4 ms·

>2021 Honda Civic >2012 software and hardware Oy vey.

expertentipp 3y ago
I wonder the year of its touchscreen. 5 years old car? Almost brand new. 5 years old touchscreen and software? It's going to be painful.
- canbus 3y ago
  Probably a resistive type like on really old tablets running Android 4!
  - causi 3y ago
    I have serious doubt there were any tablets shipping with Android 4 that used a resistive screen. At least not any that didn't come from some no-name manufacturer for eighty bucks.
    - canbus 3y ago
      i'm probably thinking a bit older. I had an "Arnova 10G2"[0] tablet back in the day which had a resistive screen! [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Archos-Arnova-10b-G2-Tablet-MID.75610.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Archos-Arnova-10b-G2-Ta...
      - causi 3y ago
        Poor Archos. Went from making some of the earliest, coolest portable media players on the market to the worst android devices.
  - sphars 3y ago
    I have the same system in my 2017 Civic. It's definitely a capacitive touchscreen. Essentially just a Android tablet from 2012, and it's responsive enough.
- sphars 3y ago
  I have a 2017 Civic, and based on the info in the OP, it's the same as the 2021 models, and yes, it's severely dated. Though it's Android 4.4, which gives me some nostalgia from my Nexus 4 and the Holo era of Android
  - expertentipp 3y ago
    Awww nostalgia hits... some very very long time ago I was working on software tested on KitKat. It's better not to mention it during interviews otherwise will be dismissed as a dinosaur.
    - hparadiz 3y ago
      I have it on my 2020 civic and at least it doesn't lag. Problem with newer builds is the inevitable creep of increased CPU and memory usage until eventually perfectly good hardware is no longer able to run anything.
      - dom96 3y ago
        yep, I also have a 2020 Civic and the software actually is alright, though perhaps my expectations were set really low by the amount of hate I read about the software online. But hey, it supports CarPlay just fine (although does have some weird graphical artifacts sometimes) and the screen is responsive enough which is all that I really want.
        librick 3y ago
        I can't speak to CarPlay but yea I'll say the headunit software is certainly usable. One of the reasons I started this project was because I admire the engineering involved. I wish they would've shipped wireless Android Auto though. My car only works with wired Android Auto. It was only a minor inconvenience until I broke a USB-C cable. I rely on my car, I didn't need a failure point in my navigation. I ended up buying an adapter (the Motorola MA1) that lets me use Android Auto wirelessly (the MA1 worked okay, I had a few issues where it would randomly reboot but one day that stopped and I still don't know why; it's finicky). It just seems absurd to have a whole separate hardware/software stack in the form of an adapter just because Honda couldn't use a newer Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip
mschuster91 3y ago
Par for the course in automotive. Once something works, it is not getting modified unless bugs appear.
- mianos 3y ago
  Or, as for the Subaru Starlink head-unit, even if it is so buggy and crashes all the time, once the car is out the dealer's door, there is nothing the consumer can do. Even class actions don't mean they would be recalled or even fixed. They did offer a discount on a new car.
  - librick 3y ago
    TLDR; Kia rant: Yea it's bizarre to me how recalls aren't more widespread. The fiasco with Kia cars getting broken into is my favorite recent example. Teenagers break into random stranger's Kias and go on joyrides. Then local news channels and police sensationalize Kia car break-ins or villify bored teenagers. It seems like very few people actually demand recalls by Kia. A car that can be unlocked in the span of a TikTok video is a dangerous car; it's a public safety issue. I'm mostly ignorant of the recall process, but it seems like they should be more widespread than they are
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > I'm mostly ignorant of the recall process, but it seems like they should be more widespread than they are Fully agree. The reason is, it's easier (and fits into more popular narratives) to blame Tiktok and Youtube than to hold large corporations accountable.
- otherme123 3y ago
  Being hackable considered a "bug": if someone founds a way to tweak the infotainment, they will "update" it in no time to block such tweaks. They all pretend to have their own apps, yet they never do. Just in case, block users from creating their own and sharing them. E.g. https://mazdatweaks.com/ https://mazdatweaks.com/
bheadmaster 3y ago
[flagged]
riffic 3y ago
that's automotive engineering for you lol. aviation is similar
the_pwner224 3y ago
The 10th gen Civic ran from 2016-2022 with the same infotainment setup. So it's a 2016 car with 2012 software. That's very reasonable. And the benefit to that is that it's easy to hack since there's an RCE in the old browser. So you can jailbreak your own car. (It doesn't have a cellular data connection so it's not a security risk)
- librick 3y ago
  Addressing "(It doesn't have a cellular data connection so it's not a security risk)" - I wouldn't say it's not a security risk. Check out the Bluetooth docs in the repo for example. Cellular data is only one interface out of many others (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, CAN, XM radio, HD radio). Jailbreaking anything isn't without its risks. Further, I agree that it's reasonable to ship a 2016 car with 2012 software. But I've seen no evidence that these headunits have gotten security updates within that timeframe. Think of it like a smartphone. I can make do with a phone that's a few years old, but I have an expectation that it will receive timely security updates. In the case of the Honda headunits, they run Android. They should receive Android security patches (I'll admit there's certainly complexity there, Google has long struggled with the tradeoff between device security and AOSP ubiquity). There's nothing wrong with using an older version of Android or an LTS kernel, but it should still receive security patches. Last year, some Mazda cars were accidentally bricked by a radio station broadcast omitting file extensions: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/radio-station-snafu-in-seattle-bricks-some-mazda-infotainment-systems/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/radio-station-snafu-in-.... That was an accident, not the work of a malicious actor. Consider Stagefright bugs. As I understand it, although it was published in 2015, it affected several earlier Android versions, including 4.2.2. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagefright_(bug) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagefright_(bug). As far as I know, my car was never patched against Stagefright bugs. All it takes is a bug in one library (such as for HD radio image processing) and a well-published Android for something like this to be a big problem. It's complicated; I like jailbreaking. I also think Honda should ship higher-quality software with better security policies and update guarantees

