet, and instead of the arc of large icons, I went with a stright row of smaller icons. The tweaks also modify the status bar up top, so instead of just the time it also includes the date, and a speedometer and compass.
Here's the view while playing music from Spotify (via my phone, of course). This isn't too different from stock, except for the background, and a tweak to make the album cover image a bit larger. Once I get CarPlay installed, of course, the screen will basically just show the Spotify app, so the tweaks won't matter much then.
And finally, this is the speedometer app that the tweaks install. It has this "classic" view, an analog speedometer with a compass rosette in the middle and tachometer underneath, and it also has a digital bar view, which gives a big numeric speed reading with a segmented bar that sweeps up and to the right as speed increases. But I'm mainly interested in the "extra" data over to the right, which really ups the geek-factor. Now if only it were all real-time--it updates about every second, which isn't bad, but I'm picky. :)
Anyway, so far so good, I think the time was well-spent. Now for the CarPlay stuff, if those parts ever show up! USPS is seriously yanking my chain. The package arrived at a distribution facility Saturday morning, departed there Sunday night, and has yet to pop up again. I hope it arrives eventually!
The process went fairly smoothly, at least. Once I got to the back of the head unit, I had to connect two unused terminals of a connector back there (and a ground wire) to a little USB adapter, which functions as a serial port for a laptop PC. Took me a little bit to get those connections right, but once I did the rest was easy enough, a few simple commands via terminal emulator (tricky only because the display was a constantly-scrolling wall of text and I couldn't see what I was entering, or the system's response). But after that I was able to install the tweaks via USB drive, and voila!
Since it was all new to me, I figured I'd install pretty much everything that was available and then weed out what I didn't like or wouldn't use. So I installed various UI tweaks to remove annoyances and add controls and options, and most of that is great. There's a nifty speedometer app that displays lots of info, and I was able to resize some icons, change some graphics and colors, and add my own custom wallpaper image. Pretty cool, and it all seems to work well, without noticeably bogging down the system. I even got the video player working, though obviously I don't see myself using that much (if at all). I like the look and feel of it. I'm definitely curious to see how CarPlay fits in, though I guess that install will have to wait until next weekend, assuming the parts finally show up.
A few pics so you can see what I'm talking about?
Not my photo, but this is the interior of my model, to give you the general idea of the infotainment system. On the touchscreen here is the stock main menu, and down below the shifter you can see the Commander module, which puts the physical controls for the system in a nice location, easy to access without looking or stretching while driving.
This is my main menu post-tweaks. I stumbled upon a background image I think is pretty sweet, and instead of the arc of large icons, I went with a stright row of smaller icons. The tweaks also modify the status bar up top, so instead of just the time it also includes the date, and a speedometer and compass.
Here's the view while playing music from Spotify (via my phone, of course). This isn't too different from stock, except for the background, and a tweak to make the album cover image a bit larger. Once I get CarPlay installed, of course, the screen will basically just show the Spotify app, so the tweaks won't matter much then.
And finally, this is the speedometer app that the tweaks install. It has this "classic" view, an analog speedometer with a compass rosette in the middle and tachometer underneath, and it also has a digital bar view, which gives a big numeric speed reading with a segmented bar that sweeps up and to the right as speed increases. But I'm mainly interested in the "extra" data over to the right, which really ups the geek-factor. Now if only it were all real-time--it updates about every second, which isn't bad, but I'm picky. :)
Anyway, so far so good, I think the time was well-spent. Now for the CarPlay stuff, if those parts ever show up! USPS is seriously yanking my chain. The package arrived at a distribution facility Saturday morning, departed there Sunday night, and has yet to pop up again. I hope it arrives eventually!