Running Raspberry Pi natively in a Honda Civic

http://www.technologytell.com/in-car-tech/8104/running-raspberry-pi-natively-in-a-honda-civic-oh-the-possibilities/

by xkarga00 • 12 years ago

27 17 12 years ago

technologytell.com

alongenemylines• 12 years ago

bluetooth OBD II reader and a bluetooth adapter for the pi, and you'd have instant vehicle stats.

RankingMember3• 12 years ago

Or just run Torque on an Android phone and have the same thing.

sounds• 12 years ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=raspberry+pi+site%3Amp3car.c... has all kinds of similar builds

piqufoh2• 12 years ago

TL;DR Man uses HDMI port to drive HDMI monitor. [HDMI monitor is in car and HDMI port is on Raspberry Pi, but this doesn't really matter as no other features of car nor pi where used.]

RankingMember3• 12 years ago

Haha exactly what I gleaned from this article. Big whoop.

3am• 12 years ago

Yeah, but it's more interesting than reading an (n+1)th opinion on Oculus/FB or another angry, well-paid engineer that doesn't understand the difference between no-recruit and no-hire policies.

I have an old car (no HDMI or anything! It doesn't even have an automatic transmission) so this kind of gets my hacker juices flowing in a way that would have otherwise like 1) gps + wireless addones & google maps in some creative way 2) figure out how to attach a couple of cmoses on it and create a 360 degree display.

edit: or infrared cameras, that could be fun. That said, the article itself is severely lacking.

edit: strawberry pie :) ok, that's funny.

piqufoh2• 12 years ago

I do agree, and it did provoke in me some genuinely interesting ideas for a car + rpi, I just got annoyed by the breathlessly impressed tone of the reporter!

It's like I showed my Mum what I could do with my rpi and she wanted to impress her friends with this strawberry pie computerjingo - not good tech journalism.

chillingeffect• 12 years ago

The thing I despise about this and many other techno-dreaming articles is that they leave it up to the reader to do all the work of dreaming:

"I love where that train of thought is going"
"the sky’s the limit."
"it opens the door to some serious possibilities."

Such as WHAT WHAT WHAT? I refuse to fill in the blanks here. The author is gassing me up to get me on board to figure out some brilliant use for their trivial activity.

And I don't think the author even knows, they're just trying to generate hype.

RankingMember3• 12 years ago

Yep, I saw a lot of this when the Arduino came out as well. It's cool, but it was written about like it was the invention of fire. "The possibilities are endless...now what the hell do I actually want to do with this thing..."

benkillin• 12 years ago

Why is this a story? Did they do anything other than plugging a device with hdmi output into a device with hdmi input? I expected to see some sort of special UI configuration to make the pi more ideal for being operated in a car at the very least.

moron4hire• 12 years ago

What does "natively" mean in this context? It's a bit like saying my RPi is running "natively" in my "livingroom" when I plug it in to my "TeeVee".

What would it matter, either? I thought the CANBUS in the latest Hondas is encrypted now, and the OBDII was using proprietary codes. So you could make a goofy media player out of it. You're not going to actually do anything with real vehicle telemetry unless you use a app like Torque that has a database of reverse engineered codes.

Honestly, it'd be better if I plugged my Samsung Note 3 into that very same HDMI port. You're better off buying a used Android for the same price as the RPi, because at least that Android would have usable sensors in it and an UI subsystem built around touch and voice input. You might even be able to get network access on it. I mean, he's already planning on having an Android device around to use for network access on the RPi. The RPi is literally doing nothing here.

Buy a $5 MSP430. Hell, if you're spending $50+ on an RPi, buy 10 MSP430s. Install Energia. Use SPI to communicate between your laptop and your MSP430. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get it to work with Android, too. You'll be able to do significantly more than you can with the RPi.

exelius• 12 years ago

RPi runs Linux -- which is infinitely easier to develop for than an MSP430 or Android. You probably could interface with the vehicle telemetry, but you would do it like you would with any PC: through some proprietary USB adapter.

The whole benefit of the RPi is that it gives you access to a ton of open source software and low-cost hardware in a cheap embedded platform. Try adding Wi-Fi to an MSP430; it will take an XBee and a ton of code to make it work. With an RPi, it's as easy as buying a $15 USB Wi-Fi dongle and configuring the interface.

unwind• 12 years ago

A very strange piece, as other have observed.

My favorite part was:

Getting a homebrew Raspberry Pi interface to be usable while driving would take some finagling, as Gold said the Honda Civic would not show HDMI input unless the car was in Park. But give gearheads and Linux geeks enough time, and they’d figure out a way around that constraint. Once that obstacle is overcome, the sky’s the limit. (Insert obligatory safety warnings about not streaming movies while driving here.)

So, they realize the car is designed by, one assumes, people who know something about designing cars, but still just take it for granted that it's desirable to use a full-blown computer on a home-grown interface while driving a car. Why? In many countries you're not even allowed, by law, to use a cellphone while driving. Doesn't that make some kind of sense? Why would you make it sound like some kind of silly restriction, best defeated? Aargh. I don't want to die because some random "gearhead" is fiddling with his home-built GUI, trying to show a movie, while driving.

I'm as much of a Linux geek as the next guy, but I still don't think it sounds like a good idea to use a computer while driving.

bnycum• 12 years ago

A lot of cars these days are coming with complicated touch screen displays, shockingly. Can't say that a home-built GUI would be any worse than my friend's aftermarket Pioneer with tiny on screen buttons. I haven't looked at car stereos in probably 5 years, but I'm sure this still is the case. Aftermarket screens required you to wire up to the emergency brake, instead people just grounded it out to the car frame and it worked while driving.

pthreads• 12 years ago

Man plugs RPi into small monitor in car! Wow, such techno! So hip! Very inno!

jestinjoy1• 12 years ago

Whats big deal here?

adav• 12 years ago

A much more interesting talk from this year's QCon London by Simon Ritter: http://qconlondon.com/dl/qcon-london-2014/slides/SimonRitter...

Running Raspberry Pi natively in a Honda Civic

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