I wonder the year of its touchscreen. 5 years old car? Almost brand new. 5 years old touchscreen and software? It's going to be painful.

canbus 3y ago
Probably a resistive type like on really old tablets running Android 4!
- causi 3y ago
  I have serious doubt there were any tablets shipping with Android 4 that used a resistive screen. At least not any that didn't come from some no-name manufacturer for eighty bucks.
  - canbus 3y ago
    i'm probably thinking a bit older. I had an "Arnova 10G2"[0] tablet back in the day which had a resistive screen! [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Archos-Arnova-10b-G2-Tablet-MID.75610.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Archos-Arnova-10b-G2-Ta...
    - causi 3y ago
      Poor Archos. Went from making some of the earliest, coolest portable media players on the market to the worst android devices.
- sphars 3y ago
  I have the same system in my 2017 Civic. It's definitely a capacitive touchscreen. Essentially just a Android tablet from 2012, and it's responsive enough.
sphars 3y ago
I have a 2017 Civic, and based on the info in the OP, it's the same as the 2021 models, and yes, it's severely dated. Though it's Android 4.4, which gives me some nostalgia from my Nexus 4 and the Holo era of Android
- expertentipp 3y ago
  Awww nostalgia hits... some very very long time ago I was working on software tested on KitKat. It's better not to mention it during interviews otherwise will be dismissed as a dinosaur.
  - hparadiz 3y ago
    I have it on my 2020 civic and at least it doesn't lag. Problem with newer builds is the inevitable creep of increased CPU and memory usage until eventually perfectly good hardware is no longer able to run anything.
    - dom96 3y ago
      yep, I also have a 2020 Civic and the software actually is alright, though perhaps my expectations were set really low by the amount of hate I read about the software online. But hey, it supports CarPlay just fine (although does have some weird graphical artifacts sometimes) and the screen is responsive enough which is all that I really want.
      - librick 3y ago
        I can't speak to CarPlay but yea I'll say the headunit software is certainly usable. One of the reasons I started this project was because I admire the engineering involved. I wish they would've shipped wireless Android Auto though. My car only works with wired Android Auto. It was only a minor inconvenience until I broke a USB-C cable. I rely on my car, I didn't need a failure point in my navigation. I ended up buying an adapter (the Motorola MA1) that lets me use Android Auto wirelessly (the MA1 worked okay, I had a few issues where it would randomly reboot but one day that stopped and I still don't know why; it's finicky). It just seems absurd to have a whole separate hardware/software stack in the form of an adapter just because Honda couldn't use a newer Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip

