Kaimusailing

After selling my Miata about 5 years ago I have not owned a car up till now. I would rent a vehicle whenever I needed one. My Miata had a simple car radio, but it was an oldie. The rentals had increasingly sophisticated radios, or more correctly communication devices. Cornelia Maries's old Honda CRV also has an old radio. It can play audio tapes. No Android Auto, no GPS, no Internet. I began looking around for a cheap upgrade.
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Crutchfield, the go-to place for all car stereos and such, features well known brand names, such as Kenwood, JVC, SONY, etc. A lot of these devices have modules made in China and we know that they are probably inexpensive until they are rebranded and sold in the USA. I began searching for the most bang for the buck. I ended up finding Atoto, a Chinese brand with a good reputation.
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Reviews of Atoto radios can be brutal or very positive. YouTube reviews showing installation and operation got me to believe that I could purchase one of their units, save a little money, and have the functionality that I wanted.
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I found their model A6 was available from their factory refurbished store for a hundred dollars. Installation videos showed that it was very simple to remove the OEM radio and slide in the new unit. It is what is called 2DIN, or double the vertical spacing of an old ordinary radio. The vehicle multicable and the Atoto's multicable are not physically compatible, so the vehicle cable has to have its individual wires cut and spliced to the multicable plug provided with the radio. If the radio doesn't work, the original OEM radio now won't connect to the modified multicable. The solution is a multicable connector that matches the OEM vehicle cable, then this adapter is individually connected to the radios provided connector. It is not a difficult operation and can be done on a work table, you don't have to do it in the vehicle.
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So, the multicable adapter is made and the new radio is connected to the vehicle multicable, the vehicle's radio antenna is plugged in and the unit is ready to go. There are other cables attached to the radio including a GPS antenna, wifi antenna, bluetooth antennas, and a pair of USB cables. The vehicle is old and only has a cigarette lighter adapter for bluetooth power, now we will have more. One USB is for cabled Android Auto or Apple Car Play, but both should work via bluetooth.
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This radio can connect with the internet and work as any other android tablet. Apps can be downloaded and installed, data such as maps and such can be downloaded. It has 32 gigs of memory, which is not much for smart phones these days, but I think it is plenty for a car radio. You could download maps to use GPS guidance in areas that don't have cell phone coverage. There are many such areas here around Crisfield. There are other functions available including an app to monitor the vehicle's status using a bluetooth OBD2 adapter and an app that monitors tire pressures using little valve cap transmitters.
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It occurred to me that this radio can operate as a tablet and run an app called Marine Navigator, there are other navigation apps, it can download NOAA charts, and with its GPS antenna, can operate like a marine chart plotter. Chart plotters are not cheap, but this one would cost 100 dollars. It has a daylight viewable screen. You'd have to put it into a box and it might not fare well out in the weather, but put it in your nav station down below and it will do fine. And it can drive a bunch of audio speakers. Navigation and entertainment all in one unit. There are AIS receivers that plug into USB, like the dAISy.
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The radio came in and I hurried to try it out at the old Red Shell Shanty which has internet and power. I used my booster charger to power up the radio, hooking positive 12 volts to the "always on" and "ignition" power wires from the radio's wire harness. I plugged in the supplied GPS antenna as well as a small harness that included wifi and bluetooth antennas. It took less than a minute for the radio to boot up. I paired it with my phone using bluetooth and it began loading all my Google account data including phone and email contacts. I purchased Marine Navigator from Google Play and it automatically installed it on the phone. It cost $8.99. Apps that I had planned to install were already installed on the radio, including Torque Pro. I was very impressed with the clarity of the radio's display and the quickness of the operating system. It looks like NOAA ENC charts are all one chart.
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I have to wait for some mounting hardware and the mating wire harness to come in before I install it in the Honda. So far so good. The image is of the radio with the satellite view of the corner of the marina.