Has Anyone Installed One Of The Generic Chinese Android Head Units?

Here's the bezel back in the panel.



I was going to wrap it, originally. But that's not the best panel for a novice. I could get everything up to the narrow band at the top of the bezel looking perfect. But having that big opening meant nothing for the wrap to anchor to while it was stretched. And you really kinda needed to get that opening set to work slack out. Really, it was too shiny for me, even as it was called "matte". So I went with Plasti-Dip.

No place around me had P-D and I didn't want to take a chance on ordering a color I might not like, so I made a run to a Lowe's. All they had was black, gray, red and glossifier. I got the gray and did it up. It looked good, but I changed my mind and went with red. So if the color doesn't seem that vivid, it's over a medium gray. I'm good with it.

I used two coats of Turtle Wax Ice rather than order Dip Coat. Some say it slightly darkens the color and makes it smooth. I found it didn't change tone nor get smoother, but it did get a slicker surface instead of the normal feel. It *might* make a little difference in abrasion.

Core-Lokt said:

I give up. Gonna send the ASWC-1 back to Crutchfield.

I did some more research and didn't find anything specifically to Joying units. I did see stuff for Pumpkin and Ouku, but not really much. Stuff either works, or people don't care to explain what they did. One Nissan forum member said he got an Ouku to work by selecting ALL functions before tapping SAVE. Didn't work.

I did have a little success. I grounded Key2 and inadvertently had the brown/white (Key2) lead from the ASWC-1 hooked to Key1. I was able to save VOL UP only; this is what the screen looks like when a button is successfully saved.



lol, it still didn't work through the controls, even as it was recognized in the HU.

In an Ouku post on XDA, a member said he went into Factory Settings and selected a sub-model. I tried it on NO CANBUS and a I guess some Chinese-specific Chrysler and Jeep settings-especially the ones that had Simple in parentheses.

I'd still like SWAC to work, but I'm not actively pursuing it. If I incidentally come across something in the future, I may try it and report back. Meanwhile, if anybody has made these Chinese Android HUs work with 3G Ram SWAC, please post how you did it. Joying isn't going to be of help, I think. In fact, they keep on with that "you need to ground". What to ground? There is no key wire ground for us or on their radios,, and the chassis is grounded through the harness. Ground Key2? I already tried that. They have videos of hooking up test SWAC and I'm sure they think everything is like that or depend upon Klyde to sort stuff out.

Click to expand...

I was doing similar project on my Chevy Malibu. I have a similar head unit, Eonon brand. I also couldn't get the SWC to work. Did you have any luck later?

No, I gave up. It was to the point I didn't want to risk damaging the HU. Even so, it seems there's just enough difference in these units that no one solution is universal. Some have three wires for steering controls, some have two.

If I could find some aftermarket SWAC that didn't look like ass and clamp to the wheel, I might consider that. And I know people have run wires from the HU direct to the SWAC, bypassing the vehicle and obviating the need for an ASWC-1 or the like. But I'm not hacking into factory wires. Really, volume isn't too bad to deal with even on this full-touchscreen model as long as you're not on rough roads. Fine-tuning station frequencies is more annoying.

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Got my SSD and antenna amp in today, so I'll deal with these and report about them later. Also have one of those generic ELM-327 OBD II bluetooth modules on the way, so we'll see what Torque is like.

I did pair my iPhone and it works great. Actually, I may not end up with an external mic since the front bulit-in mic seems to work so well, but that's something else to sort out.

My head hurts...

So, there's a post on Joying's Blog from 1/25/16 announcing the latest iGO maps. Joying® Aftermarket Best Head Unit, Car Stereo, Android Car Radio Audio 2015 Latest how to Update upgrade Navigation GPS maps on Joying Android head unit? Android In-Dash Car GPS navigation | carjoying.com It does say "2015 Latest how to Update upgrade Navigation GPS maps on Joying Android head unit?", but I mean, look at the date it was posted. IDK; I guess I figured it was maybe 4Q 2015 maps.

So, you have to send them your order number, and then they send a link or password to download region-specific maps. I sent them a request with my Amazon order number and get an e-mail back saying "there are no new maps, currently". I ask why their blog post from three days ago is about the latest maps and get back a response that they don't know what I want. All I can now guess is that was a recycled blog post.

