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[Q] Android device cluster, networking or screen sharing

In short: Is it possible to cluster, network or push device output from one device to another, share storage devices and network/gps interfaces?
The long version: I have been wanting to build an in-car device that would store media and act as a gps and what not, but haven't found a way that I want to implement it yet. I was thinking if I found a x86 port of android, got most of the voice stuff working, I could have a headless device that I could store music on and use as navigation. I know the phones are capable of that, but if I want to keep say 500 gb of music on me, how does one do that?
My thoughts were if it were possible to either cluster or network an installed android powered unit to an android powered phone, I could always have network access from the unit in the car and share the gps from the phone, or have the phone access the storage from the device (not through dlna, but the music app seeing it as physical storage) and allow me to push the output from the in car device to the phone and let me interact with the system how ever I need to I could accomplish a form of in-car entertainment.
I figured that there could be apps written that would let the in-car device act as a headless unit, with its only interface being audio, it could store navigation directions/maps and what not, so if I didn't have the phone that day, I could still navigate to where I needed to. The phone and the device could constantly be in communication with each other if the car was parked by a wifi hotspot or something, so if I chose to navigate somewhere when I was at home, the car would already have the directions. I could also have it pull any media changes through wifi, and always have an updated media library.
I know the phones are fully capable of doing this, but for most of it, you have to have a window holster for the car to use the gps, and wires running for audio and charging and what not, but if there were a way that the in-car device could be hardwired to the audio system and left alone, the phone could stay in my pocked, be linked via bluetooth and I could have a small button-pad or something that would allow me to initiate google voice search, control the media player and interact with navigation. The whole thing with linking the phone and device together would be so the mobile network could be shared between android devices and the incar device could pull the information it needed. The thought of the display sharing was in case I needed to interact with the incar device.
I know what I am going on about is specific to me, but my thoughts behind it were if it were possible to do at least the network sharing (with out tethering or mobile hot spot blah blah blah) that android phone and tablet owners could do the same thing. They could share their mobile network through their tablet and have a tablet that would be always connected, would share mailboxes with the phone and basically act the way the Blackberry playbook is proposed or how the Palm Foleo was supposed to work. If the devices had a network ability of some level, the tablet could pull text messages, email messages, contacts or any other sync-able item.. That way, this wouldn't just be done for my benefit, but it would take tablet and phone owners to another league. Two devices that share the same information from one source and don't have to sync with the same servers twice. It would take a lot of redundancy out.
I hope you guys can see usefulness in my idea, and can shed some light for me.

Sorry from bringing this back from the dead, but since I never got any responses I'll add a bit more..
Does android have anything that would work like blackberry bridge between two android devices?

Droid Vnc server and androidvnc works fine for screen sharing. What I really like is the hpc aspects to CPU cycle sharing over wifi/nfc. Really interesting possibilities.

What I am looking for is to have the ability to use two separate android devices, but have them communicate via wifi/bluetooth or what ever and act as the same device in the sense that when the device with the data plan gets a text message or phone call, the notification goes through the other device that would be physically docked to audio equipment or what ever...
I have a Droid X, Droid Incredible, Droid Pro and a first gen Droid laying around.. Currently the Droid Pro is my in use phone.. The rest are just laying here. I want to be able to dock one of the others in my car, turn the GPS on, link it to my droid pro and have the other phone use the droid pro's active data connection for guidance/searches etc, and it would be docked to car audio, so it would need to access the pro's sd card, and have access to the pro's phone audio, or the ability to route calls from the pro to the other device via bluetooth or whatever, not by call forwarding.. This way it would be a sort of infotainment/telematics system..
Think of the possibilities this would open up for android tablets etc. If You could reply to text messages from your tablet because the tablet is linked/bridged to the phone in your pocket... That would make these tablet/laptop combos more appealing because it would the perfect convergence between tablet and phone.

Oh, and I guess, the other thing is that I have multiple cars, so one device would go in each car, and then when I got in the car, the one in that car would link with my phone, and everything would be the same, car to car, or device to device...

I guess another way to bump this:
Would it be possible for an app to do ADB to ADB via bluetooth or something, because then an app could be written like pdanet that would allow the network to be shared at least?

