Do other head units show track data and length of track / time remaining?
I got an Atoto S8 g2 and when listening to an audio book or lecture from my phone, it just shows spectrogram dancing lines to the audio being played. It tells me the name of the file on top, but I really miss being able to see how far into the file I am. I had another head unit (Linux based) that showed me the duration etc, and I could scrub through the track by holding ff/rr on the steering wheel or the radio controls.
I kinda miss that. Is this just an Atoto thing or do all Android powered head units work this way?
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Hi,
So I am looking to buy a android headunit for my VW preferably in this style...
https://www.eonon.com/upload/product/Gallery/GA8153/GA8153-01.jpg
My current one I have got is a Joying 8inch which is similar to the one in the picture however the subwoofer had a seperate level control which was annoying because whenever you turn your speaker volume down, the sub woofer was still playing really loudly, you would then have to turn the subwoofer adjustment down as well so I had enough of it and gave it to my brother. I am now searching for another one however my BIG need is that I want the subwoofer and speakers to be controlled together using the volume knob.. I dont want to be driving and adjusting the volume knob as well as adjusting the subwoofer level on top of it. Its a silly design and all the new head units seem to have this!?
Any ways here is what I would like with the headunit:
WIFI
Bluetooth
Navigation
USB port
Browsing youtube
CD/DVD drive
Split screen/ Multitasking
Dashcam setup with DVR built into the head unit...
Here is the one I have seen https://www.eonon.com/Android-Car-G...a-Core-GPS-Navigation-System-Touchscreen.html
Have already pre ordered it but the stock wont be in till 8th january so I can still look around and find something else which might be better... Any recommendations guys? I love the fact this has a 8 core CPU but then it comes with the annoying subwoofer level adjustment which makes no sense to have. Would like a head unit without this sub woofer level adjustment feature.
Thank You.
Hi All - I've had a Joying Sofia 3GR head unit since March 2017. I need to replace it. I currently have a 2008 Nissan 350Z without Bose or navigation, if this helps in the discussion. I like, but certainly do not love my Sofia unit, overall the experience has gotten far, far too frustrating not to replace this head unit. So here's what I do not like about the unit, and what I'd like to fix with new hardware.
1 - Right off the bat, the unit doesn't fit into any double-din dash kits I have found for this car. I've tried Metra and Scosche kits for the 350z, and the unit is a few mm too wide and too tall for it. Given the way the Z's center stack is designed, going with a unit where the display sticks out and is wider and taller than double-din likely won't work as I only have about 10mm of wiggle room before it touches the HVAC controls or prevents me from opening the center console compartment.
2 - I'm looking for a new unit with capacitive or no buttons. My Joying unit's NAVI button mechanism has failed, so it's stuck in. In addition, the volume encoder randomly adjusts the volume without me touching it. I'll be driving and all of a sudden the volume rises quickly and drastically, I can't have that obviously, it's too large of a distraction. Ideally, I'd like to get my factory steering wheel volume controls back. This has proven difficult as the standard aftermarket steering wheel control modules in the industry are frustrating and there's little documentation about it at all, and I don't believe my car has a CANbus or anything similar. I don't want to stick a BT remote on the wheel, that's silly.
3 - GPS randomly dies completely and bringing it back is luck of the draw. If I go into the Car Settings app or any GPS utility app, it cannot reach satellites. Ever. I've tried a reboot, I've tried manual A-GPS refreshes, I've tried making sure the date/time is correct, I've tried factory resetting it. Nothing, absolutely nothing fixes it with consistency, factory resets have gotten it back sometimes, but not always, and not currently. I guess this could be hardware, I just don't know. Navigation is a big part of why I decided to get one of these units in the first place.
4 - Poor performance. I'm trying to have to interact with the unit as little as possible. I'd like to be able to quickly set the music I want to hear, or the navigation destination of my choice, and have it work as reasonably well as say, my phone does. Currently, the Sofia unit hiccups, gets stuck, crashes, sound glitches, etc often. Usually at least once a day.
5 - Poor sound quality. It just doesn't sound as good as my factory CD player did. Not even close. I was able to get it sounding great with Viper4Android, but that takes up too much CPU headroom, so everything else will glitch, heat up, etc so it's not viable. Also since the 6.0 update, I can't use the EQ function in Viper, which is a large reason of why I was able to get it sounding good previously.
Does anyone have an Android unit that they love, and that actually works with consistency?
I wrote up a review here [Review] ATOTO A6 Install in Subaru WRX, but the bottom line is that i'm happy with ATOTO A6 Pro. I wont repeat the details here, but it addresses most of your needs and I was able to get the steering wheel controls working in my older car.
Quick review of the subject unit, which is an Android 8.0 Octa Core Car DVD GPS Player For Audi A6 1997–2004 Radio Navigation
unit. It is the one found on dvdplayer.c0m.cn although updated.
Not too many choices for the C5 Audi A6 (1998 -- 2004 in the US), so went with this one since it looks fairly like the RNS-E I had in there previously. It's a bit too deep black, not too noticeable except when directly lit by sunlight. I bought mine through Top Navi off of eBay, quick shipping and good communication. They asked for confirmation photo of dashboard and a description of installed equipment (existing navigation, with or without Bose). Unit came set up with Bose-level outputs (between line-out and fully amplified, from what I understand) and signal to power on the amp. Also came with an antenna amplifier, which is apparently required if the vehicle has a shark-fin antenna (Maybe all VWs? Don't know for sure.)
Initially my car battery was being drained overnight, which was just a bit annoying. On the Pumpkin forum, Pumpkin recommended cutting the yellow wire (always hot) to the CAN gateway, which worked. Apparently some interaction between the gateway and the vehicle CAN system prevents the car's CAN system from shutting down.
