I got my Mazda MX5 a few years ago, and it came with some terrible Sony head unit. It plays CDs and connects to my old iPod but refuses to interface with my phone and the Bluetooth sound quality is terrible. Looking on the market, functionality wise, bringing an older car like mine up to modern standards cost upwards of $500, and they don’t even have a volume knob. When I saw this, I chose to take things into my own hands. The head unit I designed uses off the shelf components (when they are in stock, sorry) to make a cheaper competitor than the competition, while keeping the option for android auto compatibility.
After working on the keyboard for so long, I wanted something I could release quickly as an open-source product to get my companies name out there, and I thought a head unit for my car would be a simple thing to work on. Wow was I wrong. My 1st few prototypes worked but liked falling out of my dash when I accelerated hard, and I never implemented a volume knob. Progress on the unit was going well until my MX5 started having issues and it turned more into a project car than a testing new things on it car. So, the project has stayed dormant until recently, one of my friend’s head unit from Sony just died and instead of looking for a new one, he was wondering if he could use my design, so I’ve been looking to start work on it again. I’m looking at 3D printing the enclosure this time around instead of cutting it on my CNC router and adding a volume knob lol.