Howdy,
I installed OpenElec on a raspberry pi 2, loaded it up with a few dozen movies and connected it to my Honda Odyssey’s aux ports.
Handed the kids a cheapo rf remote that worked out of the box and voila – they have an awesome dvr in the car for long drives. Cool!
I’ve discovered that killing power to the pi has no real negative effects, so far. Every time I start the car it boots up and we’re good to go. The only (minor) issue is when we stop the car for a second, (going from aux to car-start) or for a few minutes (potty breaks, etc) it restarts the pi and they lose their spot in whatever they were watching. Yes, this is the definition of a 1st world problem.
Then I got to thinking, what if I put a usb backup battery like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Upgraded-Ca…06XS9RMWS/
between the car’s power supply and the pi. This would allow my kiddos to pause their movie whenever we take a brief stop during long drives, ie potty stops etc. and resume easily when we start the car back up.
Ideally, I’d like a switch which would kill power between the battery and the pi so that when we are done driving for an extended period, like for the day, I can power down the pi and not needlessly drain the battery pack.
Does anyone know if such a thing exists? Any other advice or suggestions are much appreciated!