Can anyone recommend a suitable tablet/SBC/TV Box that can support both HDMI OUTPUT at the same time as allowing USB OTG / USB Devices to be connected?
There’s no tablet with a suitable size to replace my dash, so I purchased a 10.3" ultrawide dispaly designed for vehicle virtual dashboards. I have a Nexus 7 and using the “Slimport” adapter I can mirror my tablet.
The problem with the Slimport is that it disabled USB OTG… something to do with the how it works and that is has to disable OTG as it’s ‘re-purposing’ the USB port.
So, what I need to find now, is an android device that is capable of HDMI output as well as allowing USB such as a USB reversing camera and also my Arduino I will have to be using (OBD is too slow, plus I need inputs for the indicators etc anyways)
I thought about Android TV Boxes, but the trouble with those, is their boot times are pretty slow - too slow for jumping in the car and going somewhere and I wouldn’t want to leave it powered 24/7 to drain the battery. I don’t want to be in a situation where if I haven’t used me car for 2 days I find the battery dead.
So, any recommendations?
Edit: I did look into Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, which are really good - however because they don’t support the Google Play store, so far as I know, it’s not possible to purchase and download dashes. I wonder if I can use TitaniumBackup or similar to make a backup of RD from my Nexus with purchased dashes as an installable APK - eg it will install everything needed “locally” including my purchase receipts or however it works, so that the all dashes will still work
Out of curiosity, did you get the Basic version (2GB Ram) or the Pro version (4GB Ram) ?
EDIT
Just ordered VIM3 Pro (4GB Ram, 32GB EMMC)
I’ve also ordered an in car charger “Anker USB Type C Car Charger Power Drive PD 2 30W 2-Port with 18W Power Delivery for MacBook Pro/Air 2018, iPad Pro 2018 and 12W PowerIQ for iPhone XS/Max/XR/X, Samsung S10/S9/S9+ etc.” which via USB-C offers 5v @ 3A, 9v @ 2A (The second USB is 5v 2.4A but won’t be used)
Next question is, as this has a GPIO header board, is there some kind of input shield I can buy so I can add inputs from indicators and such? Seems slightly daft to have an extra Arduino Device doing it all, if I can instead use some kind of shield / HAT for this instead
I think that this is possible without arduino. But in order to activate the GPIO on the android, you have to sweat.
Although who knows … Everyone should go their own way.
P.S.
I used to think Arduino was an empty trinket too. I have not yet received the instrument for setting it up and I realized that he can. Now that I have made success on Arduino - I do not think that this is a kindergarten))))
Ok - My thought was simply to reduce the number of gadgets needed, but thinking about it, you raise a good point - the GPIO is probably only useful if running a Linux (or maybe windows also) OS.
Using Android I suspect it’d be far harder, and therefore much better to just use an Arduino via USB
I have a BMW Z4 E85 - the speed and revs ARE on CAN BUS (OBD is slow, so would probs use a can shield so get the info from the bus without needing to “probe” it like with OBD). Indicators etc are NOT on CAN BUS, their info is on the K-Bus, so I gotta try and figure out what’s the best solution really.
I’ve designed and made myself an ESP32 based CANBUS / K-Bus combi-shield so can read both K-Bus and CAN BUS at the same time and then hopefully send to RealDash via USB
Since you say you’ve already made an Arduino solution, would you mind sharing it? I’ve looked at the example on Github, but my brain sometimes works better with a working IRL example (Eg, one that’s in use)
The fact is that I used this particular example. Just set your meanings - nothing new.
The one how exactly I sketch for arduino I unfortunately can not share. This is private for my business