I sent a request to their "support at carjoying.com" address instead of the Gmail one, thinking it might be a matter of where I send to. I get back a message that either address ought to work for help issues and that they recommend people get updates from other sources, since they have abandoned iGO and Sygic map support and now recommend Google Maps. Would've been nice if they hadn't blogged three days earlier about updating-or mention that in another blog post.

Maybe it's Joying, but I would think there will be similar issues with any of these branded sellers. It's an imprecise knowledge of English and definitely a bias on sales over service. That said, I'm still good with how the HU is working and think XDA Developers is going to be the best source of help on the Chinese Android HUs.

Another status update:

First, the Joying antenna amplifier. Doesn't much matter what brand you pick, since there's two basic styles on Amazon; one, a janky-looking simple tube with two wire ends (and I presume an old glass fuse in between..one hopes) and the other type with a blade fuse inline on the power lead and a black box (like this one).

Simply put, it's ****. Again, not a Joying deal per se, because that exact same one is available from other HU vendors and individuals. That black box? It's got a red LED and without dissecting it only seems to be there to house the LED..maybe all it's there for to fool one into thinking it's working because it's powered. It's in the Chrysler/ISO harness (again, not chopping factory wiring) where the ASWC-1 was. It's on a switched wire, so no worries about draining the battery.

Across the dial, it made reception worse. Only on one station did it seem to do anything and that meant two stations were simultaneously coming through the speakers-a classic rock and a Tejano-format Spanish language mash-up. And that was FM. It rendered AM useless. It even prevented reception of a 50K watt clear-channel station that can be heard fairly well in roughly half of Texas. Save your money and get used to the idea unless you live in an urban area, you're not going to get decent reception on any of these Klyde-rebranded head units. Once more, not a Joying thing, exactly. But it's coming out, as it doesn't work and claims space behind the HU for other stuff.

The other thing was an SSD. I chose a Transcend 256GB model that's just a little tall to fit in the closed ash tray. Probably will relocate it to under the rear seat.

There were no problems mounting/unmounting the SSD to the HU. The only thing you need to do is re-format the SSD from EXFAT to FAT32. That took ~three hours and I used a freeware app to do it. Actual volume is 238GB and I've got a little over 100GB in videos, music and pictures. I moved most stuff by folders and I'm not getting playback in Videos, so I wonder if I need to strip them out of the folders. However, they do play well in File Manager and songs are accessible in Music, even in folders. Hadn't tried the imported playlists, but my intention is to get another media player app like Poweramp or JetAudio, so I'm not sweating the playlists.

I've mentioned before the roads here are crap, but the HU seems to be unfazed. I've only had one time the HU didn't get past the boot screen, but shutting off/restarting returned it to normal. I've had stuff like that happen on tablets (which this basically is) and not concerned at all.

I had one of those all-in-one chino units. It was great. While it worked.



I think it lasted 6 months. 1 year warranty. When I contacted them a few hundred times about replacement they never responded back(hence the probably like a hundred emails I sent them). Yup. I got fukt.

Yeah these are pretty much all the issues ive seen them have which is why I basically wouldn't install them even when the customer brought them in. No compatibility with anything, relatively short life, and zero and I mean ZERO support from the manufacturer about anything, especially warranty. I just didn't have the time and energy to **** around with that anymore. I just want my **** to plug in and work lol.

I'm waiting to see what their response is to my asking how do I prove I bought one of your HU when Joying themselves don't seem to be able to determine it. And I will escalate it to Amazon, if necessary. I even attached a picture from the antenna amp that was from Shenzen Joying Technology with Amazon address in Kentucky.

Right now, there's nothing deal-breaking, just annoying. Again, the HU itself has been decent. And now with that POS antenna amp off, radio signals are at least as good as before-which is not great, but the stations here are crap, anyway.

Meanwhile, I'll keep at stuff and report on things.

I don't have much to add, as I'm waiting for stuff. But the issue of acknowledging my HU purchase still lingers.

When I requested the map-update-that-isn't-a-map-update, I included my HU order number and asked how can I prove I purchased from Joying if they won't see who bought from Amazon. Again, I included the order number.

I received a reply that the number seemed incorrect, as it was one digit too many, and the lady responding suggested it might be number ***-***-***. I replied she was in fact correct on both counts and could I take this as confirmation I bought one of their HUs..haven't heard back.

