Chinese Ca-Fi knockoff has been rooted! Torque works!

[Trashed675]

Originally Posted by Skippman

What's the largest HD you guys have hooked up to your Android based head unit? I'd love to be able to hook up a 500G 2.5" drive to this thing.

I tried it a couple of weeks ago with a WD 500gb and 1tb 2.5" drives, no good on either. I'm guessing they want too much power that just isn't there. My 64gb thumb drive works like a charm though.

[Trap63]

Originally Posted by krikke

you are having a hard time with the fact that somewhere a vendor takes a margin on a product...
699 euro is still a lot less then the units like Pioneer, Alpine or Kenwood... and they offer far less functionality.

I think I am gonna make the 'jump' on this one and hope all goes well... if it doesn't, then it will be a hard and more expensive lesson compared to a 550 usd unit (included taxes)...

No, friend...I mean that the price is quite the same (or over) of worldwide brands which offer quality and repair services. All right ..... JVC, Clarion and so on don't offer and run on Android.
If you buy "China" unbranded, you can understand and accept many failures or malfunctions with all "warranties hopes" as you pay a cheaper product (t21A or 7019) by the worth of 450$.

But paying 912$ UNBRANDED is no trouble about me of dealer margin....

If you wish (IMHO) run Android (the same) with a price of 450/480$ (Eur 368 at door) you can buy it in Hong Kong by Tradesolutions. It is on deep the same product.
On your hands you assume the same risks than paying $912 for an italian fake products.

If you need to return for RMA in Italy (probably) you pay the same as for Hong Kong.....but you paid one as two.

IMHO if I wish Android (to run torque or rooting) better buy is HK, if you wish quality, service, assistance, spare parts the big name as Kenwood or Clarion are the top solution.

"No margin trouble", it's more complex as meaning.

[krikke]

Here in Belgium Pioneer double din starts at 900 euro...

But I get your point Trap63...

Truth is I won't pay 699 euro as I will put invoice on company so I can deduct 21% VAT.
So the difference with 380 euro from HK is getting smaller. And I think you forget to calculate the 21% (VAT Belgium) import tax and duties for importing from outside Europe. So your HK unit -in my case- will cost 380 euro + 21% VAT. (unless if they lower value for customs).

So the difference isn't that huge anymore and in return I have my 'perfect unit' in days and not weeks/months since it isn't offered in China today with those specs.

You are right and I understand your point of view, but I hope you can follow my way of thinking too.

[Trap63]

Originally Posted by krikke

Here in Belgium Pioneer double din starts at 900 euro...

But I get your point Trap63...

Truth is I won't pay 699 euro as I will put invoice on company so I can deduct 21% VAT.
So the difference with 380 euro from HK is getting smaller. And I think you forget to calculate the 21% (VAT Belgium) import tax and duties for importing from outside Europe. So your HK unit -in my case- will cost 380 euro + 21% VAT. (unless if they lower value for customs).

So the difference isn't that huge anymore and in return I have my 'perfect unit' in days and not weeks/months since it isn't offered in China today with those specs.

You are right and I understand your point of view, but I hope you can follow my way of thinking too.

That's right! including taxes and custom duties you are on the right....
Fortunately..TS (Hk) dispatch as gift or cheaper value no custom duties (under $100 but hard risk on custom if they unpack and evaluate it)...

[nzer]

Originally Posted by Trap63

That's right! including taxes and custom duties you are on the right....
Fortunately..TS (Hk) dispatch as gift or cheaper value no custom duties (under $100 but hard risk on custom if they unpack and evaluate it)...

Yep, mine came to NZ described as a "monitor" with a US$80 value - no GST (Goods and Services Tax) as listed under the NZ$400 threshold and as we are a trading nation we did away with customs tarrifs many years ago.

Support our economy - go and buy some New Zealand lamb, dairy products or wine! Just a wee plug -

[Skippman]

Originally Posted by nzer

Yep, mine came to NZ described as a "monitor" with a US$80 value - no GST (Goods and Services Tax) as listed under the NZ$400 threshold and as we are a trading nation we did away with customs tarrifs many years ago.

Support our economy - go and buy some New Zealand lamb, dairy products or wine! Just a wee plug -

That's one thing I noticed from my time in NZ. Your country very much supports it's own business. When I flew in on Air New Zealand everything I was served was labeled "Product of New Zealand." Bet you won't find that on American Airlines. Beautiful country you have, though I confess I don't understand the facination with corogated metal.

/hijack


That's a shame about the hard drives. To answer your question Nzer you'd just use an external USB hard drive and connect it via the USB port or through a USB hub connected to the USB port. I had a similar problem to what they mention with my KIV-BT901 from Kenwood. Half the time it would power up the drive, the rest it would power it but not see it. I'd have to disconnect/reconnect after the unit was up and running to get it to "see" the hard drive.

