Frequently Asked Questions

What is the relationship between Crankshaft and OpenAuto?

OpenAuto is the heart of Crankshaft, the core software that makes Android Auto communicate with the Pi and makes everything possible.

Crankshaft is a layer on top of OpenAuto and Crankshaft makes it easy for newcomers so you don't have to worry about compiling code and tweaking your Raspberry Pi to make OpenAuto work well.

Both OpenAuto and Crankshaft offer basic functionality -- they will work when you connect a phone to the Pi, but many things are not obvious at first glance. For example, you don't want your car battery to be drained when you forget to turn off the Pi. You don't want the SD card to corrupt when you accidentally lose power to the Pi. While you have to tweak all those matters manually for the vanilla solution of OpenAuto, Crankshaft does it by default so you can focus on more important tasks.

If you want a system that works right now on your Pi 3, get Crankshaft.

If you want a system for developing new features or testing new ideas, try cloning and compiling OpenAuto (or compile OpenAuto on Crankshaft in dev mode).

I have a Pi3. How can I test Crankshaft compatibility with my phone before I spend the money to buy the official screen?

Write the Crankshaft image (later than 2018-03-10) on a microSD card. Connect the Pi to an HDMI monitor. Start the Pi. When you see the Crankshaft wait screen with artwork, plug your phone in. If you see the Android Auto interface displayed on the HDMI monitor, Crankshaft is extremely likely to work with your phone. You can't control the mouse cursor now, but the official screen will take care of that problem.

I see a lightning bolt in the upper right corner. What is it for?

The lighting bolt comes from the Raspberry Pi firmware and indicates the Pi is currently being underpowered. Make sure you have a good power supply and/or USB cable. A 5 V, 2.5 A power supply is recommended for the Raspberry Pi 3.

Why should I purchase an 800 × 480 resolution screen instead of a higher resolution 1024 × 600 screen?

Android Auto only supports a few fixed resolutions, of which 600p is not an option. A scaled 480p video stream from the phone will look worse on a 600p screen because 600 is not an integer multiple of 480. The known supported resolutions of Android Auto are as follows:

• 480p
• 720p (requires dev mode enabled)
• 1080p (requires dev mode enabled)

I want to run this on an Android tablet...

Say no more. You can use the Android Auto Head Unit Emulator :).

I want feature X, Y, Z...

Crankshaft is in an early stage of development so, where possible, bugs get prioritized over enhancements. Earlier milestone bugs are prioritized over others when possible. To read what the developer(s) are prioritizing, please see the Project Philosophy page.

Personally, Huan is currently writing his thesis so he might get extremely busy and none of the things that he promised to do might happen at a reasonable time at all. However, this project is hoping to get to a point that anyone can build the system automatically, so Huan can step down from being the dictator who releases new versions of Crankshaft.

Can I access On-board Diagnostics (OBD) whilst using Crankshaft?

Emil Borconi Szedressy, an XDA Forums "Recognized Developer", has created OBD2 for AA: a plugin for the Pro version of Torque, a popular OBD interfacing app for Android.

In the Crankshaft sub-Reddit, at least one user has reported using OBD2 for AA successfully within a Crankshaft setup, although this is limited to six gauges.