
Running Raspberry Pi natively in a Honda Civic - xkarga00
http://www.technologytell.com/in-car-tech/8104/running-raspberry-pi-natively-in-a-honda-civic-oh-the-possibilities/
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piqufoh
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.]

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chillingeffect
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.

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RankingMember
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..."

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moron4hire
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.

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exelius
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.

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unwind
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.

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bnycum
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.

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

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benkillin
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.

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

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

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

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

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jestinjoy1
Whats big deal here?

