When your car doesn't have GNSS…
This has never happened before and here it is again (c) Chernomyrdin V.S.
Who would have thought that in a modern car with 4 full screens (dashboard, projection, central screen, passenger screen) and a real Android on the head unit, the manufacturer could cut out navigation? Surprisingly, but true – Geely Monjaro (purchased from an official dealer (hereinafter referred to as OD)). As it turned out later, the Geely Atlas is in the same situation… Perhaps there are other cars on the Russian market that for some reason are deprived of this important and necessary functionality.
Disorder. We need to fix it.
Starting state of things
So, the Geely Monjaro (OD) has a gorgeous multimedia system with a bunch of screens, but completely poor functionality: playing music from a flash drive or via Bluetooth, radio and mirroring the phone screen using a wired CarbitLink.
CarbitLink is not only wired, it more or less works with Android phones, but the phone must remain in landscape orientation and with the screen on. With the iPhone it’s even more interesting: only mirroring works, but poking at the screen of the head unit (GU) is already useless – clicks are not transmitted to the phone. Is it really convenient?
Since mid-2024, the situation has changed a little – the manufacturer added wired Apple CarPlay (owners of Apple products breathed a little sigh of relief), Android Auto was never delivered (and will not be, since Google is not friends with China).
Owners of cars produced before mid-2024 are out of luck – CarPlay cannot be officially installed (licensing restrictions from Apple).
With all this, the passenger screen turns out to be completely useless – nothing useful can be displayed there…
Of the standard wireless interfaces, only bluetooth is available – connect your phone for voice calls and music playback. That's all. Sadness and melancholy.
But whoever searches will always find – a team of enthusiasts found out that you can enable ADB through the car’s engineering menu. And then it started…
Monjaro Starter Pack
Actually, the result of the efforts of enthusiasts was an absolutely free MSP – a set of scripts and software that greatly expands the functionality of the GU on the car.
The main thing it does script:
Enables WiFi (it is in the GU, but was blocked).
Enables developer mode in Android settings.
Installs the required minimum software: MacroDroid, Aurora (Google Play mirror), VIVID (gesture control), Google Chrome, Usbgps4droid (more about it below) and some others.
Gives control of multimedia applications (Yandex.Music, etc.) using buttons from the steering wheel.
Allows you to transfer navigation from the central screen to the dashboard (there is a special mode for displaying the dashboard).
After this, the GU becomes much more fun: we take a WiFi router (or distribute the Internet through an access point on the phone) and the GU can miraculously view websites, install any applications (Yandex.Navigator and Yandex.Music – IMHO, a sufficient minimum).
The budget wifi router Olax U90 has proven itself well. Price about 3 thousand rubles. (hereinafter prices are at the time of writing on Russian marketplaces).
But here again there is a “rake”: as we remember, the manufacturer cut out for some reason an entire TCAM block (cars from parallel imports (PI) have this block, its main functionality: GNSS system, telematics via eSIM (relevant only for China ) and some others).
Those. There is no place to get positioning from anywhere.
Naturally, we remember that “you can install anything and the developer mode is open” – owners of Android phones happily install gpstether (on the phone (server) and GU (client). In the GU, in the fictitious location settings, select gpstether and, voila, navigator It’s starting to work fully. Isn’t that cool?
Now the screens are becoming functional, for example, I usually have navigation on the central screen (it’s convenient for me and my wife-navigator to watch), on the passenger screen there is Yandex.Music (and my wife “DJs”). When I drive alone, there is music in the background, navigation on the dashboard, and all other screens are turned off.
But here some inconveniences begin: when starting, you need to poke something in the phone and something in the GU. Most of these inconveniences are solved by a macrodroid (or standard automation on phones). And it seems to be good, but… no: iPhone owners feel deprived – this is not possible there.
Okay, the next iteration – there are USB-GNSS receivers (and the car has a USB data port, and not just charging ports). We connect the receiver to the data port (pre-receiver it would be necessary to configure for a more adequate solution to the problem of car navigation), install the Usbgps4droid application – configure it a little (select a receiver, set the correct baud rate, enable autostart, etc.). After that, in the fictitious locations, select Usbgps4droid and rejoice again: navigation already works with this device.
Tested usb-gnss: GN-803G (based on u-Blox 8). Price about 4 thousand rubles.
And here again, not everything is smooth: if the phone starts giving out coordinates quickly enough (it can do AGPS, and while you are walking from home to the car there is already a “fixed” coordinate), then the USB receiver makes you understand that there is a concept of “cold start” , “warm start” and this takes quite a long time, i.e. The “sit down and go” scenario is not as fast as we would like.
Next iteration: we take a cheap Android phone (I bought some POCO for 4800 rubles), put a SIM card in it, do automation: when charging starts, turn off the economy mode, turn on the access point, start gpstether. And reverse automation: when charging fails: turn off the access point, put the phone in power saving mode. And plug it into the charger (there is a 12V socket in the trunk).
Voila: we approach the car (voltage appears in the socket) – the phone raises the access point and turns on the “broadcasting” of the coordinates. As soon as the GU is loaded, it already has the Internet and coordinates. Cool? Yes, cool!
The phone does not really discharge when used this way (I checked that in this standby mode it does not go to zero for almost 2 weeks). When traveling regularly, you don’t need to think at all.
And everything seems to be excellent, but it rarely happens that something is wrong in the “car” phone and you have to go into the trunk and see what happened there – either the access point did not rise for some reason, or gpstether did not start in the right place mode. Disorder.
