Project Goals

The goals of the SlimCar project are fairly clear-cut:

• To allow you to run a secondary SqueezeCenter in your car. This should be capable of linking to your main/home SqueezeCenter to synchronise your music library.

• Fast startup. One of the biggest limitations of current car PCs is that they are slow to boot. When you jump in the car, waiting two minutes seconds before you can listen to music is unacceptable. SlimCar should be able to play music within 45 seconds of pressing the power button.

• Instant shutdown. It would be nice to just be able to turn SlimCar off, mid-playback, without having to worry too much about how it will affect the OS.

• Inexpensive. Running on relatively low-spec hardware is a must. We are primarily targeting the VIA EPIA∞ series of motherboards. These provide a low-power VIA C3∞ processor (often fanless) as well as onboard graphics, sound and networking in a Mini-ITX form factor (around 17cm square). They are also cheap. All you really need to add to this is a hard drive, a power supply and a SqueezeBox (possibly the most expensive part of the whole project).

• Easy to use. For anyone with some experience of using a mobile phone to send SMS messages, the remote and general interface of the Squeezebox are very intuitive. The speed of SqueezeCenter's database is another important factor, as this is often the biggest letdown of current car PC solutions. Who wants to wait 20 seconds to find a song?

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CategoryProject