Using a Raspberry Pi and Emteria for in-car touchscreen device.

Blabzillaweasel

Hi there,

I'm looking to make an in-car gauge display / GPS / Spotify unit, I've been looking into using Android phones paired with external USB+HDMI Touchscreens but I haven't been able to find much information into how well they are supported.

I have also been considering using a Raspberry Pi with EmteriaOS and a Waveshare 7" TouchScreen LCD.

My main requirements are as follows:

Must support Touchscreen
Must have working bluetooth for connection to Arduino that provides the gauge inputs

Ideally support GPS
Ideally support mobile data via SIM Card

I'm not too sure what touchscreens EmteriaOS 100% supports out of the box, and if EmteriaOS / RaspberryPi supports any GPS / sim units out of the box.

I have been doing a bit of searching and how found some threads along the same line, but nothing with solid answers that allow me to move forward.

Any information on parts that will work together would be greatly appreciated!

Martin

Hi @Blabzillaweasel,
I don't understand one thing - would you like to use Raspberry only as "external display" for some android phone (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq1TR78kpL4) or as device with GPS receiver connected via bluetooth?

I have been struggling with a similar project since last summer and it's still not OK for 100%. I would like to have satnav device for my car. You can find some of my experiences here #574 and here #552

I tried 3 GPS applications:
1) Mapfactor navigator with OSM maps - if switched to SW rendering then it works fine and stable.
2) Waze has serious displaying problems and in my case this app causes the system to freeze.
3) Google maps + MicroG - is working only if I am not logged to Google account (MicroG issue). In addition, this application is very consuming the CPU and memory. I had to restart system couple of times because in the Raspberry, both these resources are very limited.

However, I would like to draw attention to the fact that GPS applications consume the most of Raspberry performance and I am not sure if it's possible to run Spotify in background.

BTW, my Raspberry PI 3B+ is connected to 7'' touchscreen (https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-touch-display) and Navilock USB GPS receiver (u-blox 5 chipset).

webfischi

@Martin did you try the newest version? v0.6.2 is running pretty good. I've been struggling to get the 5GHz hot spot running

Martin

Yes @webfischi, I tried version 0.6.2. Still same problems.

Blabzillaweasel

Hi @Martin,

My original intention was to use the RaspberryPi as a standalone device running android, with a USB GPS receiver, LTE receiver (USB or Ethernet??), and a bluetooth receiver for communication with an Arduino.

However, I am also open to the idea of using the RaspberryPi as an external + touch input device for an Android phone if that's achievable with a wired connection and without using Android Auto.

I want to avoid Android Auto so I can use third party applications such as RealDash, and I want to use a wired connection so that the devices will power on and connect when the key is turned to ignition, without having to first use the phone and then manually connect it to the display.

Mind you, at that point it's probably easier to just use an external USB + HDMI touchscreen display directly with the Android phone, however I'm unsure just how compatible they are.

Martin

Hi @Blabzillaweasel, I use original Raspberry 7'' display https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-touch-display/ and USB GPS receiver with u-blox chipset. Both devices work well but I have doubts about usability of Raspberry as standalone car system because of performance, displaying and stability issues.

This weekend, I am experimenting with the Tinker board S. It looks hopeful, Waze works well, but Asus Android is much worse than Emteria. Attaching GPS, switch to portrait mode, microG etc - all is problematic and time consuming there. @IKS, just an idea but it would be great to have Emteria for Tinker board.

IKS

@Martin, we actually have the very first build for Tinkerboard for a couple of weeks already, but we can't find spare time to test it. Maybe we should publish it and let the community do it :wink:

Martin

Wow, it's great news. I should have know about it a week ago. BTW, is possible to boot it from internal storage of model 'S' ?

IKS

Not sure, our build is for the normal Tinkerboard (not S) and we know it boots from the sdcard. More testing is required.

Martin

Hi @IKS. Any news about Emteria for TinkerBoard 'S', please? I would like to test any beta.

IKS

No, we currently have no resources for this board.

Martin

As I wrote in some of my previous posts I had to move to "Tinker Board S" and Asus Android (TinkerOS) because of stability and performance issues of RPI 3B+. I was not able to make reliable SatNav device for my car.

Now, I am using Tinker Board S without issues and I am pretty sure that this board is much much better for implementation of Android than RPI 3B+. Asus Android with installed Google services and Play Store run smoothly there as on RPI without Google Services - especially, on the model S, because it has fast internal storage.

There is only one missing thing - the Emteria. Asus Android is worse. I think that Tinker Board S with the Emteria installed could be very interesting combination, especially for people which need installed Google Play Store for their devices.

IKS

Yes, the hardware is better, I agree with that. If we would have more resources, we would immediately start adding support for this board.

However, you should be very careful with Google Mobile Services in general, or Google Play Store in particular. I did some research and didn't find any confirmation that Asus Tinkerboard is certified to preinstall GMS. This could mean, that doing so actually violates Google's terms of usage, which may lead to severe consequences. I won't give you any advices, since I am not a lawyer. However, I am sure that even if we will add support for this hardware in future, we won't include GMS by default.

Martin

Yes, I know that usage of the Google services is "on the edge",but Google services TOS (3.3) disables only using of another interfaces, not provided by Google (e.g. the Yalp). In addition AsusTek is member of Open Handset Alliance, so I think Play Store / Services on the Tinker Board could be acceptable by Google.

IKS

OHA is only responsible for the specification of the OS APIs, not for the application development or device certification (https://www.android.com/certified/). Samsung, HTC and Motorola are also members of OHA, but they still have to pay royalties to Google for using Gogogle Mobile Services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_mobile_services) and they are not very happy with it (https://www.theinformation.com/articles/Google-s-Confidential-Android-Contracts-Show-Rising-Requirements).