Although most modern cars have moved to using proprietary components nearly everywhere, especially when it comes to infotainment systems, for a brief moment which peaked in the 90s and 00s most cars shipped with radios that fit in a standard size opening called a DIN slot. If you wanted a new Pioneer or Kenwood stereo it was usually a simple matter to slide the factory radio out and put your choice of aftermarket head unit in its place. [Stefan] has an E39 BMW from this era and wanted to upgrade the factory radio but use the original hardware instead of replacing it.
This isn’t just a simple stereo upgrade either. [Stefan] has gone all-out for this build which he started in 2020. Beginning with a Kotlin/Jetpack Compose Linux application to handle control input from the vehicle’s various knobs and buttons he moved on to a map application and an on-screen keyboard. From there he implemented VGA to send video to the OEM screen, and now has a fully functional system based on a Raspberry Pi. It does everything the original unit can do including playing music and showing the feed from the backup camera, plus adds plenty of new, modern features like Bluetooth.
For a certain classic car enthusiast, this build hits a sweet spot of modernizing a true classic like the E39 without removing or permanently modifying any OEM components. The amount of work that went into it is pretty staggering as well, with [Stephan] putting in over 100 hours of work just to get the video signal timing correct. We also like it because it reminds us of the flash-in-the-pan “carputer” trend from the late 00s where people in the pre-smartphone age were shoving all kinds of computing horsepower in their trunks.
I wonder how easy this would be to implement in a modern car.
I’d sure prefer not to be spied on as I drive, but my 2006 range rover sure isn’t gonna last forever.
The few (Western*) infotainment systems I’ve looked at run some variant of embedded Windows or Android so it may be possible to get root fairly easily on the Android ones at least.
If you can root the device then lots of things become possible but you need to be careful as they are hooked into the CAN bus and ‘unintended stuff’ could happen
As for spying on you, I guess you could just wait for the cellular technology to age out and then buy a ‘new to you’ car that used the old cell tech.
Or, you could go the long route and gut the unit to fit your own hardware inside like this project.
I’ve yet to dig into and explore the Japanese head units I bought but they look interesting, multiple SD cards, even a spinning rust hard disk drive! There is a little info which suggests, at least some of them use Android too and even a couple of videos showing them being ‘rooted’ so apps can be sideloaded
You could make it last forever if you really wanted
It’s not that you wanted a new radio, but rather needed a new one after previous was stolen.
Was it really a brief moment in the 90’s? I feel like you could put a two knob five button radio in most cars for a lot longer than that, like I had one in my 1970’s jeep and found something that would fit in a late 1960’s oldsmobile, and while the kenwoods weren’t five button, they had the same general dimension, including the spacing between the volume and tuner knobs.
And if it didn’t fit, a Dremel could make it fit.
Ha, a Dremel. Andrew Camarata installed a new car radio using a chain saw to make it fit.
The fun part is that he was not doing that for Youtube views, but simply because it was the first tool he came across that “could” do the job. The result was surprisingly not as bad as expected.
But different wiring connectors at the back, of course!
I don’t know what the author is on about, most cars (though admittedly no longer all) still come with a 2-DIN unit that can be easily replaced with an aftermarket one using the proper trim adapter.
I dunno, I find most of the aftermarket ones jarringly different to the original car aesthetic, it’s not something that would stop me (I’d definitely keep the old head unit somewhere safe though) but there are a lot of people who really like to keep their cars looking as original as possible.
I just had a dream about an E39 M5 last night. Nothing more constructive to ad. Just reminded me how much I want one.
Add* ugh