I've got one, it's still in its box. I was going to try and make mine into some form of car-computer, but I've lost the urge to try it now.

I was thinking about trying that as well. Then I thought it would be easier to stick my Kindle Fire in the dash. I haven't done either...

Turns out there is a build of Asterisk for the Pi! I actually need to do some testing of the VOIP here at the office so I'm downloading it right now. It should run it just fine, I can't imagine it being that taxing of a setup.

Every time I get a new mobile I plan to make some custom car mount with charging and audio outputs. Never got around to doing it though. Maybe if I get a Note it'll be worth doing with it's huge screen and I doubt it'll fit too well where I put my mobile now (on the dash next to the speedo).

 

I did once make a car computer though. With a beige desktop tower. And an inveter and keyboard. There was no screen so controlling it (only used for music) was a pain so it didn't stay in there long. Also it was a little awkward for people sitting in the back of the car with their feet resting on it :)

I always buy a car dock for every new phone I get. I fucked up and got a generic Samsung dock and not one specifically for the S3 and it doesn't do the docking stuff automagically now. My Droid X would pop up the car interface once docked and other stuff.

So now I have an app, some car dock something or other and it brings up the nice car interface and turns on bluetooth and turns wifi off. It also turns on the magic lady who reads my emails and texts to me. I'd recommend a dock for sure.

But it would be very nice to sink a tablet in the dash, but only if you could somehow integrate it well enough to make it useful. Like the Fire doesn't have bluetooth so that would just be dumb.

Is that a window sucky one? One of those would probably do nicely, although I've never really liked having it off the window of the car, would prefer it stuck somewhere else, like a bit above the radio.

 

I've seen some rather clever custom center consoles with proper moulded panels around touch screens with car computer setups. Mine was just going to be more like a dock but with the cables routed behind the dash and connected to a false panel I have just above the radio.

And also NFC allows some of that stuff without having a dock. I assumed it was just for communicating with other phones and payment systems but I like having a NFC tag in the car/next to the bed for it to switch to certain profiles.

It can be stuck to the window, but I used the included sucker disc (yes technical term) and put it on the flat part of my dash just above the radio.

Samsung sells a 5 pack of the little things that can talk to NFC. You can program them to do certain things, so yeah, if I put one in my dock I could automate that process. I plan to at some point, but haven't gotten to it yet!

Hmm, where could I put NFC tags. One in the car. One by the bed. In my pocket, by my computer, in my wife's underwear (just vibrate mode) :D

One by the bed, for quiet/silent mode at night, and maybe to turn mobile network off too. One at work to do something similar. For women (and I suppose the odd few men) one in the handbag to turn the volume up loud.

 

I quite like all these new cheap toys coming out for playing with and encouraging creativity, the pi, these stickers, the ouya etc. technology in general is good at the moment.

I agree. And I somehow managed to get in on most of it!

I'm thinking it might just be easier to buy a Nexus 7 and put that in my dash instead now. Buying a touchscreen for the Pi just seems too expensive.

I just got a proper case for mine as my lovely son tried to eat it last month as my home made case looked like a toy he likes to chew on.

 

Other than making it a bit more baby proof I have been constantly upgrading and placing with XBMC, I finally have a build that I am happy with for watching tv shows and films BUT now I have a problem with the photo viewer as it hangs every time I try and open a directory.

 

It's still fun to play around with and the wife actually uses it.

OK, nice! And just hang everything off the ceiling - your son's not Spiderkid, right? Right??

He is trying to climb everything at the moment so you could be right!

I think the Nexus 7 would make an excellent car dash tablet. The GPS on it is flawless (unlike my last two Samsung Android devices) and the voice recognition / commands have got really rather good.

I'm going to give it a go in my car since I have a tablet mount. Still need to check the official cable with my chargers to make sure it charges.

 

I've recently been using my phone as a WiFi hotspot quite a bit and it's pretty much flawless so should be reasonable in the car.

Yup, I used it with a phone hotspot all the way down to Norwich from Bradford and streamed music all the way while using Google Navigation. Don't think I had the right power adapter as it didn't charge but possibly stopped it discharging too quickly. Battery life on this thing is immense though so not actually a huge issue.

There is now MPEG2 support. You can purchase a license for it for an additional £2.40.