[x3aniac]

Hello,

A video popped up of an AndroidAuto and CarPlay unit, and I figured well that would be cool to make. Maybe anyone has worked or understands what is needed to make this kind of unit? Are most of these units made on Raspberry PI? What OS should I use? Maybe anyone can tell what's the OS from the image that I've added (a lot of sellers use it)?

I've got a PRELCI F25 with a CIC small screen.

Any help is appreciated.

[burningmango]

Typically the units that replace the entire iDrive screen run Android. But building one from scratch looks like a challenge.

From my understanding, you would need to get power from the same source as the radio unit, either from the quadlock harness or something. Using the quadlock method would be better to get data from the canbus to read the iDrive control knob inputs to get onto your Raspberry PI.

Next, you would need to intercept the LVDS video output signal from the iDrive central unit to go thru your Raspberry PI and overlay your alternative OS onto the screen. Also finding a way to have an HDMI switch-like interface to switch back to the original BMW iDrive OS because vital things such as oil measurement, tire pressure monitoring etc live in there.

Then finally, finding a way to output your audio signal back to the car, for cars that use CIC, audio from these 3rd party unit add-ons just goes thru a 3.5mm AUX jack into the center console.

I could be completely wrong, but this is my best guess on how these units work.

[MSport_Jon]

Go for it... you can do it!