I'll be shipping final BlueGigaEmpeg units soon.

I have final boards which I'll be soldering up over the next couple of days, and I expect to get the shipment of final plastic enclosures from Shapeways, hopefully tomorrow.

Project description and owner's manual:
https://github.com/tfabris/BlueGigaEmpeg/blob/master/README.md

Demo video:


Note: Pictured in the demo video, but not included in the BlueGigaEmpeg kit:
- Eutronix.com display extender for trunk mounting.
- Custom 3D printed fascia for custom mounting location.

I will be privately contacting the people from the project thread, who initially requested units, first. Over the next several days, I'll obtain payment from them and work out their shipping details. I'll try to do everyone in the order that the requests were made in the project thread. If you asked for a unit in the project thread and you don't get a message from me in the next few days, then contact me by email or DM here on the board.

I'll have enough boards and enclosures to satisfy the orders from the project thread, plus just a few extras. Price is $259.00 plus shipping. If the response to this is large and people request a bunch more units, I can make another batch of them, but it would take a few weeks to source the parts and do the assembly work.

Currently I have orders for the following people from the project thread, in this order of priority (order requested in the thread):

1. JBjorgen - (1)
2. Jarob10 (1) possibly (2)
3. Daria
4. CaseySE (3)

Did I miss anyone?

That's pretty neat. Nicely integrated.

Thanks so much! Couldn't have done it without your help.

Holy crap. I haven't logged into the board in forever and first thing I see is this! You guys are amazing. I love the license plate Tony... amazing work I am blown away.

Thank you so much!

I had a ton of help from folks, including MLord and Shonky and others.

This is epic. I'm still using the empeg in my Focus, using the adapter that (checks) SE_Sport_Driver let me have about 14 years ago -- but if I ever get a new car, fitting the empeg is going to be a challenge. Hopefully you'll still have the plans/parts available.

Thanks! Means a lot coming from you!



You remind me that I need to put the PCB schematic and the enclosure design file up on the GitHub project page so that even those parts are open source. I'll see if I can do that today (edit: Done).

As of this morning, I've shipped seven units. Some of those went to people who were future-proofing and haven't needed to try them out yet.

I'm really interested and excited to find out if anyone has been able to install one yet, and if it's working well for them.

Funny enough, what I need is exactly the opposite - a BT input on the empeg (to get the phone navigation software to talk to the amp/speakers through the empeg). Yes, I can use a simple BT adaptor, and feed the output to the aux in, but then I can't listen to music when using navigation.

I see that we already discussed the idea in this thread:
http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/367442/1

... Including the idea of simply resistance-mixing your bluetooth with the empeg's line-level outputs to the amplifier. You correctly stated in that thread that you'd want the satnav to be able to interrupt the music playback in order to tell you to turn left. Even resistance-mixing the outputs together, so that both the satnav and the empeg made sound at the same time, you'd need the volume of the satnav to be loud enough to be heard over the empeg when it's blasting, and soft enough to be non-startling when the empeg is quiet.

So yeah, the "satnav interrupter" is what you need.

The problem is, I don't know if the Bluetooth specification even has anything in there about the satnav voice instructions interrupting the audio. I don't know if that's even possible to do in Bluetooth. I don't recall seeing it in the spec while I was working on the BGE, but maybe I missed it.

Ideally the empeg code would detect a signal on the aux input and override the music.

Ah, an XKCD after my own heart.

https://xkcd.com/2055/

The hover-text is my favorite part.

Finally replaced my 17 year old free car with a 10 year old Prius, literally yesterday, on the last day the Jeep was legal.

So in the coming weeks I should hopefully get this in place!

Congrats on the Prius!

Let me know how things go with the BGE module! I'm curious to know how it holds up against a 10-year-old bluetooth car stereo.

Check to make sure the BGE firmware is the latest version, since I was still making fixes to the firmware as I was sending out the batch of modules, so yours might not have the absolute latest. All the instructions are here of course:
https://github.com/tfabris/BlueGigaEmpeg/blob/master/README.md

The factory head unit in an 08 Prius doesn't do A2DP or AVRCP; so basically I need to sort whether to do something that plugs into the CD changer and emulates in order to get the buttons working, or swap out the head unit.

Daria:
Coastal Etech Lockpick.

Incidentally, I'm moving permanently back to the US on Thursday and have an old 2000 jeep cherokee waiting on me which has an aftermarket bluetooth stereo. I'll eventually be trying to get the old empeg back up and running and installed with Tony's kit. (don't hold your breath though...international move, new job, etc...)

EDIT: just noticed the unavailable message at the top of the page. Perhaps there's a secondhand one available somewhere.

My car seems happy to let things paired as phones interrupt the music, and my phone seems happy to do directions (when it's doing *only* directions and not also music) as "phone calls", so i suspect the answer is there are ways depending how you want to do it, like, you can probably use HFP/HSP to interrupt

VAIS also did some things, but *also* discontinued all of them, but I should have one coming in a few weeks, that adds HDMI to my MFD also, that I found used a few hours after posting here.

So this is discontinued?
https://www.vaistech.com/product-category/bluetooth-audio/?fwp_year=all-packages-prius-toyota-2008

It lets me "add to cart".

I wanted to get video into the MFD and (hopefully) get interaction back out, in addition to the bluetooth, so I got a discontinued VAIS product that's not on their site. For now the car has a Plugzee dangling off the AUX and i'm (when I am home) going to start sorting an install. (Edit: The VAIS product is the iVic-5i)

I assume no-one has made any mods to the empeg to allow the aux audio input to interrupt the player?

That rings a bell in my distant memories. There is something already that mutes the player (or pauses it) under external stimulus. Undoubtedly described in a thread here somewhere.

Maybe this: https://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/59067/Auto_Aux._switching_using_hija

Ah, yes - thanks! Triggered by the mute input. Now I just need to find a BT receiver that has a "signal present" output...

Ah, yeah. Not exactly what you were hoping for, but there it is.

I suppose if you can find a bluetooth adapter that has a "paired LED", then maybe use the wire from the LED for the purpose?

EDIT: Or maybe just tape a photoresistor over such an LED, to detect when it is illuminated, and wire one lead of the photoresistor to the MUTE input, and the other lead to either ground(earth) or +5/+12V at the empeg?

This avoids having to attempt disassembly of the BT adapter.

Most of the Bluetooth modules I worked with have programmable in/out data lines. So no fancy tricks with LEDs or photoresistors would be needed. The complexity would lie in getting it to trigger at exactly the right moments.

Related (but not exactly the same thing), I have recently tested that, with my current setup, the following thing works:

- iPhone is connected to Honda factory stereo using its "Apple Car Play" feature.
- iPhone is running Waze with voice directions turned on.
- BlueGigaEmpeg is connected to Honda stereo as a Music Device.
- BlueGigaEmpeg is playing music.
- Waze plays a voice direction: Music turns down briefly and voice direction plays atop it.

The above only works if the phone is connected via Apple Car Play, though. It doesn't work if the phone is connected via Bluetooth. I don't think the Bluetooth spec has a command specifically for voice-direction-interruption (though I could be wrong about that).