Modernize Your Old Jeep with Android Head Unit
It was bound to happen eventually but my Jeep has officially joined the 21st century at least in the entertainment department. I know a Jeep’s entertainment is more about where it can take you than traditional entertainment. Sound, video, Internet! I’ve been looking at Android head units for years, literally years. All I do with my 1998 Jeep AM/FM Radio/Cassette/CD player is listen to podcasts.
To do this, from my phone, I purchased a cassette player adapter, for $10, and physically plug the cable in to my smartphone. I know ancient! I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase one of these modern day wonders as long as my radio was doing the job. This past Thursday that changed. The volume control stopped working. This is a common issue with the entertainment system in the later mode Jeep Cherokees. Welp, time to go modern, and nothing says modern than a nice video display, touch sensitive of course with a minimum of 7 inch diagonal screen. So many choices and prices all seem to scream low quality. As any of you that have listened to the podcast very long you know I do a lot of shopping at Amazon.
Well Amazon had the ATOTO A6 Double Din Android Car Navigation Stereo with Dual Bluetooth – Standard A6Y2710SB as it’s choice for the Android head unit to buy. Does this mean they have a bunch of them and they need to move them, I don’t know but so far I haven’t made a bad purchased based on this Amazon rating system.
The radio and Jeep Cherokee harness (connects to the factory harness so no cutting of wires) came in Sunday. This wouldn’t be my first stereo install and it goes pretty quick once you have the wiring correct. True to form I didn’t accurately estimate the time it would take to fit a DOUBLE DIN head unit into a DIN and a HALF (1.5 DIN) space! Some years ago I purchased a center dash bezel so I wouldn’t have to butcher up the original, and frankly give me two chances are modifying the 1.5 DIN opening to a double (2) DIN opening that looked decent. Since it was 100 degrees about 3pm I decided to get the hell out of the garage and come back after sundown. 
It took me about three hours to build some adapters to mount the head unit in the now double DIN space. After that I made quick work of the dash center bezel, notching it so it would fit around the head unit.
Does it look good? No, but I knew that going in. I’ll be looking at bondo, or perhaps fiberglass to make the bezel look like a double DIN was always in there. In the small amount of time I’ve actually used the unit I am impressed. It responds quickly. Display dims with headlines on. Sound is great on my Infinity sound system. The unit came with WiFi, GPS, antennas. A USB cable (would assume to run to the back of the head unit to the glove compartment.) It supports a backup camera, a DASH USB camera for DVR recording, an external mic and steering wheel remote control. I am very interested i setting up the USB dash camera as a trail camera. I already have a high quality dash cam. I’m not overly interested in a back up camera, but I’m going to purchase and install one anyway. Since I can’t see much out the back of my Jeep (spare tire carrier) it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have.