I attached a picture of the shipping label from the antenna amp showing "Shenzen Joying Technology Co, LTD." as sender and Amazon's Kentucky warehouse address. I recall seeing something on their website or blog about only selling some particular item to customers with a previous order number, but if you didn't have that, you could buy some cutesy sticker I presume would qualify you to purchase whatever that customer-restricted item was. For real; I couldn't make that up. Seriously, they need to acknowledge their stuff sold in other places than their website. They do that and some actual research into SWAC compatibility, and they'll leapfrog the competition.

I've got the chain of e-mails if I need to escalate the issue with Amazon. IDK, I guess they're tired of my questions, where up till now they'd been very good to reply, even if it was repeating the unhelpful stock answers. That said, I'm still good with the HU. I have Autodesk360 on it now, and can use it for some work. JetAudio is a great replacement for the stock music player-again, no knock on Joying, since nobody includes anything but the most basic player.

The OBD II Bluetooth module came in today. It is NOT from Joying, even though they sell an identical product; in fact, they have a blog post about setting up the module with Torque Lite and their module uses the same code as this one of "1234" to set up. It is a generic translucent blue one with "ELM 327 mini" label from Amazon and of course came from China.

I didn't do more than open the packet and place the included mysterious mini disc in the DVD drive on my computer. No instructions included. It appears there's a number of file folders, .apk files, a PDF installation manual and some additional programs. Some are APK with Cyrillic names and some are upgrade versions of Torque, possibly others.

But what have we here?



No, I didn't run a single EXE or download anything off the disc, not knowing what it was. Not interested in a pirated version of Torque Pro from 2014 or what else is on there. So, anyone buying one of these modules beware of what's on the disc. And nice catch by Microsoft Security Essentials for finding it. Following up with a run of Malwarebytes, now.

That said, I don't think there's much issue in installing the module. I may install it tomorrow and if I like the app, I will probably buy Torque Pro. You shouldn't need anything on the disc, anyway. BTW, not a bad idea to get the Malwarebytes app on Google Play, if you get one of these Android HUs.

EDIT 2/3/16: I decided to get Torque Pro from the Play Store. The OBD II adapter paired with the HU, and I launched Torque Pro. However, I'm not getting anything. Going through diagnostics, I've done everything right and the adapter seems to work except it's not allowing the ECU to be read. As might be expected, the generic translucent blue adapters are mostly ****. Well, at ~$7.00, I'm not out much, and the Chinese sellers know it's more trouble than worth to return.

So, I've got a post at Torque's forum to see what those with 2005 Rams are using. Will update as things progress, and I finally chose an unlocked dongle that should work with Verizon's network. When I get it, I'll get a SIM and a month pre-paid data and let y'all know how that goes.

anyone have info on these, running android 4.4

M206 Chrysler 300C Media SatNav 05-07 – RoadNavi

The specs seem essentially identical to my HU other than that one has a DVD slot and mine has a larger screen with all touch controls. That screen is what, about the size of an iPhone 5? Probably frustrating to watch video on that.

I've been throwing out the good and the bad in my ~six week experience with this HU. My issues are with peripherals and the half-ass support. That aside, the HU itself is proving solid. It'll run Malwarebytes as it's downloading an update from Google Play or reading e-mail while using one of the media apps and Torque Pro is trying in vain to connect with that worthless Bluetooth adapter. It's held up to hundreds of miles of gravel road shaking. And if that's another Klyde variant, I would suspect it'd be decent enough.

On that unit you linked to, the part that would concern me most is the DVD. Other than that, I think if I had a bezel that would accept the HU and the money, I would consider it.

Not much to update. License plate camera frame and 3G dongle should be in ~Tuesday. Meanwhile, I've rooted the HU in case I have to use some apps like PPP to get it going.




EDIT 2/9/16: The camera came in, but the cable is too short. I kinda thought it would be, as I read a review from someone with a crew-cab Ford saying he had to run the cable through the transfer case shifter boot (my truck is a QCSB). I ran the cable through a grommet in the firewall and that consumed several feet keeping it alongside and tie-wrapped to the harness. The dongle also arrived, but I'm doing one thing at a time. When the extension cable gets here, I'll update with pictures and any issues.

I finished the install and nothing worked. I backtracked over everything and came to the conclusion the reverse switch is out. BTW, that is not fun to get to on a NV 4500. I got the plug off and jumped across the sides and the camera came up.