Trashed675, were these prebuilt external 2.5" drives like the WD My Passport series and the Seagate Slim Portable series, or was this a home brew kit using an external drive enclosure and a laptop/desktop drive?

[2forme]

I can confirm it works with an SSD attached to a USB->SATA adapter.

[Trashed675]

Originally Posted by Skippman

That's one thing I noticed from my time in NZ. Your country very much supports it's own business. When I flew in on Air New Zealand everything I was served was labeled "Product of New Zealand." Bet you won't find that on American Airlines. Beautiful country you have, though I confess I don't understand the facination with corogated metal.

/hijack


That's a shame about the hard drives. To answer your question Nzer you'd just use an external USB hard drive and connect it via the USB port or through a USB hub connected to the USB port. I had a similar problem to what they mention with my KIV-BT901 from Kenwood. Half the time it would power up the drive, the rest it would power it but not see it. I'd have to disconnect/reconnect after the unit was up and running to get it to "see" the hard drive.

Trashed675, were these prebuilt external 2.5" drives like the WD My Passport series and the Seagate Slim Portable series, or was this a home brew kit using an external drive enclosure and a laptop/desktop drive?

THIS and THIS is what i tried. I'm almost positive the reason they didn't work is because of the power requirements. As @2forme said, his SSD worked(SSD's use much less power then traditional HDD's because there is no moving parts).

I tried formatting them in NTFS and FAT32, as well as shrinking down the visible partition to 20gb's, no luck.

While it does kinda suck, i've found that a 32gb SD card, a USB thumb drive, and my IPOD are more then enough to hold my car bound media. As it is right now, its a little unwieldy to search through it all while driving, even on interstate.

[2forme]

Yea I hate the built in media navigation. I'm trying to pull apart the APKs for the iPod, Media, and FM to see if I can rebuild them or build new ones that work better.

[privfaith]

I started having these really interesting issues with the ca-fi knockoff head unit.

The unit seems to have problems swapping to music playing on the android OS.

For example.

If i am listening to the ipod/radio, and then start playing something like, Tunein/poweramp etc, the headunit doesnt properly swap over. The Tunein/poweramp portion will be muted until I select the cafi music app and then pause whatever it starts playing. At this point I can now listen to tunein/poweramp.

Same thing goes for another scenario. If i am listening to Tunein and receive a phonecall, the call is muted unless i had prior swapped to the radio or pressed the phone button.

This is a fairly new issue and i have no clue what inspired this change of heart in the headunit. Any ideas?

[2forme]

Originally Posted by privfaith

I started having these really interesting issues with the ca-fi knockoff head unit.

The unit seems to have problems swapping to music playing on the android OS.

For example.

If i am listening to the ipod/radio, and then start playing something like, Tunein/poweramp etc, the headunit doesnt properly swap over. The Tunein/poweramp portion will be muted until I select the cafi music app and then pause whatever it starts playing. At this point I can now listen to tunein/poweramp.

Same thing goes for another scenario. If i am listening to Tunein and receive a phonecall, the call is muted unless i had prior swapped to the radio or pressed the phone button.

This is a fairly new issue and i have no clue what inspired this change of heart in the headunit. Any ideas?

I don't have that issue with PowerAmp. Might have to do with the dual zone functionality employed by the head unit. They need to persist the audio stream while you're in other apps (like GPS). Maybe their default apps create a "lock" on one of the audio streams?

Either way, it's odd because my unit doesn't exhibit the same behavior.

[Trashed675]

Originally Posted by privfaith

I started having these really interesting issues with the ca-fi knockoff head unit.

The unit seems to have problems swapping to music playing on the android OS.

For example.

If i am listening to the ipod/radio, and then start playing something like, Tunein/poweramp etc, the headunit doesnt properly swap over. The Tunein/poweramp portion will be muted until I select the cafi music app and then pause whatever it starts playing. At this point I can now listen to tunein/poweramp.

Same thing goes for another scenario. If i am listening to Tunein and receive a phonecall, the call is muted unless i had prior swapped to the radio or pressed the phone button.

This is a fairly new issue and i have no clue what inspired this change of heart in the headunit. Any ideas?

Mine does the same thing. For music I use JUST my IPOD and the radio as they don't seem to walk on each other.

[privfaith]

Honestly the most annoying part would be the muted calls. I'll have to play around more

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

[Skippman]

Dang, Trashed those are both 2.5" form factor drives. I couldn't find the RPM speed so I don't know if they're 5400 or 7200 RPM but I'd guess the slower. The USB 2.0 spec calls for a .5ma output if I remember correctly. If it's not delivering enough power through the USB port it's possible you're right and it's basically "starving" the device. I'd be interested to see how it would work with my 3.5" custom external enclosuers that use external power supplies.

If it's just a matter of power delivery then something like this DC powered USB hub might fix the issue.