Android On Board

Sadly, I have not recruited Lieutenant Commander Data to be my helmsman. But I have been playing with a new Android head unit in my Subaru WRX. Seicane agreed to send me this unit for the cost of shipping from China. Preliminary installation was a breeze, as I demonstrate here:

I say “preliminary” because I’ve discovered I have a little more wiring to do. I neglected to provide power to the AM/FM antenna amplifier, resulting in poor radio reception. That’s just a matter of connecting one wire. I also only have some, not all, of my steering wheel controls enabled with the provided wiring. It seems I need to jumper another cable to make that work. I may commit the YouTube sin of reposting the video with the addition of these wiring connections.

But having Waze on my dashboard while streaming music from Pandora? Excellent! My phone can stay in my pocket, as long as I turn on my personal hotspot first. The unit has WiFi but not built in cellular. I’m seriously considering adding a USB hotspot in the future so it can operate independently of my phone.

I’ll be doing a full review for The Drive as well as a review video. I’ll also be upgrading the WRX’s fog light bulbs to LED this weekend to see if I can make them useful for anything at all, which they aren’t right now except for looks.

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