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Enco B046 - Android 4.04 Version

49K views 147 replies 33 participants last post by  zi_2005 
#1 · (Edited)
What this thread is for:




  • The Enco B046 With Android 4.04
  • Android Technical Discussion
  • Android Development
  • Flaws and Limitations
  • Community-Based Support
  • Helpful Tips, Work-Arounds, and How-To Guides
  • Frequently Asked Questions

What this thread isn't for:

  • Dynavin Radios Of Any Variety
  • Should I / Shouldn't I Buy
  • Windows CE
  • Arguments and Bad Vibes, maaaan.

With as cluttered and filled with outdated information as the current thread has become, it's time to fork it off into something a bit more concise and focused.

FAQ:

  1. Where do I buy this radio?
    Go to Alibaba and get in contact with Charles or Jolly, who I think might be Charles in a wig.
    After some research, I believe I have found their actual photos:

    Charles....................Jolly
  2. What all does the radio do?
    The radio is like the Dynavin, in that the "Navigation" portion is a separate computer board. This one runs Android.

    Here's the feature set:

    Code:
    1)Double Din GPS Car DVD Player with 7" Touch Screen Monitor
    2)800*480 resolution
    3)Steering Wheel Controls
    4)Built-in Bluetooth for mobile hands-free and audio playback.
    5)Built in IPOD function
    6)4X50W maximum power output from built-in amp
    7)Compatible with DVD,DVD-R,DVD-RW,HDVD,DVCD,MP3,MP4,CD-R,CD-RW,VCD,DIVX,WMA and so on.
    8)Built in analog TV tuner (DVB-T and ISDB-T are optional)
    9)AV output/input,AUX. 
    10)GPS function,built in gps module.
    11)Radio receiving: FM/AM can be stored 32 stations. RDS is available .
    12)USB/SD card port: support MP4,DIVX,JPEG,MP3 and WMA playback
    13)Car reverse camera input (switches automatically)
    14)Multi-Language Options
    Here's the specs for the Android side:

    Code:
    OS: ANDROID 4.04
    CPU: TCC8925 1.2Ghz Dual Core
    RAM: 1G DDR2 RAM
    Internal Storage: 4GB Internal FLASH
    External Storage: Up to 32GB microSD
    1 USB Port (Host Mode Only)
  3. How much does it cost?
    With the Radio, Wifi Dongle, Reverse Camera, and Shipping, plus a 5% Paypal Fee they want $630. 3G dongles are $30. They are willing to negotiate some.
  4. What if it doesn't work / it doesn't arrive / etc
    You will deal with Charles, and it will be a painful, drawn-out process. He seems to respond best to a Paypal dispute.
  5. Will navigation work perfectly right out of the box?
    No. Navigation will probably not work right out of the box.
  6. Well, how do I fix the navigation, then? The button says NAVI right on it!
    First, you need to root the device. Second, you'll need to install my custom framework.jar to resolve an issue with it calculating your moving speed at 1.852x your actual speed. Third, if you want to use iGO, the stock-installed Navigation app, you'll need to use a program like LCDDensity for Root to change your DPI to 145. It's an ugly hack, though, because it's not the native density, and causes some apps to behave funny. I have verified that TomTom works at the "original" density of 160, and everything looks perfect with the font size set to "small" in the Android settings menu. I haven't tried to crank up the density even further.
  7. Why can't I install X or Y application from the Play Store?
    You might be running an unsupported DPI for that app, or the app doesn't like the id string in your build.prop. This is something that will be sorted out soon, by myself or others in the community. In the meantime, it's pretty easy to obtain the actual APKs for applications. If you have an Android phone, and you've installed the app you want, use SaveAPK and OI File Manager, both free, to export the APK for use on another device.
  8. What about Bluetooth? I want Torque!
    I haven't had the chance to experiment with Bluetooth dongles, or look through to see if there are even any Bluetooth drivers built into the kernel. Otherwise, Torque Pro does support USB ELM327 devices in Android. With a USB hub, and the proper ELM327 device, you would be up and running.
  9. What else can I do with it?
    Subsonic
    I run a Subsonic server from a PC in my house. With the Subsonic app on Android, and an internet connection (wifi tethered to my phone) I have access to my entire music and video library. It works extremely well, and I've been using it for a couple of years in my other vehicle, where I've replaced the stock radio with a Samsung Galaxy Tab and an external amp.
    Pandora
    You'll have to come up with an APK for it, since it won't install from the Play store, but when you're sick of your own music collection, it's Pandora to the rescue.
    Tune-In Radio
    Listen to your favorite radio station from your old home town, sports games that are blacked out in your area, or a local police scanner feed.
    Glympse
    This is one of my favorite apps, and another one for which you'll need an APK. It will allow you to send your current GPS location to anyone, for a period of time that you specify, and it'll give them a link on the Glympse server to watch you travel. I use it when I'm traveling a long distance, to see family or friends, if I'm late to a customer meeting, if I'm meeting friends at the pub, or if anyone ever asks me, "Where are you?" I send them a "Glympse" from the Glympse widget, and they can see my location, current speed, and if I've put in a destination, an ETA, all overlaid on a Google map.
    Yelp
    When I'm in a new city, I always need to know, "What's good to eat nearby?" The Yelp app for Android will tell you the restaurants close by, whether they're open now, etc, based on your GPS location.
    Youtube
    I'm sure you know what this does.
    ...
    ...the list goes on and on
    ...
  10. Wtf? Sound from Android only comes out of the front!
    Go to the "Radio Side", into "sound" portion of the settings menu, and set Music_NAV to OFF.
  11. Wtf? It's REALLY LOUD!
    Your BMW must have a factory amp. The best thing to do is get an adjustable 4 channel Line Output Converter, and splice it into the harness that came with the radio. The BMW factory amp is "special", and requires more oomph than normal line-level (RCA) output, but less oomph than speaker-level output. An adjustable 4 channel Line Output Converter (LOC) will let you dial this in. Something like this should work fine.
  12. Wtf? My USB drive doesn't show up in Android when plugged into the second USB port on the back!
    There's only one USB port for the Android side, and it's the top one in the set of two plugs on the back of the radio. The bottom plug goes to the "Radio Side." If you need to hook up more than one device (wifi dongle + anything else), you'll need to hook up a USB hub.

