Team-BHP - Wireless Android Auto Dongle for your car using Raspberry Pi Zero W

Quote:

Originally Posted by hardilip (Post 5829630)

Thanks for the great and useful DIY.

For sometime now, I wanted to get a wireless Android Auto / Car Play from amazon but all those models that I have seen the reviews weren't so convincing. They all had one or other issues (lag / some features weren't working etc) also I wasn't sure to spend 5 - 6K on a product that wasn't reliable / identifiable by a known brand name.

I am sure this will be far better than those products within (max) 1.5K price range. So thanks for this.

Have got couple of questions hope you don't mind answering them,

1. Apart from the lag you mentioned was there any feature that didnt work with this setup (like phone calls receiving / answering or navigation etc)

2. Can we use 2W instead of W will the performance be better? Will there be any changes to the above procedure when we use 2W

3. Was there any overheating issue and device being non responsive kind of an issue?

Thanks in advance and thanks once again for the DIY.

1. No, all features were working just like using Wired Android Auto.

2. Yes we can use different versions of the Raspberry Pi boards. But the flash files shall be different. Please find the list of the flash files along with the file names.

raspberrypi0w – Raspberry Pi Zero W

raspberrypizero2w – Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

raspberrypi3a – Raspberry Pi 3A+

raspberrypi4 – Raspberry Pi 4

Though, I have tried with Raspberry Pi Zero W, it should work good with other boards also. Fellow BHPian abnalx has tried with 2 W.

3. These boards heat up fast. So its better to use a heatsink case. I haven't faced any non responsive issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by amritpal2489 (Post 5829697)

I am more interested in knowing how's the performance of this wireless vs the actual wired connection now that you have been using this set up for a while. Can you please elaborate on this?

As per my use in my Nexon, it’s just the same as that of Wired Android Auto. Haven't felt any performance issue.

Thank you for the DYI post, this is very helpful. I did purcase zero 2w and went though the steps to setup the OS on the pi. I have an after market Sony XAV-AX3200, my phone connects to the pi and andriod auto gets triggered but it keeps saying it is looking for an andriod auto device? AA doesn't actually show up in the headunit. I shall post in the GitHub thread for help but if anyone here knows what needs to be done, please let me know, thank you.

Hey. Thanks for the guide. I read about this GitHub repo on BeeBom a few days ago and was intrigued if anyone had tried it yet and here you are.��

I have 2 questions -
1. Can you switch devices without turning it off if both were paired beforehand?
2. How has it affected the battery life on your phone if any?

I have a Pixel and my friend's car has wireless Android Auto and the battery of my phone drains very fast over wireless connection. The wired connection on the other end charges the phone.
So do you see any difference going from wired to wireless?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonmi-451 (Post 5831399)

I hope your phone is connected to the Wifi name AAWirelessDongle.
And you have turned on the Bluetooth on your phone.

If its not working, try flashing a previous version of the repo from GitHub

Quote:

Originally Posted by vjndr32 (Post 5831512)

I assume it's possible to switch devices, though I haven't tried it myself yet. As for battery drain, I haven't encountered any issues so far. However, it's expected that keeping Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on will consume some amount of battery.

1. Does this setup support Carplay as well?

2. In case of AA, hotspot goes through HU hotspot while internet still works via sim. Is that the case with this setup as well or the internet is hindered? With other hotspot based accessories, internet does not work since phones usually can handles one network at a time. Only in case of AA wifi works for AA and sim for internet

Quote:

Originally Posted by fspeed100 (Post 5829212)

Wireless Android Auto Dongle for Your Car Using Raspberry Pi Zero W

...

It's actually impressive, but it's too much hassle, time and well there's the question of reliability. I got myself the MSXTTLY SMT-AC01 Wireless AA/CarPlay adapter from Amazon for like 6K. It's smaller than a pendrive, no hassle of wires and a big Ic board, feels like it's not even there.

Here's the Amazon link if anyone's curious...
https://amzn.in/d/dv19R8Q

And my Video review of the Same
https://youtu.be/_kf2WT-kLy0

Quote:

Originally Posted by fspeed100 (Post 5829344)

You can get the Raspberry Pi Zero W from the following Link

Thank you sir 👏👏. Got all the parts delivered and assembled it. Works well with my Altroz. Thank you so much. I have some doubts, with the setup now.

