---
title: "Hacking a Chinese Car Stereo to fulfill my Knight Rider dreams"
date: 2026-01-21
draft: false
---


"Vibe coding" has become my latest obsession. It's that flow state where the tools disappear, and you're just manipulating logic at the speed of thought. Usually, this happens in a high-end IDE like Antigravity. But lately, I've been trying to answer a childhood dream.

Growing up in China before the internet age, my window to the outside world was CCTV-6. Along with *Baywatch*, one of the first American TV shows I ever watched was *Knight Rider*. I don't remember the exact plot lines, but the core concept stuck with me forever: KITT. A car that could talk, think, and do things for you. 

Decades later, I'm sitting in my Jeep, wondering: Can I build my own KITT? Can I take the vibe on the road?

I already updated the head unit in my Jeep to an aftermarket unit. It features a **K706 (UIS7862S)** chipset with an **8-core CPU and 8GB of RAM**, essentially making it a reasonably powerful Android tablet hardwired into the dashboard.

## The Objective
Turn this car accessory into a legitimate dev environment. I wanted a physical keyboard, a real terminal, and access to my AI coding assistants. I wanted to push code while parked on a trail.

## The Hardware Blocker: Getting Input
The first hurdle was mundane but blocking: My Bluetooth keyboard wouldn't pair. The head unit could see other devices, but refused to connect to my keyboard.

### Attempt 1: The USB Dongle Bypass
My first instinct was to blame the cheap Chinese head unit hardware. I grabbed a spare TP-Link USB Bluetooth dongle and plugged it in, hoping to bypass the internal stack entirely.

The device showed up in `lsusb`, but it remained inert. A quick check of the kernel config via `zcat /proc/config.gz` revealed the bad news:

```bash
# CONFIG_BT is not set
```

The kernel was compiled without generic Bluetooth driver support (`btusb`). Even with root access, I couldn't load the drivers because they simply didn't exist in the firmware. I was stuck with the internal hardware.

### Attempt 2: The "Dual Bluetooth" Fix
Forced back to the built-in Bluetooth, I tried to diagnose why it was ignoring my keyboard. Standard debugging tools painted a grim picture:

```bash
❯ hciconfig -a
# (Empty output - no standard HCI interface found)

❯ ps -A | grep -iE "goc|ivt|syu"
u0_a50 3456 ... com.goc.sdk  # Accessing the proprietary BT chip
```

The diagnosis was clear: The internal Bluetooth chip is acting in **Slave Mode** (Client), managed by a proprietary `com.goc.sdk` service instead of the standard Android Bluetooth stack. It's designed to *be* a speaker for your phone, not to *host* a keyboard.

**The Fix**: Hidden deep in the Factory Settings (password `8888`), there's a toggle called **"Dual Bluetooth"**. Enabling this flips the proprietary stack to expose a standard Host interface. Enable that, and suddenly my mechanical keyboard connected instantly.

## The Software: Termux + Claude
With input sorted, the software setup was surprisingly straightforward. **Termux** was the obvious choice for a terminal. 

I discovered that **Claude Code** works on Termux with zero hassle.

The setup was shockingly simple:
```bash
pkg install nodejs git ripgrep
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
```

Authentication via `claude login` worked out of the box. Now, I have a fully capable coding agent running directly on my dashboard. I can pull a repo, ask Claude to refactor a module, and push the changes—all without opening a laptop.

![S3 File](http://localhost:4998/attachments/image-dfe7c6fbab7a2fede4b64ec3cad6449970a13f05.png?client=default&bucket=obsidian)

## Key Insights

*   **Head Units are just Weird Tablets**: They have quirks (like Slave-only Bluetooth), but they are standard Android under the hood. `adb root` is your best friend for diagnosing them.
*   **Check the Kernel Config**: Before buying hardware peripherals for embedded Android devices, always check `/proc/config.gz`. If the support isn't compiled in, you're dead in the water.
*   **The Vibe is Portable**: With tools like Termux and Claude Code, the "dev environment" is no longer a heavy laptop. It's anywhere you have a terminal.

## References
1.  [Reddit: Claude Code on Termux](https://www.reddit.com/r/termux/comments/1jd4y4y/claude_code_is_easy_to_install_on_termux/)
