Currently rocking 9.2 on a Pi 3B+, looking to turn it into CarPC for my Odyssey minivan
I’m planning to upgrade the 3B+ to a 4 (I did this for my home media player and was smitten by the improvement), but have been using the 3 for proof-of-concept.
I have a HiFiBerry Digi+ hat feeding optical out to my Alpine PDX-800 DSP, amps, etc. That’s working fantastic.
Also using a RasPi 7” touchscreen for display on dash, plus will add some hard controls for volume, play/pause, etc. Also want to use a USB DVD drive for disks.
Where I’m having an issue is with sending video to a separate screen (HDMI monitor) for the back seats. I have no need whatsoever for watching a movie on the dashboard. But Kodi doesn’t allow multiple monitors (unless there’s a workaround I’m not familiar with). I was planning to use a fireTV remote for control from the back seat, so there’s no real need to have dash control while movies are playing for the back seat.
I had a thought that I could just run the Pi into an HDMI monitor and forget about the 7” Pi touchscreen, and use a 7” android tablet or iPad mini in the dash running a Kodi remote app. I would lean towards Android, I think, given that I could probably alter how the tablet displays based on car power state (i.e. screen on when car is running, off when not). Unless I’m mistaken about the degree of control I can exert on the Android.
Ultimately I want a seamless install and UI experience, not something that seems cobbled together. Currently I’m using iPhone Music player AirPlay’d to an Air Port Express that’s connected optically to the Alpine DSP. It works great, but there are a lot of steps to make the music play, and as a result, I’m the only one invested in making it work.
In short, I want a factory-installed experience with the optical audio quality that my stereo and Kodi is capable of.
FWIW, I’m experienced with 3D design and printing, so the physical aspects of the install are not an issue.
Looking for ideas on how to make this work.
Erik
