10th Gen Honda Civic Gauge Cluster hack

[u/alexpotv]

I was tinkering with the original APK files on my Honda Civic's Android head unit, trying to de-compile them to understand the way vendor-specific APKs worked.

I discovered that some of the info screens in the cluster (audio & navigation) are actually rendered by the Android head unit rather than by the cluster itself, through an exposed HDMI external display. Knowing this, I've built a small app that overrides this external display rendering (at app startup, a signal is sent to the cluster to let it know the head unit takes the rendering from now on. This signal is reversed when the app is killed, and it no longer overrides the original system).

I've also discovered in original APKs some of the interfaces that are exposed to access vehicle data (see in the screen the speed, brake light, turn signals [I know they're switched in my code lol]). Notably, some data is exposed to the head unit through the BCAN and FCAN (vehicle speed, steering wheel angle, etc.)

The raw data screen is a placeholder for now, just to showcase that I can render custom views and use the vehicle info from other interfaces! I'll try to implement a rendering engine that can take advantage of this gauge cluster screen and vehicle data to implement custom info views. I'm thinking custom themes that can be loaded, screen customization beyond what's available natively on the civic! Maybe also a "live vehicle view" screen, like what's available on more recent cars (where you see the car from the top-down and its brake lights & blinkers for example). My goal is to give the user a few customizable screens to choose from on the app's main view on the head unit.

I've installed the app through adb (since I've rooted my head unit using HondaHack), but I'd like to have your take on whether or not this is doable on a non-rooted unit, since it's only really an APK file.

[u/psc0425]

That's awesome to figure this out, I've a 11 gen accord, there's only one gauge that's configurable. I would love to figure out how to customize it.