Intro to custom NEX interface / what's goin' on here?

[Stomachbuzz]

Hi there,

I just purchased a used AVIC-8200NEX (advertised as a W8400, but that's another story...). Finally got it mostly wired up in my car, but few kinks to iron out still (reverse signal, VSS, factory bluetooth mic, etc). 

Being a young guy who used to be somewhat deep into the whole XDA, Android development stuff, I naturally thought "hmm...I bet there's some custom firmware I can flash onto this thing..." and then I found this website. The stock software actually seems to be 'satisfactory' but I only have like 15 mins of time with it, so *shrug*

Years ago, I used to wire up car stereos all the time, tinker with my phone, I knew all the little tips and tricks, etc. But I've been occupied with school, work and other stuff for a while, so I'm just getting back into it. First time I've installed an aftermarket headunit in like 5 years  'Am I doing this right...?' LOL
And doing this NEX unit properly was quite a bit more complex than the basic, older single DIN puppy I slapped in 10 years ago. 

 

This being said, I couldn't quite find and intro thread here about the current state of Android development for these things. I found the "AVIC development mod" thread, which has some bits of code and instructions, but I couldn't quite figure out "what's the point?" or "what this does for me" or why I would want to go through all the trouble of re-figuring out how all this stuff works. Ya know, like flash back to an old firmware version that has less security measures, and then root it, and then flash it blah blah, BUT be careful not to brick it! 

Lol I remember I bricked my old Samsung Galaxy (yes, the 1st one) a few times and had to run to radio shack to build a 'jig' out of a couple of resistors and then jump 2 pins on the charging port to get it to go into recovery mode. Crazy stuff man. I love it!