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Hackable In-Car GPS Unit?
gigne writes "I'm in the market for a new, in-car GPS/sat nav. I am preferably looking for one that has live, up-to-date traffic information and route planning that doesn't make you want to cry. I'm not quite dumb enough to drive off a cliff, but something that doesn't even try and lead me to watery doom is preferable. The only thing I absolutely must have is the ability to hack it. It would be preferable if it ran GNU/Linux, but given a convincing argument, I would be swayed to another OS. Without wanting the Moon on a stick, what is the best device that would offer a decent modding community and a good feature set?"
Tmobile G1 running telenav.
bam. done.
what about the android platform. telenav, and soon garmin will be on it.
When I drove from California to NC, I wrote a custom app that read the GPS lat/long coordinates, searched a database of 5000 fast food places, gas stations, and hotels within 1 mile of I-40, so I could find where I wanted to go even if it was 70 miles up the road, and hit a great big button to search for it so I wouldn't wreck my car, and then enter the coordinates in the navsat program to start driving me there.
Does that count as hacking it?
I did it on my PocketPC. Does that mean Windows Mobile still sucks and is useless for hackers?
Sure -- try a FreeRunner. Sure, it's nominally a smartphone but it's got your key requirements: GPS, decent graphics, networking, audio I/O, and ssh.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I think the market has lots of room for improvement. It would be nice to have, not just a GPS system, but an in-car computer. Imagine if the computer could hook up to OBD-II, odometer, speedometer, radio, rear-view camera, a cell/wireless network, and other in-car systems. It could track fuel usage on every trip, overlay Wikipedia geographic coordinates, log milage information for tax reasons, record traffic stops (even capturing a few minutes of video prior to the stop), and countless other things.
A good system would boot up in less than two seconds, start playing music where it left off, and instantly switch on a rear-view camera as soon as the car switches to reverse. Most existing systems have only a few of the aforementioned features, they tend to run fairly slow, and they have startup times that leave you wonting for music.
I think a feature-complete system would require a fast processor, a large display (probably requiring custom dashboard work), and a lot of wiring.
My own research turned up Navit which looks pretty good for the navigation piece.
I really would like an R2 unit / the earthly equivalent.
First, I have a penchant for getting lost. As in, it's happened in my own neighborhood -- GPS device, while in some ways it's a crutch, also helps me *learn* streets by taking me the (or a) correct way a few times. As the saying goes, sometimes crutches are useful.
Second, I like to drive long distances / cross-country (for instance: I plan to go east in not many weeks from now on this route -- and back to Seattle via a slightly less direct path -- ), and would like something that can fake AI pretty well as a travel aid. ("Infotainment!")
Right now I have a decent-enough (discontinued, middle-end) Garmin, which took me several GPS-buying attempts to settle on, and it does a lot of things well (interface is OK, and it plays MP3s). But a guy can dream ...
I know this is not yet a reasonable demand for products in my price range, but I'd like to be able to use moderately complex spoken demands / requests / ideas, Star Trek (or Star Wars, or Hitchhiker's Guide) fashion, some of which would require either a really big data store or (at least intermittently) an internet connection:
"Plot me a course to the nearest used bookstore, artoo."
"How much longer if I take a route with no tolls?"
"Does that Taco Bell have a 24 hour drive through?"
"What happened at this battlefield? Give me the short version."
"Play that interview from EconTalk.org about the difference between law and legislation, and then some up-tempo Bach."
"What are reviews like on this cheap motel?"
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It has a GPS and compass, wireless, maps and searching... And the full source code to the OS is available with a fairly good development environment, if you can cope with Java or wait for one of the other available scripting systems they're talking about. You want hackable? Do a "git" of the phone software source, and you can do a "make" to produce new firmware. With the exception of a few Google-only applications, like the gmail app, you've got everything you need. There are community members that are doing their own builds, I've had good luck with the jesusfreeke builds. I've written several applications with a friend of mine -- nothing GPS-based yet, but an IP address calculator and an app that turns the Android into a webcam, and will automatically take pictures and upload them to an HTTP or FTP server. See http://slackey.com/ for more information. The benefit is that if you can use it for your phone, it's not another device you have to keep with you and keep charged. The down-side is that it only works with GSM phone providers. The biggest thing for me has been that it's something I'd have to be carrying anything, for when I'm on-call. So, it's literally not another thing that I have to keep charged and with me. That's been the biggest issue I've had with the Palms and other GPS devices I've had, and the Nokia 770/N810. It's a GPS that is SO much more useful than the typical GPS. Of course, all IMHO. Sean
Get a PDA with window mount and a built-in GPS, few on deal extreme. Get one of those, buy TomTom's PDA versoin, comes on a CD. Available at their website. install it on the device. Also since this is a PDA that looks like a GPS, you can pretty much do what you want with it.
Here is one http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.8545
The first thing we need is free map data. All current maps have very tight legal terms, which makes this kind of thing impossible. Check out http://www.openstreetmap.org/, there might already be decent maps where you live. For navigation you can use TangoGPS but there are other programs available too.
Iphone has gps and you can do crazy stuff there ...
TomToms are linux based - download their source and change. GPL, it is what you're asking for...