I dont remember the name of the app I think the name of it is Dashboard? and it will store/push all texts/emails etc. to every device u have dashboard installed on...Best buy has an app kinda like that too...Like the Idea of the screen sharing is that kinda like remote desktop/control?

I just search how to neywork cluster android came across your post ..... if you use the Google apps like Google play music/maps as well Google hangouts since with Google voice you can easily do what you want with out the need for both devices being together you can upload 50000 songs 9n play music for free and any device with ur hangouts and voice will receive ur calls and email notifications .....just need to make sure have Internet

[Q] Re: Samsung Galaxy S2 (l9100) Car USB internal mount

Hi all, I've been waiting and searching around seeing if I was able to find any kind of fix or something for some time now but it's beginning to get to me far too much.
My problem is when I had the HTC Aria I used to have the audio stored on my phone and plug it into my car's USB connection and the headunit would search the device and find all audio to play through the headunit which I was then able to use my controls on the steering wheel. After some time I bought the Samsung Galaxy S2 (l9100) and to my excitement received the whopping 16GB internal storage as a bonus, so I filled that. And heres where my problem comes in, I cant seem to make my headunit search the internal storage and play all that music, It will only search the SD card (external).
Now from reading all over the internet I've been led to believe by any posts that relate somewhat to this that it wont be possible for this to work, what frustrates me though is that it is possible. I've rooted and flashed various custom ROM's to my device (VillianROM first, Cyanogenmod Nightlies second and now MIUI yesterday). I have successfully had the headunit read my internal (newer and more songs) upon connection twice that I can recall now, I think the first time was after first connection to the car after the cyanogenmod flash and today when I first connected it again. Which led me to believe that it was working and then was just applying a new theme on my phone while hanging at a friends then was taking another friend home and plugged it in and back to only reading from my SD card (external - old crap music) and can't figure out why it has worked twice if it is not possible.
The reason why I am determined to figure this out is due to 16 GB internal storage and only 1 GB external storage and I wish to use my phone to its full potential.
While I'm at it, I guess I should mention my other problem which adds to my determination to get the USB connection working with my car. The USB connection is a much clearer & louder playback (Higher quality) then the AUX (current alternative) and to be safer while driving by using my steering controls.
But since flashing to Cyanogenmod and MIUI (cannot recall whether I had this problem on VillainROM) I've noticed the volume in headset mode (when I have something plugged into the headphone jack - ie, AUX, etc) and I begin turning up the volume from quietest to loudest it get notably louder each press until halfway or a press before halfway and then does not become any louder, which I also think may be making the audio less clear and loud when connected via AUX to my car.
Thanks in advance to anyone whom contributes.
I am usually stubborn enough to sort problems out myself, but for the first time I am asking for help on a community forum.

Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?
If you need to know anything else don't hesitate to ask.

CM7 volume is a known issues or least it was last time I checked.
Try turning on/off usb debugging is my best guess.

Done that, today at some point it randomly read my internal storage and right now I'm constantly reconnecting it with no success.
The frustration continues as it is obviously possible but appears to have a mind of its own.
With my little knowledge when it comes to android and their platform, is it possible it could be there mount priority of the storage or the internal having something stored on it such as an app that could be in use by the phone which could be preventing the drive from being read?

what the hell... I have the exact OPPOSITE problem.
With my headunit its been only mounting the internal storage, but most of my music I put them in the external since I got a 32gb card!
Could it be mounting the smaller sized storage first? =P
-EDIT-
Actually it should be easier to do it the way you want it to (i.e mount internal only)
just unmount the sd card via the android settings -> storage -> unmount
and once it is unmounted, connect the usb to the car.
The catch is of course if you wanna use the external again you have to manually mount it via the settings.