1. The phone started heating and I was able to feel it.

2. The module remains on, even after the car is turned off.

Are these things normal with this setup.

Thank you, appreciate your help.

A big thanks to fspeed100 for the pictorial guide and the purchase links. When I first saw this on Beebom I got quite interested. fspeed100's guide and specially the link to purchase the board and cage helped. I can confirm that it's working flawlessly for Tata Harrier with Raspberry Pi Zero 2W.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonmi-451 (Post 5831399)

my phone connects to the pi and andriod auto gets triggered but it keeps saying it is looking for an andriod auto device? AA doesn't actually show up in the headunit.

I faced the same issue initially, and it might be the cable. Try a good quality cable which supports both data and power and see if it works. Some cables are power only or are not good at data transfer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvamshi04 (Post 5831871)

1. The phone started heating and I was able to feel it.

2. The module remains on, even after the car is turned off.

Are these things normal with this setup.

1. Since the phone uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to connect to the device, it might get warm. If it's nothing more than warm, it should be fine.

2. The module would remain ON as long as there is power in the AA USB port. It stays ON in my Harrier for sometime after I lock the vehicle and then shuts down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fspeed100 (Post 5829212)

[Wireless Android Auto Dongle for Your Car Using Raspberry Pi Zero W

Thank you so much for brining this to my notice! It saved be a quiet a few bucks and the sense of accomplishment is amazing (Even though it's technically plug and play :uncontrol). I 3D printed a case for it and happy to have it working flawlessly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonmi-451 (Post 5831399)

I had the same problem because I connected the USB cable to the "pwr" port on the Raspberry Pi. After correcting my mistake and connecting it to "USB" port on the Pi (the left port on the board) the problem was solved and it worked perfectly. Maybe this solves your problem too.

I picked one up for myself from a chinese drop shipping site for 3600 bucks.
Here's the link:

Its a knock off or probably an OEM of the "Carlinkit 5.0 (2air)"
It's holding up really great for the price.

Drawbacks:

1) My phone (S21FE) heats up and drains faster, which I fixed with a nasty move, I bought a mag safe equivalent wireless charger (900rs) that can be mounted on the AC vent. It came with a metal ring which I applied behind my phone case (adhesive is mind-blowingly strong to overcome the magnetic force which is really strong to begin with, so much that my phone only fell down once over a pothole because I placed it in a completely wrong position). Whenever I do a longer trip, I throw my phone into the charger that cools the phone as well as charges it (charging speed is 3.5ish hours for 20 to 100, but the rate of charging is ever so slightly higher than the rate of discharge from the wireless connection), so it's a win for me :cool:

2) Sometimes the phone connects to my headunit first instead of the Device, so when I receive a call, The other person cannot hear me, I have to click the switch to handset and again back to switch to Bluetooth everytime for them to start hearing me. But, Issue goes away if I unpair the car's head unit from my phone. Happens once or twice a month, I can live with it.

Only time will tell the reliability of my setup ;)

Firstly, love the DIY job. clap:
I'm very tempted to do this. however, I have the following query

I have a external screen (a Chinese one AA and CarPlay enabled) which can be connected to the car through AUX or FM.
When we connect AA, the audio from the phone is always routed to the the screen, unlike Apple CarPlay where the audio can be routed to another device.

My car's built-in HU has Bluetooth connectivity, but no display screen, so I'd like to use the Chinese screen for the AA projection and route the audio to the car's built-in HU, thereby avoiding more wires for AUX or connecting using lousy FM. I have researched plenty and realised that the default AA setting does not allow the audio to be routed to different device. However, the AAWireless dongle (https://www.aawireless.io/) has the ability to disable the 'Audio sink' and route it to another BT device. This is a perfect solution, but the dongle is expensive not available in India.

Does this Raspberry Pi device and the accompanying software have a feature to disable the audio sink?

It works for me now, thank you very much. Initially I was connecting the cable from the head unit to the power-in micro usb socket, once I switched to the other socket it started working. Best part is I don't notice any lag now compared to the wired connection.

One advice to anyone planning to do this later - purchase the Pi zero 2w instead of the pi zero w model, it is a newer and faster unit. It has four cores while the old one only has a single core. Price difference is just 100 odd rupees.