mschuster91 3y ago

Par for the course in automotive. Once something works, it is not getting modified unless bugs appear.

mianos 3y ago
Or, as for the Subaru Starlink head-unit, even if it is so buggy and crashes all the time, once the car is out the dealer's door, there is nothing the consumer can do. Even class actions don't mean they would be recalled or even fixed. They did offer a discount on a new car.
- librick 3y ago
  TLDR; Kia rant: Yea it's bizarre to me how recalls aren't more widespread. The fiasco with Kia cars getting broken into is my favorite recent example. Teenagers break into random stranger's Kias and go on joyrides. Then local news channels and police sensationalize Kia car break-ins or villify bored teenagers. It seems like very few people actually demand recalls by Kia. A car that can be unlocked in the span of a TikTok video is a dangerous car; it's a public safety issue. I'm mostly ignorant of the recall process, but it seems like they should be more widespread than they are
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > I'm mostly ignorant of the recall process, but it seems like they should be more widespread than they are Fully agree. The reason is, it's easier (and fits into more popular narratives) to blame Tiktok and Youtube than to hold large corporations accountable.
otherme123 3y ago
Being hackable considered a "bug": if someone founds a way to tweak the infotainment, they will "update" it in no time to block such tweaks. They all pretend to have their own apps, yet they never do. Just in case, block users from creating their own and sharing them. E.g. https://mazdatweaks.com/ https://mazdatweaks.com/

bheadmaster 3y ago

[flagged]

riffic 3y ago

that's automotive engineering for you lol. aviation is similar

the_pwner224 3y ago

The 10th gen Civic ran from 2016-2022 with the same infotainment setup. So it's a 2016 car with 2012 software. That's very reasonable. And the benefit to that is that it's easy to hack since there's an RCE in the old browser. So you can jailbreak your own car. (It doesn't have a cellular data connection so it's not a security risk)

librick 3y ago
Addressing "(It doesn't have a cellular data connection so it's not a security risk)" - I wouldn't say it's not a security risk. Check out the Bluetooth docs in the repo for example. Cellular data is only one interface out of many others (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, CAN, XM radio, HD radio). Jailbreaking anything isn't without its risks. Further, I agree that it's reasonable to ship a 2016 car with 2012 software. But I've seen no evidence that these headunits have gotten security updates within that timeframe. Think of it like a smartphone. I can make do with a phone that's a few years old, but I have an expectation that it will receive timely security updates. In the case of the Honda headunits, they run Android. They should receive Android security patches (I'll admit there's certainly complexity there, Google has long struggled with the tradeoff between device security and AOSP ubiquity). There's nothing wrong with using an older version of Android or an LTS kernel, but it should still receive security patches. Last year, some Mazda cars were accidentally bricked by a radio station broadcast omitting file extensions: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/radio-station-snafu-in-seattle-bricks-some-mazda-infotainment-systems/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/radio-station-snafu-in-.... That was an accident, not the work of a malicious actor. Consider Stagefright bugs. As I understand it, although it was published in 2015, it affected several earlier Android versions, including 4.2.2. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagefright_(bug) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagefright_(bug). As far as I know, my car was never patched against Stagefright bugs. All it takes is a bug in one library (such as for HD radio image processing) and a well-published Android for something like this to be a big problem. It's complicated; I like jailbreaking. I also think Honda should ship higher-quality software with better security policies and update guarantees