more info but no real help
I have seen a very similar problem and I feel like I can reproduce it.
I've got a 2010 Hyundai Tucson - it has a USB/aux port in the dash console and can accept anything that can be mounted as flash media, flash drives, ipods, etc can all play back music using the Nav display to browse and playback files from the device.
The stereo plays back music perfectly through both my wife's old and new phones. An original MyTouch 3g and a MyTouch 4g. She's had no problem mounting and reading the files from her internal storage. She can playback music on her phone, the car even remembers her place and resumes where she stopped a song.
I, on the other hand, cannot easily get the car to playback files from my older or newer phone. I started with the original android, the HTC Dream/TMobile G1 then later upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy S 3g/TMob Vibrant. What's the difference? I've run modded android OS on my phones and my wife has not. I had been running CM5 and later CM6 on the G1/Dream until I retired it. Lately I've been using a MIUI mod, Lithium 360, on the Vibrant.
When I plug in to the USB on the car, the phone gives me the mount prompt and the car begins searching for files. Eventually both fail to make any progress.
I've tried many fixes including turning on/off USB debugging, I've tried wiping Dalvik cache, Wiping regular cache, I believe I even did a factory reset, flash zip, full re-install on a road trip just to see if I could get the car to read my files. What I did discover is that the problem is simply not hardware related. I could boot to recovery and use clockwork to mount USB storage. Files were seen instantly and played back fine. However, this doesn't do me any good as I can't really use the device for anything else (safety first ) and not to mention that there's no way I want to run the phone with the screen on for hours. I know there are simple workarounds here. But carrying an aux/patch cable is an extra hassle, and since my phone can hold enough data for my average means, I often don't remember to bring a flash drive with me everywhere. Besides, the USB cable in the dash does double duty, charging while giving access to files.
To be fair, I've only used CM based mods (according to wikipedia, MIUI is somewhat based on Cyanogen) on my phone and have not tried out any other android software. I don't know if that's a connection or not, but it's the only lead I have right now. There's got to be something different about the USB settings in the OS itself compared to stock Android. Is there an apk file one could flash and test somehow?
---------- Post added at 04:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:49 AM ----------
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=617333&highlight=car+stereo
This thread is above seems to be describing the same problem. This however appears to be an aftermarket stereo.

[Q] After mounting it *immediately* dismounts
Connecting to a Samsung TV (USB debugging ON and clicked on USB Storage until it turns from green to orange) and then browsing USB (Menu => USB device) it mounts the USB ("Android 11GB" which is presumably the internal SD) and then dismounts within a second and restarts initializing. An ordinary USB stick (single file system) does mount.
Is this because the Galaxy S2 mounts two file systems at a time and the TV cannot handle this. Is there an app which only mounts ONE filesystem on the Galaxy ?

[Q] the best idea i've had to date for my old android phones

so here's the thought:
i have a few old android phones i've collected over the years. i also have a headunit in my car with a rear usb port with which i routed a cable to my glovebox to have a usb stick with my music on it. what i would like to do is replace that usb stick with my old incredible 2. this would not only replace the usb drive, but would also give me the added security of having a hidden phone, always powered, in the car. this would be useful in the event that the car was stolen, since i could reactivate the phone via verizonwireless.com and then use an app like cerberus to do pretty much anything with the phone remotely. including tracking, recording audio, etc. there are just a few kinks i'm not sure how to iron out.
number one, although the phone will last probably a few days with no power, i'm anticipating the battery taking a beating from being in the car 24/7. my concern is that it'll turn off, and if it's stolen i can't expect the perpetrator to turn it back on for me. is there any way to enable an android phone to automatically turn on when it's attached to a power source?
number 2, how can i set the default connection type to 'mass storage device' so that the car stereo automatically mounts the SD card for playing music when the ignition is turned on.
thanks for any help, as well as any other useful suggestions for this application!

rocktonic said:
number 2, how can i set the default connection type to 'mass storage device' so that the car stereo automatically mounts the SD card for playing music when the ignition is turned on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
under settings, there should be a "connect to PC" section, where you can select "disk drive" as the default connection rather than "charge only".

If you want to take this a different direction, how about turning it into a dash cam?
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

compro01 said:
under settings, there should be a "connect to PC" section, where you can select "disk drive" as the default connection rather than "charge only".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you know, i'm starting to think something is wrong with the phone. i did find that section, and set the default to disk drive, but when i plug it into my computer all it does is charge. the mac doesn't recognize anything is plugged in, and the phone doesn't recognize it's plugged into anything. i reflashed a stock rom and everything, same results. could the usb port have gone bad in a way that the charging still works but data doesn't?! seems unlikely...

post-mortem said:
If you want to take this a different direction, how about turning it into a dash cam?
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's a neat idea too, especially if i could mount it somehow that it wasn't visible. i've been trying to think of a place to hide it at least so that it can see into the cab to take pictures/video using cerberus, but i'm not sure where i could mount it to do this. my main objective is added security for car theft, so having the phone somewhat hidden is sort of important to me. i live in philadelphia, so the paranoia isn't 100% unwarranted.

