Final update in this regard (I hope!): After messing with all the connections and testing with the headunit pulled out I isolated the flickering screen to either the really big harness connector to the oem side OR the metal shield on the lvds cable. I insulated my lvds shield and flipped the wiring hardness the other way (reversing the bend) and my problem is gone. If anyone else runs into this I strongly suspect it's the lvds shield.

Getting to use Waze/Apple maps/Google maps for nav is awesome... Great device and the support from Cosmo seems pretty decent. Now to play around with writing a canbus receiver program and see what all is exposed. Would be even better if we could control the climate system and car settings from android and just skip the factory interface all together!

Can you explain what you did to insulate the lvds shield? When you flipped the wiring harness, you literally just put in the other direction into the connector on the screen (typically these connectors have an up and down, so I'm curious about that)?

While you're working on the canbus, the one thing I'd love to see is the remote start not turning the car off! Think you could fix that? :)

Thanks Shadow!

On the lvds connector I'm talking about the metal end that plugs into the android box. I just wrapped it with electrical tape to insulate the metal. As for the connector, it's keyed so you can only plug it in one way. But assuming it might be a loose connection due to flickering as I played with it I unplugged and routed the cable differently to get the whole thing flipped over the opposite direction from how I originally folded the cables up. So it just torques the wires in the other direction.

As for the remote start... That's a goal of mine, although I don't expect that's doable by canbus. Maybe... But they likely have some fuse or setting in the telematics unit that enables that. *Someday* my plan is to subscribe to that and start disconnecting units until I find what makes it stop working. Then try to reverse engineer the communications to that device as I cancel my subscription to figure out how it works. But that's likely distant future or never. I dunno. I do have a Comma Panda and the ability to log all canbus data before the proxy so that's a good call on logging the data as I subscribe and see if I can capture some kind of canbus activation command. That would be great!

I forgot about that. Here are the instructions for correcting stretched Carplay when everything else appears normal. I can't seem to add the video here, but follow these steps. If this doesn't work for you, I'll figure out how to upload to Youtube and share a link.

From the Android interface: Apps -> Settings -> Apps (under Device) -> AutoPlay -> Storage -> Clear Data -> OK -> [Back Arrow] -> Force Stop -> OK

Then start CarPlay. On my system, the "Connecting" screen still appears stretched, but when the CarPlay icons screen shows up, everything is good - 5 icons across and 2 down.


Regarding my audio connections, I don't have a good answer yet. Right now, the car is configured for Bluetooth from the phone to Lexus RX. Every time a phone call is made or received, I need to switch from "Autobox" (Android) to Lexus RX on the iPhone connection. I got some more suggestions from Cosmo, but I'm out of town without the Lexus for a couple of days.

if the loading seems stretched, try update it to the newer version of autoplay app. Go to the app without connecting your phone, click Setting at the top left corner, scroll all the way down. You will see 2 buttons, one to update the app, and one to update the dongle/box

As for sound I'm using the AUX connection which is great other than the static pops when starting the car. I assume those are the android box's DAC's starting up without pulling the line low until ready. They might be able to fix in firmware...

So is there another connection to the Android box that is required to be connected in order to cause the sound to come out via the aux of the factory headunit?

Nope, just that main cable harness connects it up to the "AUX" jack input of the factory system.

2 cables
 

What are these 2 cables used for? Do i need to attach it somewhere?

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.clu...c5e3703f73.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.clu...067e18a6e8.jpg

Yep, those are both needed. The top one is a passthrough video cable for behind the screen. Connect it up and it re-wires some of the screen wiring.

The second one is the lvds cable, the metal end connects to the android box and the other two to the cable behind the screen and original location on the screen itself.

edit: Err I take that back, the second one is the GPS antenna for the android box. Optional, but recommended as it will enable you to use the android box for standalone GPS if you ever want to do that.

what screw driver do you use to unscrew the headunit ?
is there any video for removing the screen. I could not find anything on YouTube.

Can anyone share an image of what the base non nav screen might look like with this installed?

Car play does not detect
 

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.clu...2443b8d0f.jpeg
Guys my system is detected. But I can’t connect USB. The phone does not charge and I get the following error on opening auto play.

Any idea.

Did you attach the CarPlay dongle to the usb and plug your phone in? Also, the dongle only works with one of the USBs.