[Android Head-Units] veletron:
My AN-21 derivative

Hi

I bought the unit with the two knobs, Vol on right, 1GHz dual core/1GB, rooted using the APK on the first page of this thread (thanks to those responsible!). Mine came from seller 'Babon Lee'. This is the current product: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2-di...-GPS-Wifi-Bluetooth-Dual-core/1505304660.html.

It arrived within 2 weeks to the UK. There was an issue with it in that the DVD unit within was not screwed down and was loose!! Rather than shipping it back, I elected to break the warranty seal and stick some screws in it myself. All OK. Better QA required!!

Just a couple of findings with this unit so far:

1) As mentioned here before, the unit has an alter ego. The DVD/Amp side and Android side are somewhat disjointed. Many of the buttons on the front panel and remote bypass the Android part entirely and go straight to the DVD/Amp. This includes the Volume/Mute buttons so don't think you'll be controlling these with the likes of Tasker. There is feedback to the screen by way of an overlay when you play with the volume control.

2) The IR receiver on the unit is very very weak feeds only the DVD/Amp side + some front panel key presses. The codes do not pass into the Android OS

3) Android responds to standard play/pause/back/forward media control keys. Buy the following:

- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-Lapto..._Remote_Controls_Pointers&hash=item3cd6111192

- http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_t...w=steering+while+ir+remote&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Plug the remote receiver into the HU, (detected as a keyboard), mount it somewhere sensible. Use the (ebay) supplied remote to program play/pause/etc into the steering wheel Ir unit. Then use the remote that came with the AN-21 to program the volume/mute buttons. Caveat here is that the Ir sensor on the AN-21 is very weak...

4) iGo supplied with unit is awful, and slow to start. World maps consume all of the 5GB internal SD card. I got shot of it, and deleted the maps, before installing CoPilot Live instead - much better.

5) After rooting, its poss to delete a heck of alot of crud thus freeing up the ~800MB or so of internal storage that's available to install software into (of course, many apps can still me moved to that 5GB /SDCARD which will have space after ditching iGO).

6) Pretty impressed with audio quality overall. I am using it in a motorhome. Front speakers powered off HU, and a powered underseat sub running off RCA's

7) Nova Launcher works well in place of stock launcher, but does feature large borders left/right) Enabling the dock reduces borders, dock will only sit on RHS. I use this with Car Widget Pro for big icons and a 9x5 grid

8) My unit has a built-in external 3.5mm mic socket (on wiring loom). Connecting a Mic to this gives way better audio than the front panel mounted mic (as is to be expected). Audio OK for phone use, but mic is also passed into android side when BT not active; on Android side, mic sensitivity is way too low (there is no way to adjust this)

9) Bluetooth is fully owned by the DVD/Amp side, it is not available to standard Android applications. As mentioned in this thread several times, BT USB dongles not working, as such no way to tether via BT/etc.

10) If something does not show up in the market (but you know its there). Google its name on the unit and tap the link. This is a way to have the market load an app on the device that it does not want to. If that does not work, get APK Share installed on your phone, stick the app on the phone, share it to dropbox using APK share, then tap on the app on the AN-21 to install. This side-loading.

11) Google now voice control works (sort of). Get google search from the market, install and run. It will moan about google play services being out-of-date, and provide a link to install latest. On my unit, the store ALWAYS gives a version of google play services thats older than that which google now required. (even if I manually delete google play services, and trash folder under /data/data/app.goxxxxxx.blah). I had to sideload latest google play services before google now would start working. Start google now (by selecting google search), and tap the mic icon to command AN-21 to do stuff. I was able to perform web searches and get poweramp to play stuff without issues (apart from being stationary and needing to talk load due to low microphone gain). Unfortunately, after I restarted the unit, the microphone icon disappeared... I have a theory that the microphone does not get 'connected' to the android side from the DVD/Amp until after Android has fully booted. Google Play Services start before this happens so when you go to google search, the Mic icon is missing cause there was no mic at the time when it started... Removing google play services, and google search and trashing their folders in /data/data, then restarting then reinstalling search and re-side-loading google play services, restores the mic icon (until the next reboot). As such, google now is currently not usable.

12) Poweramp is the only player that I have found to work flawlessly with media on a USB stick. I use a 64GB USB3.0 stick formatted as NTFS. This seemed to work better than using FAT32, and does not require the 3rd party apps on windows that are required to have windows format a stick > 32GB as FAT32 (windows wants to use exFat, but the AN-21 does not support). The USB3.0 feature of the stick is no help on the AN-21, but does speed up the copying of media to the stick on the PC.

13) Power usage. My unit averages about 1.5A in use. I have both the red and yellow wires permanently connected to the leisure battery (its in a motorhome). Power usage when turned off is 20mA so no issues with leaving connected indefinitely.

So, thats my 2pence worth after having played with it for a few days.

Nigel