Though most trendy vehicles have moved to utilizing proprietary parts almost in all places, particularly in terms of infotainment techniques, for a quick second which peaked within the 90s and 00s most vehicles shipped with radios that slot in a normal dimension opening referred to as a DIN slot. In the event you needed a brand new Pioneer or Kenwood stereo it was often a easy matter to slip the manufacturing facility radio out and put your selection of aftermarket head unit instead. [Stefan] has an E39 BMW from this period and needed to improve the manufacturing facility radio however use the unique {hardware} as a substitute of changing it.
This isn’t only a easy stereo improve both. [Stefan] has gone all-out for this construct which he began in 2020. Starting with a Kotlin/Jetpack Compose Linux software to deal with management enter from the automobile’s numerous knobs and buttons he moved on to a map software and an on-screen keyboard. From there he applied VGA to ship video to the OEM display, and now has a totally purposeful system based mostly on a Raspberry Pi. It does the whole lot the unique unit can do together with taking part in music and exhibiting the feed from the backup digicam, plus provides loads of new, trendy options like Bluetooth.
For a sure basic automobile fanatic, this construct hits a candy spot of modernizing a real basic just like the E39 with out eradicating or completely modifying any OEM parts. The quantity of labor that went into it’s fairly staggering as nicely, with [Stephan] placing in over 100 hours of labor simply to get the video sign timing appropriate. We additionally prefer it as a result of it reminds us of the flash-in-the-pan “carputer” development from the late 00s the place individuals within the pre-smartphone age had been shoving every kind of computing horsepower of their trunks.
