Software

Main Software

As main software I am using  XBMC. This is a realy nice open source project which is free and provides a really nice multimedia interface. Currently I am writing a plugin for this software to control core BMW equipment. For the first, I am only interested in controlling the main radio. Although main radio (BMW Professional RDS) is controlled by the left button field of the OpenBM device, I still don't have any nice graphical interface to control the radio. So, I hope I will be done in next weeks with the first version.

Video Diary

Both videos showing OpenBM in action. In the background the gateway in version 0.10 is running, which is capable of transforming IBus messages into key press events. Enjoy :)!

Project in the Car

Last video I made showing the whole stuff in the car. On the video one can see how the control of original BMW radio is done through the OpenBM as also a control of all other nice multimedia stuff is shown. Enjoy it!

Plugins for XBMC

Since I do not like to remove any of the BMW equipment out of the car, I do need to write plugins to control those. This way everything stays mostly OEM. So following is a small overview incl. screenshots showing couple of those plugins.

Radio and CD-Changer control

Radio and CD-Changer control is done by emulating MID device. The thing is that I do not own any BM24 or BM54 radio, so just a simple professional rds. This radio has never been supplied with a OEM bordmonitor. That means that this radio might not work when emulating bordmonitor, hence MID emulation is in place. The plugin is almost done. I can switch stations, search them (tune), switch mode (RDS, Freq, ..) and change to CD-changer mode. In the cd changer mode I can anything as with OEM MID device. Here are some impressions:

Last screenshot shows that since radio or cd-changer are on, video can still be played in the background. The radio plugin can either be enabled by press to the 'BMW Radio' button in the main menu or by pressing the 'MODE' button on the bordmonitor device.

On-Board Computer plugin

The on-bord computer (OBC) plugin is responsible for showing the bordcomputer data from IKE. The data includes consumption, range, distance, temperature, etc. The obc can be controlled too, hence resetting of the values is supported. Additionally, currently in the development, I will put here telephone control as also self-made obc data fields, with better statistics and more functionality.

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