I’m building a fully custom Infotainment UI

[Jinba ittai]

To what ends is an AI bot posting comments like this?

 

[911toEmira]

To what ends is an AI bot posting comments like this?

Could be a human using AI to generate a response , it’s 100% AI you don’t even need to run that through a detector

 

[virtualmacho]

Ghostwritten by Mr. Kaplan.

 

[Jinba ittai]

Could be a human using AI to generate a response , it’s 100% AI you don’t even need to run that through a detector

I agree, but why is a human doing this? I don’t understand the motivation.

 

[Beachbum]

Possibly english is not their first language? The persons profile says Pakistan

 

[911toEmira]

Possibly english is not their first language? The persons profile says Pakistan

This is fair

 

[Not A Camry]

Were you pulling CAN bus data through the OBD II port for your gauges? What is the CAN bus baud rate from the OBD II port?

 

[Sentinel]

Yep. Just using torque pro. It auto detected the baud rate so not sure.

 

[ShootingSight]

LOL. I'm late to the conversation, I just found this thread because I was looking to see if others thought the FM Radio feature on the car was as bad as I thought it was. Holy cow! Going through screen after screen, one half is showing favorites, the other side of the screen is showing what it picked up from scanning, but I can't tell which is playing. Some are identified by frequency, others by station name, others yet by format. A real mess.

 

[Jbrock]

The FM reception sounds like a 60's transistor radio. Apple Car Play, USB music is good but not great, but it's fine.

 

[boisecrawfords]

@Sentinel What about if we did an Upwork style campaign, kind of like an Escrow where everyone could put up money, and if enough was raised it made sense for you to proceed, and if not then we get our money back. All the funds would be locked by Upwork, so you're guaranteed to get paid, assuming you deliver on the objectives.

Thoughts?

 

[RoryBellows]

LOL. I'm late to the conversation, I just found this thread because I was looking to see if others thought the FM Radio feature on the car was as bad as I thought it was. Holy cow! Going through screen after screen, one half is showing favorites, the other side of the screen is showing what it picked up from scanning, but I can't tell which is playing. Some are identified by frequency, others by station name, others yet by format. A real mess.

i made the mistake of leaving the dealer before figuring the radio out and it was stuck on npr for 20 min till i found the tuning tab.

 

[FST]

@Sentinel What about if we did an Upwork style campaign, kind of like an Escrow where everyone could put up money, and if enough was raised it made sense for you to proceed, and if not then we get our money back. All the funds would be locked by Upwork, so you're guaranteed to get paid, assuming you deliver on the objectives.

Thoughts?

Sounds like a good plan.. im in

 

[Andrew's Verdant Green]

Sorry I'm late to the party here, but this is a very interesting project. I have had to educate myself on the difference between "Android Auto" and "Android Automotive" (AAOS) to begin to understand what is going on here. This is driven by my frustration with just how sad and pathetic the infotainment system is in this premium car. To me, it looks like a "C" undergraduate student's semester programming project started in the last week before it was due.

It appears that Sentinel's project is basically dedicating a low cost Android phone to be a permanent Android Auto source for the the car's built-in infotainment system, which may be AAOS. By using the built-in USB connector, the additional hardware is always connected, powered, and always available. I assume that the OBDII/CANbus functionality is though a dedicated BlueTooth OBDII dongle that connects to the additional hardware in the center console. Did I get that right? In addition, if the Android phone has wireless service and a WiFi access point, theoretically it can be a permanent internet gateway for the car, including OTA software updates. (As an experiment, I have tried adding a USB C to GbE dongle to get hardwired ethernet, but unlike a full Android phone, the car's software doesn't recognize it. Instead, I have a outside WiFi AP in the garage attic that my Emira can connect to while parked, but I have not seen it transfer much data.)

