I had GPSD working nicely, confirmed both by cgps -s and mongps, but I was stuck on geoclue. Whatever I did, the GPS wouldn’t send data to Organic Maps. I kept having this error: “Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Object does not exist at path “/org/freedesktop/GeoClue2/Client/1”” despite being 100% sure client1 was the right one.

Going to Lineage OS was much easier for me and I just needed a working GPS. Linux GPS will stay in the “challenge todo list”, because I’d like to figure it out eventually. I most likely was doing something stupid.

I didn’t know about osmin! I might try it out.

For the poweroff, I’ll just poweroff the Pi from the UI and wait a sec for it to go down. Initial testing has me waiting 10 seconds on the “shutting down” screen. That’s short enough, meanwhile I can put my jacket on or something. Once off, I just unplug it. It’s also running on SSD because I don’t trust SD cards to endure constant read/write from satnav so I installed from SD card and cloned the OS to an SSD, it should be more resilient this way.

For the audio, I’ll first try the obvious and plug the Pi to the USB A of the factory car unit. Maybe it’ll detect it as mass storage media and give it access to the built in audio system. Else, I’ll just use a bluetooth speaker I have at home. I don’t need good audio for “turn left/turn right”, just to hear it.

The whole project is an attempt at getting rid of Android Auto and having my own standalone unit that will free me from unwanted updates both from the OS and the apps. I’ve had Waze become useless three times in the span of two years because they pushed updates that made the app unstable enough to not be reliable.

For the viewing angle, on the car next to the existing head unit screen, there’s a mounting bracket. I’ll use that to mount a 7inch display I got. It’ll sit right above the existing one if that doesn’t obstruct the view too much, else I’ll have to get one of those arms with joints and lower it somewhere not annoying.

My bluetooth speaker is the perfect size to sit in the cup holder so if the car audio isn’t possible, then there’s a plan B.

I’ll try the recovery mode for my phone and see if that helps!

Hey, thanks for the link. I haven’t looked at that type of parts because I’m not confident tinkering with the car, especially since it’s still fairly new and I’m too afraid to damage some plastic. And I also don’"t have any spare room available on the dashboard anywhere.

There’s a little nook to empty your pocket between the gear shifter (manual car) and the dashboard but it’s wide open, fairly hot, and probably still too small even to fit a raspberry pi in a case with the cooling I’ll need.

That’s why I’ve been looking at external solutions. If wires weren’t an issue, I’d put a trunk/boot organizer at the back and store the pi unit there during drives but it’s not practical with the wiring. Still routing cables in my head in case I’d get an idea.

Here’s a photo I found of the front of the car: https://www.ouestfrance-auto.com/sites/default/files/sandero_stepway_1_0.jpg

Thanks! I’ve studied this option and Pi5 needs 5A/5V. I haven’t found something adequate yet for that power requirement. So I’m actually considering going for a Pi4 instead.

Yeah, that’s one thing still on the drawing board. The reason my phone crashes seems to be thermal throttling due to heat buildup with use. That’s another reason I want to build my own device instead of buying one from some company, I can factor in the cooling and try to adapt to the hot environment better.