So, I need to get a new switch-and I'll replace the t-case one, too. Dongle will be later after fully sorting out/aiming the camera. No idea the value of the stadia lines, since there is not really even instructions.

Oh, and here's the boot screen logo. The pic is bad due to sun, but you'll get the idea. It has an illuminating effect to it from L-R.

I replaced the reverse light switch and the camera works fine. The camera function overrides whatever is on the screen. It doesn't affect booting, either.



I took this picture to see what the IR lights would do for illumination. I can't notice much difference with lights off or on; I might tape over the reverse lights and see what pure IR illumination offers.

You'll notice in this picture and the one in daylight there is a difference in guidelines. In Settings (think it was Settings-Other Settings) there is an option for the HU to display them. As it was checked, I had two sets of guidelines. The Pumpkin Auto camera has no ability to disable lines, which is unfortunate since the Joying lines are the wider of the two. Interestingly, there is a setting in the HU for trajectory reversing lines. I'll look into that more but think the camera itself doesn't have that feature for the HU to support.

Clearly, I'll need to adjust it and get some known distances calibrated. I am going to take a break from this for a bit before the dongle attempt. I'm also considering re-flash with a custom ROM, as I like some features others have incorporated in builds.

EDIT: Think the line values are ~2'/4'/8' to farthest respective color lines. Aimed/measured at my track height and camera orientation, anyway. Actually 18" to leading edge of hitch. Reviews in Amazon state the retention screws will rust, so put some sealant over them.

I re-flashed with one of the custom ROMs out there. That's something each person with one of these radios needs to decide if they want, and which custom ROM or make their own. The Joying ROM is fine, but limiting to me. Of course, that simplicity might be what others want.

So, for those that are interested, here's a few steps of the process. First, back up and copy your factory ROM in case something bad happens. There's a few apps, but I'm familiar with Nandroid. Titanium is great, though. Open the back-up app of choice and decide where you want to save it to.



Next, copy the custom image to whatever media your HU accesses. I chose the GPS card and took the opportunity to load it on a 64GB card (max. supported size; again, format as FAT32 on something this size).

On a Joying JY-UQ128 (research your particular model processor and screen size when looking for custom ROMs), you press the recessed Reset in the face and hold it a few seconds and release. That'll bring up the Recovery menu, and on this particular radio the prompts of selecting (VOL+/- or PWR) don't apply. You have to do it all through the Reset; short pushes to scroll, long push to select. And you'll start by wiping factory settings, then reboot again in Recovery. Select the option to install/wipe from (in my case) SD card. Then, it should start running the install.



Ignore the "failure to mount" at the top. However, you might need to repeat the install/wipe again.

So, what do you get with a custom ROM, if you're unfamiliar with the concept? More options and tailored apps are the biggest pluses. Factory ROMs sometimes won't allow apps or recognize devices. And every time you cut power to the HU, you lose station pre-sets, where in this ROM there is the means to retain them. The best feature of this ROM to me is PC Radio is already on here. I've never cared for the canned music and overly broad music genre of SiriusXM, and this is by far a better option, if one has bandwith access. Also, I'd like to revisit the SWAC settings as I may try that again-but not for a long while.





These are some of the offerings in the News/Talk format. There's genre of pretty much every type, so it just means some poking around.

This alone made the root/ROM worth doing, and likely will facilitate the dongle. Again, I'm going to leave that alone for a little bit, as I'm a little burned-out. And I still have to re-download all my GooglePlay apps and reconfigure everything.

My post from 1/28 about the map update and the clusterf*ck about not finding my order and their subsequent correction of my mis-typed Amazon order number? Well, I finally got a reply back yesterday.

The reply was as usual vague as hell-I guess "Bella" forgot about her previous denial of new maps and order confirmation request from me in the ensuing two-odd weeks since the nation has been off for lunar New Year. But I was reassured that as long as they can find ones' order, they'll be there for support.

A shame, really. They do answer every question I ask-even if it's redundant, inapplicable or contradictory. And the HU itself so far is solid. Pity they don't have the sense or decency to find the order from Amazon. And on that end, I saw something over at XDA that leads me to believe Joying and Car Joying (which I assumed were mutual aliases) *might* be somewhat different parts of one company. The company that does the assembly or is parent to the aforementioned vendors is Joyous.

To some degree or another I think these Chinese HUs use maybe a couple of prime contractors to engineer and write basic firmware and source components, where the vendors maybe spec certain features or create some brand-specific software. And I guess that's why they get panicky about just who accesses their firmware. Ironic that the Chinese are afraid of reverse-engineering.

