Road Top 8.8"/8.9" CarPlay Screen

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Sure thing, it'll take me a bit to put together and I have to admit it's a little inelegant due to Android Auto not exposing a dark mode toggle intent. Anyway, standby and I will post some screenshots and instructions on configuring.
Sorry to double reply - just following up on this
 
New here and found this thread on a google search.

I picked up what was supposed to be a Road Top 8.8" on eBay to upgrade my original generation 1 model that I've had for about 3 years.

Based on the box, it looks like it is actually the Ninetom version, but it looks like they are the same thing. My software version is 2022.07.22.1.0.5 and Cust: QP203. I messaged Road Top hoping they'd give me the latest update, but I think because I bought it used on eBay and they wanted an order number, they've gone silent on me. I was wondering if someone wouldn't mind uploading a working link to the latest firmware? It'd be much appreciated.

Only main issue I've had is using the Bluetooth transmitter to connect to my car, it says that audio control is not supported and stops playing. It is working fine with an aux cable, but one of the reasons I wanted this newer unit was to hopefully eliminate a cable. I'm hoping the firmware update might fix the issue, but it could just be something with my car system.
 
I saw there was one comment before about using a RAM mount instead of the default one, but no mention of which size. Did anyone else use a RAM mount and if so which size ball? If not, could someone that has one measure the ball so I can reference that with the mounts available? Trying to collect parts ahead of time so that it can go in once I get the screen.

Edit: Did a search and it looks like one of the early posts said it was a 17mm ball--bought a 1" (RAM Size B) to 17mm ball adapter to see if I can get it to work with my existing parts
 
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I saw there was one comment before about using a RAM mount instead of the default one, but no mention of which size. Did anyone else use a RAM mount and if so which size ball? If not, could someone that has one measure the ball so I can reference that with the mounts available? Trying to collect parts ahead of time so that it can go in once I get the screen.

Edit: Did a search and it looks like one of the early posts said it was a 17mm ball--bought a 1" (RAM Size B) to 17mm ball adapter to see if I can get it to work with my existing parts
Yep - that's exactly what I did for mine. Sorry for the crap photo through the windshield...
dash.jpg
 
While this is not our from our FJ Cruiser, we figured we'd still share. We stumbled upon this forum while trying to figure out how to change the startup logo for a custom install of one of the 8.8 Roadtop Carplay screens in a customers 2002 Jaguar XKR. First thing, the 2018 password under "factory" to change the startup screen worked perfect...thanks for that. Also we saw people about asking how they installed their screens and wanted to share what we did for our customer. We replaced their OEM broken nav with this screen and flush mounted it into the panel with some custom work. We also opened it up and cut the small factory mic and soldered on a Female RCA and got and external mic and soldered and Male RCA onto that, and now the customer has perfect mic sound since the mic was flushed behind the panel and all you could hear was AC noise's.

Here's a pic.
a.PNG
 
While this is not our from our FJ Cruiser, we figured we'd still share. We stumbled upon this forum while trying to figure out how to change the startup logo for a custom install of one of the 8.8 Roadtop Carplay screens in a customers 2002 Jaguar XKR. First thing, the 2018 password under "factory" to change the startup screen worked perfect...thanks for that. Also we saw people about asking how they installed their screens and wanted to share what we did for our customer. We replaced their OEM broken nav with this screen and flush mounted it into the panel with some custom work. We also opened it up and cut the small factory mic and soldered on a Female RCA and got and external mic and soldered and Male RCA onto that, and now the customer has perfect mic sound since the mic was flushed behind the panel and all you could hear was AC noise's.

Here's a pic.
View attachment 3352544
Nice. Do you have a link to the mic you used? Any pictures of the soldering work?
 
Well at first we wired a 3.5 bulkhead jack to the case so it was a clean install, and the mic the customer bought was from amazon, however it didn't work. The customer had a mic existing from the aftermarket radio but didn't need it since they were going thru the Roadtop now. So we hacked that up and soldered it on the spot. The mic you should use is like this one - Mic (Make sure it has one notch on the 3.5 jack instead of 2 like this Bad mic, the wiring in it was different material and not solderable)

As for where we soldered is real simple, it's only 2 wires and the mic is label "mic".
We also removed the internal speaker cause we had done a 3.5mm bulkhead at first, and since we used the aux out to the aux in on their aftermarket radio.
a.PNG
 
Please note that this procedure is only for the 8.8" Roadtop unit. The 8.9" unit has a lux sensor and will automatically set day/night mode based on ambient light.

Description:
This write up is to configure Tasker to automatically set Android Auto to day/night mode depending on the time of day. Normally something like this would be very simple; we would find the Android Auto intent to set day mode or night mode and then use a Tasker profile to trigger it. Unfortunately Android Auto does not expose any such intent, so we have to create a task that will essentially automate the screen inputs to trigger each mode through the Android Auto UI. As I stated before, this solution is inelegant, but fairly robust and takes into account the fact that sunrise/sunset times vary throughout the year and accounts for boundary conditions like transitions from day to night mode (and vice versa) while you're driving. Below is my attempt at a tutorial to walk you through the process of configuring this from scratch. Please note the prerequisites that I've identified above and ensure you have everything before starting.

Prerequisites:

Configuration:
There are a few pieces that need to be configured separately to get this to work.

1. Download the prerequisites that I've provided above. Open Tasker, AutoNotification, and AutoInput and make sure each app's permissions are allowed.

2. Import the profiles and tasks that I've provided as XML. To do this, go into Tasker and long click on the 'Profiles' title and select 'Import'. Select each of the XML profiles that you downloaded (there will be 5) and import them to Tasker. Follow the same process for importing Tasks by long clicking the 'Tasks' title and selecting the three XML files you downloaded.