For outward facing, maybe behind the grille? Inward facing would be hard to hide. Maybe in the door.
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

Chinese WinCE 6.0 car stereo switching between USB functions

Hello everyone!
I hope there isn't a topic already for this, but I searched and didn't find anything, mostly also because it's kind of difficult to describe my problem.
To begin with. I have one of those chinese car stereos that run WinCE 6 in my car. It's not the first one, I actually went through quite few of them to finally find one that suits me. I thought I did, and mostly it's true, but there is still one feature that bugs me a bit.
My stereo has two USB ports. One, mini-USB on front - for music/videos/pics, second, full size USB on the back - for 3G/WiFi adaptor. This is as described by the manufacturer/seller.
Now, obviously, many of us would think, that since it's "universal serial bus", it shouldn't matter what I put in which port. So the rear port should accept music on USB flash drive and front port should work with 3G modem. Right? Right? Wrooong!!!
For whatever reason, my stereo only accepts music in the front port, with annoying little cable that is to convert the mini-USB to full size, just bumping up and down as I drive. Also, since I have a built-in USB port, which I would like to use for this and plug it's connection to rear port on the stereo, bugs me a lot.
But no, the rear port only works with the 3G modem and seems to completely ignore any flash drive connected to it.
What's funny though is, that the front port actually works with the 3G modem too! So the front is a "2in1", but the rear is only designated for 3G/WiFi.
Since I don't want to let this just go and get used to it (+ my OCD is fighting heavilly with me on this, lol ), I started to look around to figure out what might cause this. I loaded Total Commander on the unit and plugged two flash drives to the stereo. Both with music files, both formatted the same. In totalcmd it showed them as USB (front) and USB1 (rear) (or something similar, the key part is the "1"). It always added the "1" to the rear one, even though it was connected alone, without the front one.
Now, this is where I believe the problem is. I think/hope/wish that the music application on the stereo only works when pointed to the "USB" (front) device. Since there is probably no way to decrypt and re-program the music app, I was thinking about renaming the USB connections, or, basically switching them for each other.
So to get (finally) to the bottom of my question, is there a way to switch the description/name/purpose of the USB ports in WinCE 6.0 platform, preferably of course in a way that it would stay like that even after restart?
Many many thanks for any help or pointing me to the right direction! Also please let me know if there is some detail that might help identifying the problem.

Today I installed an app called USB Device Info from the play store. What it shows is that it cannot connect because of SeLinux.. CLUE?? So I went ahead and looked on how to connect via USB with Linux. I downloaded Terminus from Play Store and was able to read the files. Previously, I read it's a 'read only' connection. I'm researching how to change the 'read only' to 'read and write', and also extract and find these files. I'm currently looking for my "extracted files".

android tv sticks that can send data over usb to car infotainment for android auto?

https://forum.xda-developers.com/ge...droid-3-0-proxy-gateway-android-auto-t3813163
I'd like to use [Android 4.1+]Proxy/GateWay for Android Auto to get wireless android auto on a VW Mk7 Golf MIB2 infotainment head unit. I don't yet know much about android sticks. I prefer to use an android device that has no battery since it will be plugged into the car 24/7. The AA gateway author had some success with MK809V and MK808B. I was wondering if there is anything newer/faster that would also be recognized by the car's head unit via the usb cable? Support for 5 ghz wifi would also be good.

djy said:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/ge...droid-3-0-proxy-gateway-android-auto-t3813163
I prefer to use an android device that has no battery since it will be plugged into the car 24/7. The AA gateway author had some success with MK809V and MK808B. I was wondering if there is anything newer/faster that would also be recognized by the car's head unit via the usb cable? Support for 5 ghz wifi would also be good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm interested in the same thing. To prevent stuff blocking android auto functionality I think it owuld be best if it is possible to install a custom rom on the stick so there is a plain clean android that is not restricted to media stuff or something or missing settings for wifi hotspot, usb, AA in the menu.
But this forum does not have the explicit custom rom section, so I didn't find what I am looking for.
Does anyone know about sticks that are easy to root, open bootloader and maybe from a known vendor?