u/TylerDurdenICT80

I couldn't find a launcher that did everything I wanted so I designed one myself. It's primary theme was the 1980s show "Knight Rider." Basically I wanted my own KITT. Here's the details:

Built in navigation and maps

Built in OBD2 reader with gauges, info, trip logging, VIN lookup, and other options

KITT can use your Gemini or Perplexity API key (enter it in settings) for Ai powered prompts, questions and commands but will also use the most appropriate model to cost as little or no money for Ai

Built in browser to watch/stream video or whatever you want inside its own window without having to leave the screen and gauges, import your own bookmarks, save sites, etc

Swipable pages for things like: a dedicated ai page where you can log into your AI pro accounts and not be forced to use an API key

Page for retro gaming built in with controller support

Dedicated media page

TONS of KITT settings and config options

10 different themes including a Terminator, Matrix, and Robocop theme

3 different personalities of KITT To choose from starting at ruthless where KITT is a filthy and sarcastic foul mouth to a slightly less smartass KITT to a normal no sarcasm KITT.

2 versions of the app that can be installed alongside each other if you want to see both but the idea was I needed one for a 12.1" Tesla style screen in my truck and also wanted a version for my smaller sized horizontal screen in my mustang.

Download them here if you like, free. You can see all the options and what it looks like from this page prior to installing.

Hope you like it...

KITT LAUNCHER

Edit: I added another tab on the web page called "in action" with short clips of each launcher so people can see it that way too. I didn't include audio though, just video.

Edit 2: New features since the last post:

System check at the top of KITT Config: every permission and setting KITT needs, each with a Fix/Allow button.
Problem report to your phone: scan a QR code (phone on the same Wi‑Fi or hotspot; the link works for 10 minutes), or send it through Android's share menu.
Home-screen check: KITT warns if another launcher has taken over and offers a Fix button.
Low fuel: under 12%, KITT warns once per drive and a "Find gas" button routes you to the nearest station. You can also say "find gas".
Parking spot: saved with its address when you switch off. The Trips screen shows a QR code to open it on your phone, and you can ask "where did I park?".
Speed limits: the road's limit from OpenStreetMap appears next to the speedometer and turns red when you're over. A spoken warning is optional and off by default.
GM tire pressures: added with a source note.
Driving commentary: hard stops, revving a cold engine, 10 minutes of idling, and full throttle each get a comment, at most once every 5 minutes per type.
Report card: each drive gets a grade (A+ to F) when you switch off, shown on the Trips screen.
KARR personality: menacing rather than profane, with the same accuracy and safety rules.
Sound effects: a scanner whoosh at startup and a turbo-boost sound at full throttle. Off by default.
Night theme: switches to a theme you pick at sunset, using the GPS position when the head unit has no light sensor.
Pursuit mode: a full-screen 1982-style dash. Open it from the Gauges page, Quick Settings, a learned steering-wheel button, or by saying "pursuit mode".
Maps + KITT: opens Google Maps or Waze with a narrow KITT panel beside it showing speed, limit, revs, temperature, fuel, media keys and a KITT button. Android doesn't let a home-screen app run in split-screen, so the panel floats on top of Maps instead.
Big text for AI answers on the AI page, with read-aloud.
Mini player: a video playing in the stream window keeps going in a corner when you leave the Drive page. Tap it to go back, or ✕ to close.
Data saver per site (no images, and videos wait for a tap), under the browser's More menu. 18–19. Weekly backup to Downloads/KITT, keeping the last four. A backup from either app restores into either app.
What's new appears once after each update, and KITT announces it.

Currently working on the Terminator, Matrix, and Robocop themes to have the UI for each better reflect the movies and characters and am adding a Back to the Future theme. Obviously all features from knight rider will still work it'll just look different.

Apologies for lengthy post. A couple weeks ago I shared a few photos in a Facebook group of how I setup my head unit in my truck. I have a Phoenix Automotive 12.1" with Android 12, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage. Initially I just wanted to see what people thought and fully expected alot of shitty comments but was surprised at the huge amount of positive ones and messages I got asking if I could help or show how I did it. I was going to post a sort of how to guide on GitHub but then decided a few days ago why not just create a full site so that people could pick and choose which pieces they liked and follow the steps for only the parts they wanted on their setups. Here's what I did with mine, and I'm actively working on the site.

I didn't design a "theme," but wanted to do the best I could using already available apps or tools as much as I could.

I built a live, custom-coded Matrix-styled HTML dashboard hosted on Google Firebase though for part of it. It pulls raw OBD-II telemetry from the ECU by way of Torque (why reinvent the wheel when Torque gets you all the data if setup correctly), fires it over the cellular network to a dedicated Python container I deployed on Google Cloud Run, and feeds it directly into a Gemini 3.5 Flash LLM. I ended up packaging it up into an installable APK.

My truck now has an onboard AI brain now that is receiving live engine data every 10 seconds. It processes my engine temps, transmission status, and voltage, and a few other PIDs in milliseconds, cross-references it against live web-scraped data from Chevy forums and official GM links via the Tavily API if something breaks or seems off to try to find the cause and/or solution if one has already been identified and then it generates a diagnostic report. If the Ai identifies a major issue while I'm driving it will take the audio focus and all of the text (including that Matrix-styled text in the background) and change it to red momentarily and lower the music or whatever is playing to grab my attention and speak what it's found and tell me to pull over or whatever instructions are appropriate. I prefer mine to always be absurdly sarcastic and crude, so no matter what I ask it or what it needs to communicate to me, it's always funny (or is to me anyway, some people may be offended). In addition, each time the truck is started after being off for more than 15 minutes, it will immediately give me a "pre-flight" diagnostic report and/or anything to be aware of. I built a short little macro also thats on my Samsung Galaxy watch that I can tap when I'm on the way out the door or on my way out of the store or something that fires off and tells the head unit I'm on my way and to get it's shit together to provide any traffic info to be aware of.

There is always the possibility of a network connection not working for whatever reason like maybe AT&T is down or the head unit is having some type of WiFi problem which would make that entire Gemini/Tavily absolutely useless so as a fallback I have a smaller locally installed LLM that will take over automatically if that's the case. Hasn't happened yet though but it tested fine when I set it up.

The initial goal when I began was to have sizable windows for videos, messages, and maps to fit on a single screen - sort of a "command center" if that makes sense. In theory that's already possible after enabled in the developer settings but in practice what I found was the head unit would not keep the sizing correct, the video wouldn't show (only player controls), or the OS would kill one or more when running at the same time to save memory.

I essentially kind of bypassed the crappy kernel entirely using Floating Apps and edge swipe gestures, so I can stream videos from YouTube music in a window while also seeing live camera views from my dual-lens UVC side-cameras in their own dedicated, resizable sandboxes, or whatever combination of apps in sizable windows I want but I stick to the same 3 or 4 most of the time.

And for fun I added a retro gaming setup using launchbox on the lower half as the media/library and designed a little custom retro background in Photoshop that Lemuroid sits on top of to actually play the ~900 games.

It's absolutely over-engineered and some of it completely unnecessary but that was kind of the point - to be able to have that stuff and for it to work well while still having the other things that are useful.

There are absolutely different methods and apps and ways to do things and I'm not claiming that I invented anything new outside of maybe my custome Ai for the MCU. Just a project I've been working on.

KITT Launcher

Custom Setup with Ai that can read MCU data