I wanted the head unit to operate as much like the stock unit as possible, such as shutting down only when opening the door (key off). I found the wires running from the car's Comfort and Convenience unit to the driver's side window control panel and spliced the head unit's Aux power feed to that, rather than key-on Aux power. Radio shuts down now (soft shutdown) when the door is opened, rather then when turning off the key. (The wires are red w/ gray stripe, red connector under the footwell side cover.) I have no steering wheel buttons (It's an RS6, so no buttons), so haven't done anything else with CAN or KEY wires so far, but intend to add hard buttons for radio station change at some point -- can't stand touch screen for that type of thing.
The launcher is pretty ugly, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change the Music button to launch A2DP, which I would much prefer. The unit uses an ST 7851 amplifier, and sounds every bit as good as the RNS-E (well, it's feeding the Bose amp, so no reason why it wouldn't.) Radio reception is good, no worse than the RNS-E. The screen is most often bright enough in daylight, but is low-contrast and can get washed out. the buttons feel solid. The IGO nav kept looking to the SD to finish installing, although the seller swears that it should be looking at internal storage. I deleted IGO for now, will re-download and start from scratch at some point. The internal mic works well enough, as in I'm intelligible, although apparently I sound like I'm in a small, echoe-y room. I'll hard-wire an external mic at some point.
Overall, it's a pretty good unit for the money, if a bit unpolished.
Hi all,
I posted this in the Joying forum but have had no success so figured I'd try my luck here too.
I just installed a Joying JY-VQ131N4GN Android 10 unit with newest firmware shipped into my '14 VW Passat with Fender Audio. Here are some of the issues I am running into and hope other people that may have experienced/solved these problems can help. I purchased the Can bus option for my vehicle and it was supposed to be plug and play.
1. Rear speaker output is very low for all output types (radio, android auto, BT audio, etc.). When fader setting is moved all the way to the rear, I get no sound at all from the rears. I don't know if this is due to the headunit or the Fender DSP located in the car's amp. I messed with the volume balance in the factory menu but I didnt notice any difference. I ordered a 12v bench tester and will test the speaker outs directly from the headunit soon.
2. The Joying supplied BT Music app/shortcut sends you to the BT phone app when used in a launcher. Sometimes it does this even when using the native launcher/UI.
3. I am unable to set custom steering wheel control buttons within the unit. It says to "hold down button to learn" or something like that but when I hit (and hold) any button it just does what the original button normally does (I am trying to change the phone button on the steering wheel to play/pause).
4. Hand brake sensor is backwards, when the handbrake is off, the headunit says it is activated and vice versa.
5. The unit won't switch from Celsius to Fahrenheit even after changing it in the setting menu. However, car launcher pro does allow switching to Fahrenheit but the top of the screen still reads Celsius regardless.
Chief Underverse said:
Hi all,
I posted this in the Joying forum but have had no success so figured I'd try my luck here too.
I just installed a Joying JY-VQ131N4GN Android 10 unit with newest firmware shipped into my '14 VW Passat with Fender Audio. Here are some of the issues I am running into and hope other people that may have experienced/solved these problems can help. I purchased the Can bus option for my vehicle and it was supposed to be plug and play.
1. Rear speaker output is very low for all output types (radio, android auto, BT audio, etc.). When fader setting is moved all the way to the rear, I get no sound at all from the rears. I don't know if this is due to the headunit or the Fender DSP located in the car's amp. I messed with the volume balance in the factory menu but I didnt notice any difference. I ordered a 12v bench tester and will test the speaker outs directly from the headunit soon.
2. The Joying supplied BT Music app/shortcut sends you to the BT phone app when used in a launcher. Sometimes it does this even when using the native launcher/UI.
3. I am unable to set custom steering wheel control buttons within the unit. It says to "hold down button to learn" or something like that but when I hit (and hold) any button it just does what the original button normally does (I am trying to change the phone button on the steering wheel to play/pause).
4. Hand brake sensor is backwards, when the handbrake is off, the headunit says it is activated and vice versa.
5. The unit won't switch from Celsius to Fahrenheit even after changing it in the setting menu. However, car launcher pro does allow switching to Fahrenheit but the top of the screen still reads Celsius regardless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looking to get this exact head unit. Did you ever overcome these issues?
I have an Atoto S8 G2 and I use a lot of bluetooth streaming from my phone for things like podcasts.
I used to have a more basic touchscreen bluetooth head unit that showed the name of the track, artist, etc, all while sitting on a home screen with the clock and a moving line that showed the playback position in the track/file/song/etc, as well as minute/second marker. This was useful because I could press-and-hold ff or rew to move along inside whatever I'm listening to, much like an old school CD player.
I'm a little bit disappointed at how my Android unit handles bluetooth streaming. The screen just shows the track name and artist name, and then a HUGE MOVING DISTRACTING OSCILLOSCOPE STYLE DANCING BARS. I'm including a picture to illustrate. It's ugly and annoying, and there is no indication of where I'm up to in the track/title, nor is there a way to move the position around with buttons or any other methods. If I don't like looking at that dancing line of audio levels, I can press home but then it doesn't show me anything at all. I'd like to glance at which part of a lecture or book series etc I'm in before I shut off the car. It's silly the way it looks, there must be a better way! Is this how all Android head units handle Bluetooth A2DP / streaming, or just Atoto?
Also, if I use Android Auto (plug in, etc) and then disconnect it, it doesn't go back to Bluetooth mode. I understand if I switch sources to radio or something else, it shouldn't go back. But if I plugged in my phone, then next time I get in my car and decide I don't need AA, but I'm wondering why there's no sound coming out... it's because I'm still in AA mode!! Is there a way to automatically go back to the last mode when AA / Carplay finishes a session, much like a phone call would go back?