So I bought an infotainment unit from Aliexpress

Edgar R. Zakarian · October 16, 2023

Hi all,

I bought this infotainment system which basically runs android on a samsung galaxy Tab 6.
It's all connected just fine through canbus etc. like normal.

Only problem is that the parking sensors aren't properly picked up.

Putting the car in reverse, pull up the camera+car sensor distance screen. (Camera not implemented)
The car beeps as it should, but the distance isn't shown on the screen.
The car also has a specific Parking button. Pressing it doesn't make the screen react in any way.

So somehow the infotainment system can't pick up the parking sensors, even through all plugs are connected just like on the old original SKODA radio.
Any ideas?

Skoda Octavia 2007

Photos from internet:

Spoiler

New system :
Android 13 Car Radio for Skoda Octavia 2 A5 2004 - 2013 Multimedia Video Player Navigation Stereo DVD Carplay Audio Head Unit - AliExpress

Lurick · October 16, 2023

I would think it's poor implementation as those units are pretty jank.

Edit:

I had one similar to that, it reported 3 different android versions depending on which settings menu you looked at, lol

Levent · October 16, 2023

Early VW vehicles require canbus adapter with most headunits. You should have went with RCD330 and canbus adapter and just used android auto or carplay

TetraSky · October 16, 2023

I had actually been looking into one of these to replace the infotainment system in my car that requires me to buy a stupidly expensive SD card with an already outdated map from 2021, since it would be nearly the same price.

Just to be sure, everything technically "works", just the parking button does nothing / parking sensors don't do anything? You say you hear beeping, is that only from the back camera and not the sensors? Are you 100% sure they are connected properly? Did you perhaps pull on the wire when initially disconnecting it, causing a loose connection?
It could also just be because this feature that was built-in on your car isn't supported by what you've bought. I don't see anything in the product page that would suggest this to work. But I'm guessing the parking sensors are related to the fact you don't see the distance when backing up.

Edit : Just bought one (4G 64G AHD DVR model). Why am I impulse buying on a monday morning even though there's red flags all around. God damn it. Spent $30 more than I would've buying a stupid navigation data, but hopefully it should be better... And I get a dashcam, which I wanted.

Edgar R. Zakarian · October 17, 2023

16 hours ago, TetraSky said:

I had actually been looking into one of these to replace the infotainment system in my car that requires me to buy a stupidly expensive SD card with an already outdated map from 2021, since it would be nearly the same price.

Just to be sure, everything technically "works", just the parking button does nothing / parking sensors don't do anything? You say you hear beeping, is that only from the back camera and not the sensors? Are you 100% sure they are connected properly? Did you perhaps pull on the wire when initially disconnecting it, causing a loose connection?
It could also just be because this feature that was built-in on your car isn't supported by what you've bought. I don't see anything in the product page that would suggest this to work. But I'm guessing the parking sensors are related to the fact you don't see the distance when backing up.

Edit : Just bought one (4G 64G AHD DVR model). Why am I impulse buying on a monday morning even though there's red flags all around. God damn it. Spent $30 more than I would've buying a stupid navigation data, but hopefully it should be better... And I get a dashcam, which I wanted.

To clarify, I've connected everything, no wire has been torn apart.
The car has a built-in parking sensors. They showed up on the old original radio and showed the distance to objects.
There is a built-in speaker in the car rear somewhere, that beeps.

With the new radio, the car still beeps at distance, so the sensors and its internal systems are working just fine. The radio just doesn't pick up the signal through canbus for some reason.

From what I could read, devices from different places in the world might not know what to do with the signal due to the "translation box" that comes with the radio, which is already wired to the radio and canbus.

So I guess I'll have to live without that feature or get another radio later on. for 200$ it's not too bad.

Good things about it, it's basically a samsung galaxy tab 6
It has playstore, so you can install apps like netflix, youtube, spotify
As soon as you turn on hotspot on your phone (wifi share) the radio acts like a tablet, so you basically don't need android auto anymore, if all you do is hear spotify, watch videos and use google maps.

If you want to be able to have the whole android auto feature, you need to somehow wire the usb cables out from it and plug in your phone to USB, in which case it they goes into an app called ZLINK which acts as android auto. What the featureset of this is, I haven't really looked much into, but it seems a bit cheap and janky, so I don't use it.