3. We need to be able to accurately calculate current sunrise/sunset times to be able to trigger the appropriate Tasker profile. To do this we will rely on a dependency-free script that runs locally on the phone and sets the appropriate variables. Download the sunrise_20220526.js script referenced in the prerequisites. Once the script is downloaded, take note of the path to the script (likely Download/sunrise_20220526.js or similar). Open the 'sunriseset' task and set step 5. to your 'sunrise_20220526.js' path. Once you've set the path click the play button in the bottom left and make sure that the task executes correctly. If everything is set you should see a popup with four different times listed indicating that the appropriate variables have been set.

4. Make sure that all of your tasks are configured correctly. I've given you a start by including the XML files for each of the tasks but you'll have to make sure that there are no errors reported by Tasker (red exclamation mark) and that each task runs as expected. Do this by clicking the play button like we just did and observing that the task runs as expected. If you have issues open the task or profile and see which step is giving you an error. It should be self-explanatory to fix, but if not send me a message and I will do my best to walk you through resolution.

5. It's time to hook everything up. It should be as simple as plugging your phone into the Roadtop until and making sure that it behaves as expected. I recommend disabling automatic updates for all of the involved apps are well as the system once everything is working. Google regularly publishes API updates and there's always a chance that one of the involved steps will be broken by updates.

I hope this is helpful and my apologies for the delays in getting this out!
 
Oh, I suppose I'll make everyone aware of an issue I've been experiencing with the new 8.9" unit. It appears that there is either a defect with my unit or a general firmware defect where the brightness setting is occasionally ignored on boot-up and the unit will be dimmer than the user-configured setting. This is frustrating as it takes 5 or so clicks to go back into the display menu and jiggle the slider to reset the brightness. I've reached out to Roadtop about the issue a few days ago but they haven't yet responded.

Dimmer Level setting at 20 on initial boot, screen is dim:
1.jpg


Dimmer Level setting showing 20, but screen is still dim:
2.jpg


After moving slider from 20 to 19 and then back to 20, screen is correct brightness:
3.jpg


This happens pretty regularly, at least once every 10 boot-up cycles. Annoying to have to manually go in and reset the setting for the screen brightness of 20 to be recognized.
 
Oh, I suppose I'll make everyone aware of an issue I've been experiencing with the new 8.9" unit. It appears that there is either a defect with my unit or a general firmware defect where the brightness setting is occasionally ignored on boot-up and the unit will be dimmer than the user-configured setting. This is frustrating as it takes 5 or so clicks to go back into the display menu and jiggle the slider to reset the brightness. I've reached out to Roadtop about the issue a few days ago but they haven't yet responded.

Dimmer Level setting at 20 on initial boot, screen is dim:
View attachment 3361064

Dimmer Level setting showing 20, but screen is still dim:
View attachment 3361065

After moving slider from 20 to 19 and then back to 20, screen is correct brightness:
View attachment 3361066

This happens pretty regularly, at least once every 10 boot-up cycles. Annoying to have to manually go in and reset the setting for the screen brightness of 20 to be recognized.
I think I've noticed similar failure-to-properly-dim behavior on occasion. I'd be curious to see what response you get from them.
 
Having the same issue with a third gen unit. Seems hit or miss, but it’ll be stuck on dim during the day randomly.

Please lmk if you get a fix or hear back!
 
Received a somewhat cryptic response this morning that suggested the behavior was related to the 'LUX Threshold' setting in the 'Light Sensor Setting' sub-menu. The suggestion was to try setting the 'Lux Threshold' value to 50 or above and test.

I really don't see the relationship and I'm fairly certain this suggestion is the result of a translation error, but I'll give it a shot and report back.

Cheers!

Screenshot_20230701_094818_Aqua Mail~(1).jpg
 
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How do you get to that setting?
 
Please note that this procedure is only for the 8.8" Roadtop unit. The 8.9" unit has a lux sensor and will automatically set day/night mode based on ambient light.
Just wanted to say this works perfectly on my phone (Galaxy S22U), thanks again. It was getting annoying to manually exit/reopen AA on the unit to get the map theme to change.
 
Hey all, just found this thread via Google. I bought one of the new RoadTop 8.9" units last month and have been struggling to get it to work right. Wondering if anyone's run into issues with the newest model. I have a Pixel 7 and have the RT unit connected to the car via 3.5mm AUX (car doesn't have BT). The phone connects to the RT fine, but then has a persistent "Looking for Android Auto" notification and when I tap AA on the RT screen, nothing happens. This can be fixed by uninstalling and then reinstalling/updating Android Auto through the Play Store, but that's a massive pain to do every time I start up the car/connect to the device.

I also have a secondary issue where Android Auto on the RT is really stretched/the aspect ratio is messed up. I assume that's because the device is 1920x720, which isn't a resolution AA is set up to handle, but not sure if anyone else is running into this?

RoadTop emailed me some new firmware to try but I keep getting a "Burn Failed" when I try it out. Thinking it might be because my USB drive is too big (who has an 8gb these days) so I'm going to buy a smaller one and try again. Any thoughts?
 
Well, I attempted troubleshooting by adjusting the LUX Threshold setting as Roadtop advised. As I thought this setting does not do anything to address the intermittent dim screen issue. I've even attempted disabling the LUX sensor entirely with no effect.

If you folks are having the same issue maybe you can reach out to Roadtop. If enough people report it they'll have to do something. Maybe?

Anyway, getting increasingly frustrated with these screens. Each one does a lot right but the things it does wrong are kind of deal-breakers. May see about a refund if they can't address.
 
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Has anyone successfully connected the screen to the head unit via Bluetooth? I'm having a difficult time pairing the unit's BT transmitter to the head unit. My early MY Lx570 is requesting a passcode of 00000, but I have no way to input it on the Roadmap screen..
 

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