Hackable In-Car GPS Unit? 208
gigne writes "I'm in the market for a new, in-car GPS/sat nav. I am preferably looking for one that has live, up-to-date traffic information and route planning that doesn't make you want to cry. I'm not quite dumb enough to drive off a cliff, but something that doesn't even try and lead me to watery doom is preferable. The only thing I absolutely must have is the ability to hack it. It would be preferable if it ran GNU/Linux, but given a convincing argument, I would be swayed to another OS. Without wanting the Moon on a stick, what is the best device that would offer a decent modding community and a good feature set?"
Proprietary Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies comercializing GPS devices are in the business of making money. I am inclined to believe you would run into proprietary and legal stuff should you plan to hack or reverse-engineer the device. Maybe some provide an API?
Re:Proprietary Issues (Score:3, Insightful)
It is perfectly legal to do whatever you fucking want with an electronic device you own, at least in most countries.
Re:Proprietary Issues (Score:1, Insightful)
Unfortunately that is only true if it does not involve software or data.
Re:Lots of potential (Score:3, Insightful)
Look here. http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/ [mp3car.com]
Re:Proprietary Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
It is perfectly legal to do whatever you fucking want with an electronic device you own, at least in most countries.
Never without qualifications. For example:
Microwave radiation.
Basic electrical safety.
Eavesdropping on protected frequencies. {Cell phones][Radar]
RFI
There is surely the potential for civil liability:
Your device catches fire and incinerates your cousin's $56,000 daysailer.
You taser-shock your girl friend.
Your faulty navigational display sends your mother-in-law off a cliff.
I think you've got to make a decision. (Score:3, Insightful)
How much is your time worth?
Yes, you can screw around hacking GPS units. The question is, why do that instead of buying an ultramobile PC with GPS and navigation software?
Do you save money? No. Not if your time is worth anything. Also, if you're going to depend on this, say to equip your business or something, you have no guarantee you can do the same hacks when you replace the devices.
Do you learn anything? Well, sure, especially if you're the one who puts the time in to figure out how to do the hack. But less than you'd learn if you spent the same time just building software on a platform where the manufacturers are scheming to make your life miserable.
Are you striking a blow for freedom? Nope. You're sending your money to a manufacturer who's trying to restrict people's freedom. They don't really care if you manage to hack the thing, only that the process makes it worthless to most users. So maybe you should support folks who are marketing and supporting platforms, and save yourself a bundle of time too.
Of course, if the dedicated GPS units are better for their purpose than putting navigation software on an open PC, you can buy both; a GPS unit for navigation, and a UMPC with GPS for hacking. If your time is worth anything, you're still ahead.
I speak from experience, as an inveterate opener of cases and tweaker of things that are not supposed to be tweaked. It's only worth buying something to hack if the act of getting this thing to do something the manufacturer doesn't want it do has some kind of twisted appeal to you. One possible exception is if there is something unique about the hardware, which is certainly not the case for most GPS units. In fact they probably lack things you'll want, like certain interfaces. If there were a device that was amazingly cheap and known to be super hacker friendly, I might be tempted, but probably wouldn't bother. Where the manufacturer is trying tie your hands, why give them money for the privilege of spending your time escaping?
If you've bought one without the intention to hack it, and then you get the itch, sure go for it. That's a different story. But I think you'd be nuts to buy one for hacking if that's a high priority for you.
Pioneer AVICs... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a healthy hacking community for Pioneer AVIC in-dash units (http://www.avic411.com/). The current generation (F-series) is basically a Mio Windows CE 5.0 Navi that runs iGo 8.0 and interfaces to an AV board for sound out. It uses a Parrot Bluetooth for the handsfree but it's not a full BT stack so no A2DP. The interface Pioneer had an external software house design has been rather bemoaned for some frustrating "quirks", so there's a lot of motivation to hack the units at the moment. There is a way to launch external apps from the iGo script interface now and there's even an effort to write a new interface from scratch that launches from the SD slot (sort of like MioPocket for some of the PNAs). There may also be a way to use SDIO 802.11b/g wireless cards with the units that was borrowed from gpspassion.com.
Pioneer will be releasing a new series of in-dash units soon (X series) and a 3.0 firmware release for the F-series that apparently removes the ability to use the backdoor method many of us use to hack the unit, so if you do decide to get one make sure it's only got the 2.0 firmware on it.
Re:Proprietary Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it is illegal to eavesdrop on protected frequencies. But it is not illegal to modify a radio set to do so.
You can do whatever you want with an electronic device you own. But if you do something illegal with said modified device, you'll get in trouble for doing the illegal thing. Not for modifying the device.
As it should be.
I think you've lost the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you can screw around hacking GPS units. The question is, why do that instead of buying an ultramobile PC with GPS and navigation software?
Talk about missing the point...
You know, I think your attitude is the problem with consumer electronics today. They give you GPS with maps and you think "hey! That's cool! Now I can get navigation!" Some time later they come out with turn by turn spoken directions, and you're thrilled with that too. And then you come here on slashdot and argue against the open products, because they might be hard for you to use, or people might put them to uses the manufacturer had not intended.
Look: people are clever. Give them neat gear with open interfaces and they'll put it to creative uses the manufacturers had never considered - and publish the source code for anyone to use. If the features are interesting, useful and most importantly, popular, they'll wind up in the next generation of the manufacturer's products and you will benefit. It's like having a half billion geeks working for free.
Fortunately for you and for the rest of us, most manufacturers have figured out that they don't have the corner on creativity and so they make open, or "hackable" interfaces that allow us to bend these devices to unintended uses that they can then adopt in your next generation product.
Re:Freerunner (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually have a Neo 1973 - no need for the capacitor, nor is there a need for it in the newest Freerunners. I do agree that he should read up on it and hang out in #openmoko on irc.freenode.net to see what to expect. Early on, software was very buggy. Now, afaik, the only persistent problem is short battery life (about a day with normal usage).
"it hardly works" is inaccurate. There are issues he should understand *is* accurate.
Nokia N800, N810 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Proprietary Issues (Score:3, Insightful)
Utah.
Its not as barbaric as it sounds. The law is full of traps like this nobody has ever heard of, there's around 20000 federal laws, lots of them badly worded enough that things like the mac address problem are present.
In theory shit like this gets ignored (Unless the prosecutor gets a bug up his ass and makes you the next Lori Drew), some of them do get enforced though, and its impossible to avoid breaking them all, even if you knew all 20000* of them.
The whole 'I have nothing to hide' thing? Totally false, everyone has something to hide, usually they don't even know what it is.
*Federal laws only, state, city and county laws also apply, these laws may reference unpublished administrative rules, laws in other states, and in extreme cases, laws in other countries.