When you first get your radio, here's what you'll want to do:

  1. Download the zip posted here: http://www.mediafire.com/?cj853v4gzn66i2o, rename it to "update.zip", and put it in the root of your microSD card.
  2. Go to settings>about Tablet>System updates>External Storage>Install Update.
  3. When it comes back up, you're rooted.
  4. Next, you'll want to install my Modded Framework.jar.
    ---HERE BE DRAGONS---
    ---THIS CAN BRICK YOUR RADIO---
    ---YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED---

    The easiest way to install this is to put it on your microSD card, use ES File Explorer, mount the system as read/write, go to your microSD card, long press the new framework.jar and hit "copy." Then, go to /system/framework and long press framework.jar to rename it to framework.jar.old. Then, press the "paste" button at the top. Exit out of ES File Explorer. Open it back up, and verify the new framework.jar is in /system/framework. Reboot.
  5. If you want to use iGo for Navigation, get LCD Density For Root and change your density to 145 DPI. iGo will then stop crashing out, telling you that you have an unsupported resolution.

Google Navigation does not work. The "driveabout" turn-by-turn portion requires the GPS driver to provide location accuracy data, which ours does not. Your alternatives are iGo and TomTom. Navigon probably works, as well as others, but I have not verified anything else as of yet.
 
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#5 ·
All said and done, I got mine for about $100 less than that. It really comes down to three questions.

1. Are you satisfied with the factory radio?
2. Do you care what it looks like when you put in an aftermarket radio?
3. What do you want your radio to do?

My answers were no, yes, and everything, so this fit the bill. :)
 
#6 ·
PainBreak, you've done some good work on this and great job for starting the 4.0.4 thread.

The 4.0.4 unit is showing a LOT more potential than the older 2.3 unit.

I'm currently working on an update.zip with all of the little changes needed included into it.

I feel we could get a lot more out of this than the 2.3 system. One thing we are all looking to I'm sure, is getting Bluetooth running on the android side.

I have an android compatible BT dongle here which we have tried to use, but the switch in settings will not turn on,cleaning me to believe Bluetooth.apk on the system is deactivated or missing. now the units are rooted, im sure we can resolve this somehow.

I also have a fix if anyone gets stuck in a boot loop, to force update, but it needs the unit to be opened and I don't think it would be a good idea to put it in the public domain just yet, as people will likely brick their systems and blame me.