I am curious about the ability to load what are effectively apps/APKs onto the car's built-in infotainment system instead. Rather than an application running on external hardware (a phone), with the display output translated and compressed by Android Auto to be carried across the physical USB interface, then translated/decompressed and written to the physical display. Native applications on Android Automotive are available, and there are alternate "play stores" to Google's monopoly. (As I understand it, Google is in a bit of hot water in Europe for bundling their most popular apps as "GAS" to extort deals from automotive manufacturers and tie them to Google's play store only - Lotus is one of the manufacturers who have chosen to eschew Google GAS.) It appears that Android Automotive apps are nearly identical to Android Auto apps, possibly with a few bits toggled or a different header and magic number.

Unfortunately, Lotus has not added an app store option to the infotainment system, which seems to be the only way to add additional apps to the system. Unless there is a clever sideload method that I am unaware of, it seems to require developer settings at the minimum. If I am mistaken, or uninformed, please let me know. According to the AAOS Wikipedia page, Lotus has added AAOS to only the Eletre and Emeya, and not the Emira. I can find no further information on the implementation of the Emira's infotainment system So maybe it is not AAOS based, and perhaps QNX (ugh)? In that case, I think things will be a lot more difficult.

Starting points:

QNX vs AAOS (Android Automotive OS): Compare the Platforms​

Wikipedia: Android Automotive
QNX Car Platform for Infotainment
Installing Apps on Android Automotive: Everything You Need to Know

XDA Forums: Android Automotive OS​

​

​

 

[Andrew's Verdant Green]

Alas, as far as I can determine, Lotus has chosen QNX (now owned by Blackberry) for the Emira infotainment system. Online images of the QNX car package at work look exactly like our center console. That is why it is so spartan - this is the base build of the automotive package. Every search for apps and development comes up with the same Blackberry baloney filled marketing schlock web pages gushing about how wonderful QNX is, how it solves all your problems, and protects your teeth from cavities. Any further information requires contacting their marketing people. There are no specifics, tools, or even API implementation information freely available, hence no development community or online fora, much less "app stores." In my experience, this is what the death rattle of a dying proprietary company sounds like - I once did some development on QNX in the late 1990's and even back then they were a PITA. At this point in time, the availability of PREEMPT_RT in mainline Linux makes any future investments in QNX unlikely. There will be no updates to the UI or the Emira infotainment system, because this is all there is and all there ever will be. For example, Blackberry is still hyping their "7digital" support - a tech company that is so completely irrelevant in the 2020's that I had to spend 5 minutes researching them and I still don't know what they do other than "music."

That leaves "projection" through the Android Auto or Apple CarPlay as the only avenues of improving the infotainment system. Either a dedicated Android phone, or a RaspberryPi with LineageOS is needed to run essentially in parallel with QNX. I would guess that a RaspberryPi solution would boot up much faster - possibly faster than QNX - without all the additional software bloat and hardware in a cellphone. The RPi 5 now includes NVMe support too. But this all becomes a much bigger undertaking than being able to update or add apps to the in-car infotainment system.

And one other advantage is having a system that remembers your last settings and location, instead of always starting cold, in the wrong time zone, in downtown Detroit. Why Lotus could not maintain this information here in 2025 is beyond me.

 

[Jinba ittai]

Does this mean I can connect my Blackberry Bold?

 

[virtualmacho]

That leaves "projection" through the Android Auto or Apple CarPlay as the only avenues of improving the infotainment system. Either a dedicated Android phone, or a RaspberryPi with LineageOS is needed to run essentially in parallel with QNX. I would guess that a RaspberryPi solution would boot up much faster - possibly faster than QNX - without all the additional software bloat and hardware in a cellphone. The RPi 5 now includes NVMe support too. But this all becomes a much bigger undertaking than being able to update or add apps to the in-car infotainment system.

Agree. I would prefer a RaspberriPi solution over a dedicated "throw away" Android phone because it will allow you to upgrade the base system instead of being bound to a certain manufacturer's version of a certain time period. It may not be for everyone, but I think it would be a cool project. Just wish I had the expertise in this area...