Getting ready to go on an extended road trip I had two main requirements. A huge supply of music for the trip and a GPS backed live speed readout so I could reliably determine the cars speed due to larger tires putting the dash speedometer out by around 10%.
So I built this Raspberry Pi 2 ( now upgraded to the Raspberry Pi 3 ) based car computer running Raspbian:
Early development run with the unit temporarily lashed to the passenger rail with cable ties.
Media files are stored on a 2.5 inch 1TB hard drive with the MPD daemon controlling music playback. The GPS device allows for a live readout of the cars current speed and location.
Home page with speed warning when exceeding the speed limit.
The system uses a 3G dongle ( since upgraded to a ZTE MF832 for 4G ) for internet enabling speed limit, weather and map data retrieval. Along with providing a WiFi hotspot for use by other devices within the car.
Current music play queue.
The interface itself is built with the AngularJS based Ionic framework and runs within the Chromium browser in Kiosk mode.
The project now has its very own home at https://www.nomadicpi.com where you can find information on building your very own Nomadic Pi. Along with a pre built image to download for your Raspberry Pi 3.
The UI for the project is still under active development with new features being added on a regular basis. With the code base freely available on github for download under a GPL V3 licence.
Find Out More:
Back of the unit with wifi dongle, voltage converter, hard drive and USB hub visible.
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