The N7 can be easily removed and used like a regular tablet while you’re not in the car.The USB and headphone ports are not used. An inductive charger is mounted behind the N7. A bluetooth system such as a Novero TheTrulyOne is installed which interfaces with the stock head unit. The second approach is to mount the N7 to the dash using magnets or some other mechanical means and interface it with the car totally wirelessly ( example). This approach seemed pretty difficult compared to the second approach, initially.
Also, extreme temperatures are not good for the battery, and even in temperate Seattle, it always dips well below freezing during the winter and the inside of the car will get extremely hot during the summer. This presents a theft risk, and makes the tablet useless for anything else. The tablet cannot be easily removed from the car.You can have as many USB devices as you like.
These installs are elegant, and look and feel like an off-the-shelf head unit with a 1080p screen running Android has been installed in the car.
The tablet is sometimes connected via USB to a powered USB OTG hub, which in turn is connected to a digital-to-analog converter (to feed to the stereo amplifier) plus other gadgets. The back of the tablet is often removed and the power and volume buttons are wired to other buttons that exist in the car, usually remnants from the stock stereo system. The first approach ( example) is to fully integrate the tablet into the car’s dash. There are several ways that people have approached this problem, but in general, there seem to be two common approaches. I’m not the first guy who’s tried to mount a tablet in his car. Lead-up to the projectīefore starting on this project, I did a considerable amount of research. It’s an ideal candidate for integration into the dash of a car, if you’re interested in Android over iOS or Windows and aren’t looking to spend a thousand bucks. As of this writing, the version with 16 GB storage (vs 32 GB) with wifi-only (no 3G/LTE) is currently available on for about $200.
The screen fits pretty much perfectly within the window of a double-DIN head unit. The Nexus 7 (2013 version) is an Android tablet manufactured by Asus with a 7″ screen (151 x 94 mm). To make a long story short, and spare you a bunch of rambling, I decided that I wanted to integrate a Nexus 7 tablet into my car rather than buy some fancy double-DIN head unit with an LCD and a DVD player which would cost $1,000 and which wouldn’t really make me happy.
The factory equipped this car with a 6-CD-changing, cassette-playing, double-DIN head unit which was still installed when I bought it, and remained in the car until February 2014, when I finally decided it was time to upgrade to something more…21 st century. My car is a Subaru, a 2002 WRX which I bought in 2009.