DIY In-Car Infotainment using affordable COTS Hardware

Ever considered creating your own in-car entertainment system, akin to those found on airplanes? Envision a setup with individual touch displays for each passenger, ensuring an uninterrupted multimedia experience even when driving through areas lacking internet connectivity. Imagine a system that seamlessly accommodates both individual and communal content playback. What if such a system were not only affordable but also straightforward to build, utilizing open-source software and readily available off-the-shelf hardware?

In my GitHub repo, I'll guide you through a step-by-step process to construct such a system at an affordable cost, ranging from $180 to $200 per passenger touch screen. The key components of this setup includes a Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch, a pocket router serving as a DLNA/DHCP server, and multiple Raspberry Pi 4 boards paired with touch displays—adjustable based on the desired number of passenger screens.

By utilizing a Kodi player on RaspberryPi-4 coupled with a full HD touch screen and powered through a single Ethernet cable, we streamline cabling complexities in a car. This eliminates the need for a central multi-head controller, as the heavy lifting, such as multimedia decoding and rendering, is handled by individual Raspberry Pi 4 endpoints on a network. This distributed system is effortlessly scalable, requiring only the replacement of the PoE switch with more ports and the addition of more Raspberry Pi 4 touch displays. You can find the details here on my github repo: https://github.com/hackboxguy/multiscreen-media

Fun with AWS-IoT

While the internet is flooded with hello-world examples and simulations demonstrating the connection and message exchange between AWS-IoT Devices and Aws-Iot-Core using various programming languages like Python, C, C++, and Java, However, some of us beginners, students, or enthusiasts find true satisfaction in delving into the world of connected devices through hands-on interactions with physical components. For them, the real excitement lies in experiencing the tangible effects firsthand, rather than merely observing basic hello-world messages on a computer screen.

In this video, I'll introduce you to an engaging approach for exploring AWS-IoT connectivity and its real-world implications using affordable and readily available hardware components sourced from online stores. For this demonstration, I'll be utilizing an affordable($30) GL.iNet pocket router as an IoT End-Node. This router runs on a custom-built OpenWRT Linux image and hosts an AWS IoT device agent service based on the aws-iot-device-sdk-cpp-v2. The webUI of this custom Linux image allows you to easily configure and provision AWS IoT-specific settings such as device-certificates/private-keys/Endpoints. Additionally, through the WebUI, you can tailor various trigger events for specific publish/subscribe topics and execute diverse actions using custom scripts to control a range of hardware accessories including switches, relays, LEDs, sensors, and more.

For further details and access to the project, please visit my GitHub repository at: https://github.com/hackboxguy/aws-iot-demo