Pandora For The Car

[palbuddy]

Hello,

I've been a lurker in these message boards for quite some time, and usually keep to myself. I really don't want to cause any trouble, so if this has already been answered or something, be nice!

Anyway,

I do a lot of traveling and being the geek I am, the Pandora looks like a great idea for my car. I kinda wanted to use it as a carputer, so that I can combine GPS with an .mp3 player, and of course take it with me when I'm traveling via train, airplane, for the emulators, and the nifty open source games.

That being said, I was wondering if anyone has given any thought to mounting it onto their car. It doesn't have to be clean, but functional. Ideally I would want some way to mount it so that it's accessible in my car, and at the same time, I would love to find a way to lock it up when I'm done with it. Of course there isn't going to be a Pandora thingy that we can immediately buy for it, but perhaps something that is already on the market for something else?

Also, and this requires some speculation, so I don't need a firm answer. Any chance the Pandora will have the necessary CPU power to play .mp3s and run GPS mapping software at the same time? That would be ideal. Don't worry I can be patient, as I'm an expat and won't be in a place to buy the thing for another year or so. I just have fun seeing all the developments with this wonderful device, and it's not even out yet! How cool!

Thanks so much! It's so cool to see all the awesome things that will come from this! I'm sure to get one already!

 

[benjiro]

Any chance the Pandora will have the necessary CPU power to play .mp3s and run GPS mapping software at the same time?

Well, when a Dell X50v PDA released several years ago, with half the CPU speed can do it, i think it fairly easy to say: yes, it can do both.

 

[mindlord]

All hail Velco the mighty lord of sticking things to other things securely, but temporarily!

 

[Chip]

It's been brought up at least once before, but not much came of the thread.

Power-wise, the Pandora shouldn't have any trouble playing MP3s and running GPS software (if/when some is available). As for mounting, that's going to be entirely up to your car and your ability to rig something up. I wouldn't hold my breath for an official attachment device. If I wanted to do something like this, I'd look at generic cellphone / GPS mounting devices and modify one to have a little flat shelf for the Pandora to sit on. That and some velcro strips would probably be sufficient.

If you're not into MacGyvering something on the fly, just wait a couple weeks. Somebody else here is bound to try the same thing, and they'll probably post instructions. That would at least give you something from which to work.

 

[gruso]

I plan to rig up a little docking station in the car, complete with 5v power. Not much to say about it at this stage, but when I've got Pandora I'll get to work and share all the progress here.

 

[Kyo]

Why don't you just use the beagleboard?

 

[PsoBloke]

I plan to rig up a little docking station in the car, complete with 5v power. Not much to say about it at this stage, but when I've got Pandora I'll get to work and share all the progress here.

I'd definitely like to see what comes of that. When/if the right programs become available, it would make quite a useful device for car travels!

 

[Xabier]

Any chance the Pandora will have the necessary CPU power to play .mp3s and run GPS mapping software at the same time?

Well, when a Dell X50v PDA released several years ago, with half the CPU speed can do it, i think it fairly easy to say: yes, it can do both.


mi n81 can do that while it has msn running in the background

 

[nubie]

Why don't you just use the beagleboard?

I am hoping that the Pandora OS and any games/apps using kdrive/SDL will function on the Beagleboard.

You can get a much bigger screen and a beagleboard for the same money as a Pandora, and tailor it to be your car media center. I think you could even have 2 seperate screens, one on the HDMI/DVI, and one on the S-Video .

I want both though

 

[benjymous]

I plan to rig up a little docking station in the car, complete with 5v power. Not much to say about it at this stage, but when I've got Pandora I'll get to work and share all the progress here.

Power-wise, it should be easy enough to use an off-the-shelf cigarette-lighter power adaptor (I'm sure I read that it'd take the same power supply as a PSP)

Either that, or a cigarette -> USB converter (which are also readily available)

 

[gruso]

Already purchased. The other day I bought a USB multi-charge thing with plugs for NDS/GBA, PSP, iPod and others. It came with a lighter socket -> USB adaptor too. Pandora should run on the PSP plug.

 

[cbox]

I've been toying with the Pandora in my car too. I have a LCD monitor in my car, 3 inch wide (pretty small) but it has component input, I've hooked my Archos up in there. Also have a USB port so I can power that way. I'd probably want to put some kind of docking station though... hmmmm...

 

[greenmikey]

look around for evildragon's car mount gp2x it's hiding somewhere.

 

[gruso]

Here's a rough diagram of what I'd like to do. Pretty obvious design really, the most important thing is that it distracted me from work for a while.



My stereo doesn't have a line input, so a little FM transmitter connected to the headphone plug will be the go.

I'm thinking that if I put rubber feet on it, it can sit on top of the dash and I'll get away a single mount point (like a piece of flat bar extended from underneath the dock, to a hidden screw point near the air vents under the windscreen).

If I really wanted to go nuts after that, I could add some custom controls via the USB port. We'll see how software goes. If media player & map software will allow me to map functions to a USB numeric keypad, it'll be a done deal. Maybe I'll use one of these.