I have shared this with painbreak, as it gives us an added level of security in case of screwing up as you can just force an update.zip even if not booting.

More later.
 
#9 ·
Hello all,

1 little problem I have found on the RADIO side is that the songs that are on the USB drive have the first second or so cut....so you usually miss the first drum beat....same for you guys or different ? Could be my USB drive is slow but I don't think so.
Also on the USB section the interface is UUUUUGLY, I've checked and on the android side the USB drive in the back is not recognized with ES explorer, perhaps when it is rooted, I'd prefer running the USB music out of android with nice playlists and visual effect than the ugly and crappy original enco version...

I still haven't rooted the android side so I'll comment on this one afterwards
 
#13 ·
To be honest, the "RADIO" side, to me, is just a conduit for me to get to the Android side. I fully expected that side to be complete crap, just as it is on the Dynavin.

On the back of the radio, there are two USB ports. Only the top one goes to the Android side. The bottom one goes to the RADIO side.

What are you using to store your music? Just a small USB Hard Drive? It could be such a case that it's not getting enough power from the Android USB port to spin up your drive. I'm just guessing at this point.
 
#15 ·
The top port has the wifi dongle so I have to use the bottom one.

I use a flash drive verbatim 16go class 10 (just checked that) so it should be OK

Perhaps I should get a usb hub and plug everything in the top port.

This being said in the radio section, the sound is VERY good both on the fm radio, USB, DVD and so on, the BT works fine and the BT sound when I stream a song from the phone in BT into the enco is also VERY good....

What do you guys think ?
 
#18 ·
The bottom port doesn't connect to the Android board, so you will need a usb hub in order to get Android to see all of your usb peripherals. I've added this to the FAQ as well.
 
#17 ·
Guys,
As far as I know the ADB is no started under Android and also Developer Settings are not accessible.
Found a way to show it, but I need confirmation from you. (I tried it on my tablet)
Installed free app "Shell Terminal Emulator" from GooglePlay and typed the following on the command line:

am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.DevelopmentSettings
This brought Development options settings and there you should be able to enable Android debugging.

Anybody to confirm it on ENCO or compatible Telechips units?
 
#22 · (Edited)
Confirmed the forced update method is working. We've got Phokus on here to try it on his 4.0.4 unit stuck in a bootloop. Forced update and it came back to life, so I hear. So there is definitely now a get-out clause :) We have used it on our units weve managed to screw up by messing with the system, but good to know it can work for others and is universal.
 
#24 ·
This is excellent news, and I want to thank you for sharing this with the community. There's no understating the importance of being able force recovery mode, particularly for development.
 
#25 ·
While we're at it and to make sure people don't go flashing anything...

MD5 for update.zip from the forums (and not the shiity version from Charles) : 47678a0e749079733907d63f7f8309ce

MD5 for Painbreak's framework.jar : 2f230ff9285c3dabd72990512b6475af

List of apps to be installed when the device is rooted for those of you who are not familiar with android system, these apps are accessible from the playstore and free, we'l get to the hacked apps later on :)

1) superuser : this one allows certain apps to get special privileges, that's the main reason for rooting the device anyway
2) titanium backup : allows you to back up your system apps, user apps, settings....please pay for this one, it can be hacked but if you pay for just one app pay for this one....
3) adaway : blocks the ads in the apps
4) clockwork rom manager : allows you to install new roms (so not useful yet but it will come....)

If you feel lucky and want to play some more

1) Setcpu : Overclocking CPU and playing with voltages
2) andftp : ftp client
3) atorrent : torrent client
4) bimmer : get this forum in the car...
5) cpuspy : if you overclock you can check if it's useful
6) onymous app installer : lets you install apk (android programs) without going through play store
7) startup manager or gemini app manager : allows you to decide which apps autostarts and which app doesn't
8) terminal emulator : terminal mode to play with adb commands
9) root app delete : allows you to delete the system apps and what charles included in the rom at start, DANGEROUS, you can delete ANTYHING with this one, even the vital stuff....
 
#28 ·
I was wondering the same thing... It will still say "There's an update available...Install?"even if there's no update.zip to be found. It will still reboot, but you will get the robot with the triangle exclamation rather than the one with a glowing, rotating buckyball and a progress bar that shows it's actually updating.
 
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