As promised; a video of my Head Unit booting up. Keep in mind it is fully booted when the icon screen flashes up, but has remembered what source I was listening to, and that I had Navigation going, so went straight to opening those up. I have been using Nokia's Here maps, now called "Here wego" It navigates OK, but you have to toggle drive mode every time to let it know you are in a car.

 

You're probably right on the money regarding the big name manufacturers with their implementation of Android.

That's why I'm not impressed with the Chinese clones also being somewhat restricted

Again, my statement of these units being "incomplete" is based ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM. If you understand how to program for Android you would understand that there is a good amount of the underlying subsystem missing that will limit functionality.

Things will work for the most part, but there are currently many limitations.

I am VERY tech savvy and have been the go to guy for pretty much anything with an electrical wire coming out of the back...which means I can get some pretty cool stuff going, but it also means I'm the only one that will be able to operate/service said device.

My Android solution (what I have planned so far) would be very much customized for my personal use and I have 0 interest in doing anything for the general public.

If you put a gun to my head and made me fix computers for people again I'd call you names until you pulled the trigger. No way I could deal with <shudders> customers.

I was an on call IT guy for over 20 years and I am happy to tell everyone that I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR COMPUTER PROBLEM anymore I'm retired...

 

Thanks for the video! Pretty much what I was looking for. You notice how when you shut your key off, the radio stayed on? That was the battery saver relay. Since mine is bypassed, When my key switches off, the radio cuts off immediately. I wonder if the Joying unit will gracefully shut down...

 

If you have standby power still routed (keeping presets and such), yes it will shut down gracefully. That relay just keeps it on for a while when ignition is shut off.

 

Wow and I thought my profession was bad!!! Having a gun pointed at you to do your job and you still wouldn't? I thought you IT guys got paid way more than your worth and your still complaining lol. There are folks out there who don't get paid enough but still do there jobs. I know it was a figure of speech but damn didn't realize it was that bad for you. Glad your retired then!

 

There are people on the Android forums who have installed custom Roms on these head units. It shouldn't be hard to do as they seem to give root access from the start. Just out of curiosity, what apps would you be wanting that are not supported?

 

Oh it wasn't all that bad, I'm just a cry baby

I started out making $55/ hour when I was 19. That was good money but it only lasted for a few years as the industry quickly became polluted with people that were into it for a quick buck and didn't really know what they were doing.

10 years later I was making considerably less and everyone and their sister was an "IT guy". Since there were so many IT people it wasn't such a specialized field and the wages kept coming down. What I used to charge $300 for ended up being a $50 for someone that was desperate for clients.

The IT work isn't that bad and I'm sure there is a lot of people in the field that still make great money but the whole dynamic changed for me.

You also have to keep in mind that every time my phone rang it was someone at the other end bitching and complaining about a problem they have. 20 years of listening to that wore me out.

On the other side of that coin was when I was forced to get a job to pay bills and ended up working in the manual labor sector temporarily (temporary lasted 5 years).

Within those 5 years I had so many muscle, back, shoulder, wrist injuries that I'm basically a gimp. Worker's comp found a way of getting out of fixing me up and I'm left to the awesome "free" medical system in Canada.

Which in my case means 3+ years of being on a waiting list for surgery....and counting.

Still don't miss being the IT guy, but I do love playing computers on my own time where I have only the wife to answer to.

 

Do these Android stereos accept a SIM card? If not how else do you provide service to these devices?

 

I use my phone as a hotspot and connect the radios wifi to it. It works great that way.

 

Ok but that's not an unlimited service with all providers. Going over a hot spot limit would mean excessive charges.

 

You can also get a usb dongle with a sim card to add onto your wireless account (like adding an ipad).

 

Ok that's what I was after. So with this method it would be just like adding a tablet to your wireless provider contact. Hell I'd need unlimited data for this or I'd get in big trouble.

 

I rarely do much more with mobile data other than navigation with google maps. It uses very little data. I used Waze a lot before they updated the maps and ruined it. It also uses very little data. I did just switch to unlimited though as is the new trend again with wireless providers. On my last trip in the Excursion, I found myself parked a few times near open wifi networks, McDonald's, hotels, so that is an option for updating things. However on a day to day basis, my 2 hour timeout before it shuts off is enough time to update everything on my home wifi so when I get in the next morning, it has updated.