So, maybe I bought from Joying and I'm contacting Car Joying for help (or vice-versa)? If I had a broken-down GMC within warranty, I'm pretty sure a Chevrolet dealer would fix the truck. IDK, maybe they're prohibited from assisting a fellow divisional customer or something else. *shrug*

Well, I'm very happy with this new ROM and people on forums exchanging help and information, and still liking the HU. Like I said, I'll put out the good and bad so others can make informed decisions.

updates??

I was going to hold off a bit for an update due to a pending ROM release ~April 15, but I'll post some stuff now.

Most of my time since last post has been reading up on stuff, since I left Android four years ago. I've done one custom ROM update since last post and overall, things have been fine. But this last week, I've been having a lot of issues with the HU shutting off/re-booting/starting apps. I *think* I have it solved in that I disable some stuff within Xposed Module and PCV Startup Builder. I believe it's Car Launcher, a new home screen included in this ROM mentioned. If I go back to, say, Joying or Klyde launchers, Car Launcher will pop up and start a music service which isn't activated because it won't currently support my player of choice-JetAudio. Seems like stuff is sorted, now. Hoping that the next ROM may have some better integration/activation of stuff.

So, Car Launcher..it's a much more sophisticated-looking home than the Chinese ones. Here's some pictures you can reference against earlier photos.



Car Launcher Home Screen Type 1



Car Launcher Type 2-Red



Car Launcher Type 2-Red

FYI, here's Car Launcher Type 3 in three other colors.



This is Orange. I know, it looks brown. In fact, this looks like wood grain.





There is currently no way I know to change widgets on these, so speedometer/clock is all you get. Speedometer uses GPS, and there is a trip computer as part of this. You can change values (Metric/English) and will also note cumulative miles driven while HU is on. Not sure nor care if there's anything else.

I spent some time on the dongle. I got this 3G CDMA dongle, in spite of everything I read only mentioning GSM-type.



Well, I didn't have much luck in getting it going, even with PPP Widget. However, I have since learned that 4G stuff generally works fine-sometimes with dongles, it's not a sure thing and searching PPP forum will have lists of known compatible dongles. But the good news is that a hotspot works fine and isn't going to need extra fussing with. Hotspots set up within connectivity settings in Settings.

I'm still trying to find out what Bluetooth OBD II interface will work with this. Purportedly, if an OBD II interface isn't named "OBD" or "OBD II", it will not interface with HU in turn meaning Torque app won't be able to read information. I believe I came across an Xposed module that lets you rename some interfaces, although mine does show "OBD". Nobody ever replied to my thread on Torque forums about one that is known to work with Ram/ChryCo vehicles.

Otherwise, I've been reading up a lot on MTCB HUs and getting back into the Android ecosystem after abandoning it ~four years ago. Maybe if they had "pure Android" phones like Nexus back in the day, it would've meant people would've stuck with Android.

But to that end, I made my first apk-a live wallpaper.



I didn't have the volume that high in my pickup, so sound is pretty quiet. If you click the video picture to see it, you'll need to turn the player volume up, as well as probably your computer. The girl is Koneko Toujou from High School DXD and the music is from a indie cover of a theme from the Touhou Project games.

The takeaway from this is that if you flash a custom ROM, you'll likely have periodic issue with apps playing well with each other and in some cases abandoned development. You will necessarily get informed, if not outright educated in order to keep up with things.

You'll see in these pictures I now have Sygic navigation. I've come to find out that probably all the HUs with iGO have some sort of tweaked pirate version that I guess uses a key generator. It doesn't seem iGO is compatible with these HUs, as Naviextras/Basarsoft doesn't list them as supported. I believe there is iGO Primo for Android phones, but I'm not for sure what's the difference between that and iGO (probably platform, I guess) and if iGO Primo would work.

Oh, I understand there's wireless keyboards that will work with these HUs. They're probably 2.4ghz since they're not BT-supported on these HUs. A Logitech K700 is known to work. I may get one and if I do report back.


EDIT: I forgot to add that I'd talked with another forum member at XDA that has some kind of Kia. He said his also has one SWC wire and was asking about hooking it up. I told him my experiences with the single wire and asked if when he tried to get SWC going if he'd let me know if he got his going and what he did.