And a phone with a lithium battery parked in a car is not the safest thing (summer, heat, you know…).
And in all cases it turns out “somehow sloppy”: there are some wires, something lies in the tunnel niche (or in the trunk)…
Down with compromises!
One wonderful man Andrey thought and made a “device and software” complex that would be devoid of many disadvantages, namely:
No wires on the main console (in the trunk 12V is normal).
No dancing with a tambourine when getting into the car.
No batteries.
Ease of use – ideally, you sit down, launch the navigator, enter the address, and go.
Speed of operation – you don’t really want to wait until the system finds satellites, determines the location, turns on the access point, connects everything, configures it, and you’ve already arrived. The ideal is that everything should turn on while you enter the address. 1-2 minutes will do.
It should also be a Wifi access point, so that the same navigator could build routes and detect traffic jams.
Actually, the list above is taken from his entry on drive2.ruwhere he actually described his decision.
As a result of his developments, the first prototype appeared:
At the same time, Andrey was cutting firmware for esp (in the Arduino environment) and software for an automobile control unit.
A lot of goodies have been implemented, below is just a part:
Over the air update
Working with u-blox M8N at a very low level, which allowed implement AGPS (and a very fast start)
Car tracker function (no additional software on the GU)
The software on the GU is implemented as a service (it is launched automatically along with the GU, and there are no splash logos or collapsible windows on the GU screen).
By the way, the author himself will tell you better about the software (if he wants, of course), but as a user I will say that this combination works excellently. The “sit down and go” scenario is exactly what you expect from a modern car.
Andrey is developing his device, a small-scale batch is in production. And he is already moving on and developing version 2.0 (on bluetooth 5.0 and M9, but again he will tell you about this himself).
And I’ll tell you about my contribution to this project:
The same thing, but “side view”
It seemed to me that the device in the trunk is, of course, great, but there is one more place in the car where the GNSS receiver seemed more appropriate to me: in the casing on the windshield behind the rearview mirror.
With Andrey's permission, I developed a version “through the looking glass” (I'm not very good with software, but I do have experience in designing and manufacturing hardware).
We open the casing and find a fairly voluminous free niche on the right side:
The idea of the layout is as follows: on the top of the board there are all the elements except esp. On the bottom side there is only an esp8266 and an antenna for receiving a satellite signal.
Such an arrangement would allow the device to be placed (via a “holder”) in free space in such a way that the antenna would look directly through the windshield at the sky (and in that place of the windshield there are also no heating filaments – so there is no unnecessary interference).
Based on the available dimensions, I designed (in EasyEDA) a device measuring 34x64mm, which in terms of circuit design almost completely duplicates the author’s device (the firmware is the same, respectively, the GPIOs and connections used are identical), only I made a different lowering circuit (I just already had automotive developments in other projects). I removed the indication (I don’t like it when something blinks and/or lights up somewhere).
In the device I used standard size 0806, since I soldered the prototypes myself, and my vision is no longer what it used to be, unfortunately.
The device's power connection option was borrowed from the DVR connection option in OD cars: this is the so-called “Volvo adapter”, which is placed in the cable gap for connecting the rear view mirror and is a power splitter.
In order for the delivery set to be absolutely complete, I asked my friend @Blck-1 to design and print a “holder”. Several iterations and we got the following:
I made a test version in 5 copies and sent it out to testers (I kept one device for myself – you have to travel with something).
In general, the device “worked”, but some users had problems with the level (and indeed with the ability to receive) signals from the satellite. The culprit turned out to be a very small and capricious connector through which the antenna was connected (and even with a rather short included cable, which tried to disconnect the connector).
The testers came up with a solution – we take a pigtail and an external antenna (on OZONE for 350 rubles), turn off the built-in one, connect the external one through the pigtail and place it in the “fin” (in OD cars it has a purely decorative function – it is empty, there is nothing inside.
If with a standard antenna the positioning accuracy was 4-6 meters (which is already quite enough), then with an antenna in the fin it was less than 1 meter (I saw an accuracy of 0.3 meters, on average 0.7-0.9 meters).
Naturally, where they jam, a miracle does not happen and the device gets lost and gets confused in its readings.
Based on test operation and user requests, I made some adjustments to my version of the device:
I abandoned the flimsy connector and cable for connecting the built-in antenna (now the antenna is simply soldered onto the board)
Added an antenna amplifier for the built-in antenna on the board
I slightly changed the power supply (now esp and m8n have their own LDOs at 3.3V)
Added a reset controller for esp (it is responsible for the RESET signal and releases it 250ms after normal power appears)
Added a normal connector for connecting an external antenna.
Changed the connector for connecting the router from USB-A to a much more compact USB-C
Select the antenna to use using the appropriate SMD jumper on the board.
Transition to size 0603.
It turned out like this:
Ordered production in China. They make boards there, solder everything except esp8266 (I buy them separately, flash them in the programmer and then solder them onto the boards).
Naturally, the holder also had to be adjusted to the new dimensions (in order to make the device’s “pie” as thin as possible).
@Sinsel did technical support site on devices with all the answers to frequently asked questions and instructions.
What's next?
Now the first small series has already been distributed throughout the country, and if you are still interested in what will happen next and operating experience, join our chat HWgps on these devices.
The device can also be useful on other cars, where it is possible to install software on the GU, but there is no GNSS.
