Adding Android Auto to an old car used to mean spending hundreds of dollars on a name-brand unit. Now, thanks to tech prices dropping significantly, you can find ridiculously cheap head units that are actually decent—that’s how, for just $100, I gave my old BMW E46 a tech makeover.

What I Bought (and Why I Risked It)

When I bought my car, it had one of those awful 2000s-style universal MP3 players instead of the original stereo. This meant I couldn’t even plug in a cheap Bluetooth adapter to play Spotify from my phone and instead had to rely on traditional MP3 files loaded up on my USB flash drive.

The stereo unit’s AUX port was technically an option, but I hate having cables hanging around the shift knob, so I decided not to use it early on. By the way, the sound quality of that MP3 player was horrendous.

When I first bought the car, the first thing I did was look at Android head units available on the market since I had nothing to lose, but I ultimately decided against it.

My BMW E46 doesn’t have a standard double-DIN depth for a universal stereo unit, so my options were limited to units specifically designed for my car. The $100 units available locally were horrible, laggy messes, and the more expensive ones were way too expensive ($200+). Shipping from China wasn’t cost-effective either, as it would have added around $60 to the cost.

Related

6 Useful Things You Didn’t Know You Can Do With Your Car’s USB Port

Your car’s USB port can do more than just sit there

Fortunately, Temu arrived in my country last year. Naturally, with its free shipping on all products, Android head units were one of the first things I checked for, but none were available at the time. I stopped checking for a while, and recently I found a head unit that looks a lot like the popular Eonon model (which I’m convinced is just a rebadged version and otherwise identical to this Hikity model and others).

The model from Temu I bought has Android 14, a resolution of 1024×600, and 2GB of RAM paired with 64GB of internal storage, and it came with the wiring harness and backup camera included. Note that the price has increased from $100 to $135 at the time of writing.

Related

4 Reasons I’ve Started Buying Stuff Through Temu

The temptation is real.

The Installation Was Basically Plug-And-Play

Car wiring can be very intimidating, even to me, a person who loves to tinker and has retrofitted cruise control and added angel eyes to my car. When the head unit arrived, it came with about a hundred intimidating-looking cables that looked like a complete mess.

That’s why I was all the more surprised to find that installing the Android head unit was basically plug-and-play. I spent more time fishing the two included female USB ports through the glove box than I did installing the head unit itself.

Installation basically involved removing a few trim pieces and the old stereo, unfastening some screws, and wrestling with the center air vents so I could mount the new Android head unit. I then connected the ISO wiring harness to both the head unit and the car, along with all the other cables that came with the unit (for additional speakers, backup camera, GPS module, CAN bus module, and USB ports).

I also had to remove the original storage space, relocate the climate control, and add a 3D-printed trim piece, but that was fairly easy as well.

The moment I switched the ignition on, the Android head unit booted up and presented me with the home screen. I did a quick radio channel search, and after finding a station, I confirmed that both the radio transmission and speakers communicated correctly with the head unit. Ditto for Bluetooth and Android Auto. The only thing that didn’t work out of the box was the steering wheel buttons, but selecting my car in the settings fixed it.

This Head Unit Is the Best $100 I’ve Ever Spent

The Android head unit added pretty much every major tech feature that was missing from my aging car. In addition to Android Auto, which connects automatically when I turn the car on, the unit has native Google Maps support, Bluetooth for hands-free calls and music, YouTube, local music and video players, and more.

I still can’t get over just how smooth the head unit is, given its low price—it’s cheaper than a decent modern tablet, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+.

Brand

Samsung

Storage

64 GB

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab A-series has plenty to offer without breaking the bank. The latest Galaxy Tab A9+ offers a vibrant 11-inch screen, a kid-friendly design, quad speakers, and more. Check it out!

Given its low price point, I honestly expected to deal with a laggy Google Maps, as long as I could have it at all. But the whole experience is surprisingly responsive. It responds instantly to my inputs, and I haven’t experienced any major stuttering or freezing so far. In fact, it’s smoother than the built-in navigation systems I’ve tried in some cars from the 2010s.

The IPS display is yet another aspect with which the head unit impressed me. It’s noticeably brighter than my phone’s screen, making everything easy to see even in direct sunlight. This is incredibly important for safety—I don’t want to take my eyes off the road and have to look closer just to change a song or check the next highway exit.

Perhaps what surprised me the most was the sound quality. Granted, I didn’t have the original BMW Business CD player to compare it to, but it’s far better than the old aftermarket MP3 player I had.

Related

4 Ways to Improve Your Car’s Audio (Without Buying New Speakers)

Drop the bass without dropping any cash.

I can turn the volume up uncomfortably high without any distortion. It only starts to distort near maximum volume, which is probably best to avoid anyway, considering the stock speakers are two decades old.

The only thing I haven’t tried yet is the backup camera, as mounting it involves a bit of disassembly and some drilling. I’ll eventually get to it, as having one is non-negotiable in 2025, given how cheap it is. From what I’ve read online, it can be wired to the reverse lights so it turns on automatically when I shift into reverse, and the head unit switches to the camera automatically.

If you have an old car that you don’t want to get rid of just yet, and you don’t want to spend a lot of money on upgrading it, a cheap Android head unit like mine is a solid option. In fact, I’d argue that it could make the car easier to sell later on. And if you want to get something more universal that you can resell more easily later or reuse for another car, consider a portable heads-up unit that mounts to the dash instead.

Related

Adding Android Auto or CarPlay to Your Car Is Easier Than You Think

You don’t have to mess with wiring to upgrade your car’s display.