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Comment by sublinear | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth, most vehicles still have aftermarket dash panels and wiring harnesses so you can install whatever you want. Way less of a compromise than buying an older vehicle, but I wouldn't expect some of the control integrations with the steering wheel and other displays to work though.

Really in retrospect nothing has changed from the days double-din was standard apart from some extra steps. Does anyone know if there are projects that reverse engineer these misc integrations for various manufacturers? Is it all just CAN bus or something proprietary?

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Nope, isn't as easy as it has been during the 90s.

Ever had to deal with abominations like CAN-but-not-really-CAN like PSAs own VAN? Having to find out which model has which bus? Non-standard size cutouts / bays? Alone the FW versions i had to test of Alpine / OEM adapter products to get steering wheel controls working. The PDC i couldn't.

And MOST is a different topic.

Do they really? Most recent cars I've seen have a touchscreen LCD popping up out of the dash and it all looks rather custom. Are there some kind of standards like double-DIN?

One option is standalone CarPlay and Android Auto head units - search for carpuride or Atoto for examples. There’s other manufacturers as well. I recall seeing model specific replacement head units for the pop up type display you describe but can’t find them now

> One option is standalone CarPlay and Android Auto head units - search for carpuride or Atoto for examples.

What GP complained about was that the factory-installed head units have very non-standard shapes for everything but the screen, and even then it'd be glued into some molded piece of plastic trim which has a non-regular shape in the dashboard.

You'd literally have to cut out the trim with a saw and refinish it in order to use the din/double-din standard sizes.

you just need an aftermarket trim piece that allows install of standard head units.

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