The headrest monitor we’re talking about is the Pumpkin 10.1 inch 1024*600 Ultra-thin Car Headrest Multimedia Player Raspberry Pi Monitor.
I wanted to post a quick review for this headrest monitor as when I bought it there were no reviews. I should start of by saying that I have always wanted to have something like this in the car for my kids. We have gone through multiple sets of the DVD players that you can get at your typical big box store for $100+. They are ok for what they do, but they tend to stop reading discs after a year or two and of course its getting harder and harder to justify buying a DVD these days.
I had originally thought about doing a DIY project based of a Raspberry Pi but I just couldn’t get the right balance of costs and time. Then I saw this car video monitor. This headrest video monitor pretty much had everything I wanted (except for a few things which I will talk about later). It can play files off from a USB drive, SD card, or from HDMI. It can play HD files. It can play audio through built in speakers, through your car’s radio, or through plugged in or IR wireless headphones. The screen is also very large. It has a cheapy but functional remote. Finally, it appeared (and is) easy and secure to mount to your car’s headrest — i.e. no velcro or buck straps.
When I received this headrest Raspberry Pi Monitor it was packed professionally and securely. Everything that was listed as included was included. The screen comes with one of those plastic peel away protectors which is nice. I was able to install the bracket and device in my 2011 Subaru Outback without a problem. I am currently using the cigarette lighter plug in but may hard wire in the future if I can figure out how to do it. I will note that the unit comes with basically zero instructions which is somewhat disappointing.
Now for the important part. I loaded up some files on a USB flash drive to test it out. I started with one DIVX, one MP4, and one MKV (h.264, AC3). According the product page I expected the DIVX and MP4 to work and I expected that the MKV would not work. As expected the DIVX and MP4 worked fine. To my great surprise the MKV worked except the audio. I then realized that it was probably just the audio file. So I used a program to keep the video and just convert the audio to AAC … at it worked great. So this unit does play MKV’s just make sure that your audio is either AAC or MP3 — this was a huge bonus for me as I have a ton of MKV videos I was thinking I was going to have to convert. The screen is really beautiful, so much better than the DVD players it is replacing. The sound out of the speakers is fine and the radio portion works great (when radio is on it mutes the units speakers as expected). I just ordered some wireless IR headphones so haven’t had a chance to test those out yet but when I turn on the IR function it also mutes the units speakers as expected.
There are three things I will this unit had that it doesn’t. First, it wish there was a way to mirror the screen of one unit to another. Apparently the units with built in DVD players can do this but only for DVD’s. If my kids want to watch the same thing we will have to make sure we have two drives with the show / movie and to start them at exactly the same time. It will be kind of a pain but certainly doable. Second, it should come with a wallwart to be able to use outside the car … it has the ability to to this but it doesn’t come with the plug. This would have cost a dollar or so to include and imho would have been nice to have. Now I have to figure out what one will fit this which is always perplexing to me. Finally, I wish it had the ability to load or sideload Kodi. This would allow the playing of all file formats and the use of a really slick UI. I’m sure someone could hack this but that’s beyond my knowledge.
For the price this thing cannot be beat and I would highly recommend it.
–by Spencer
Click to Check more Pumpkin 10.1 inch headrest Monitor.
Pumpkin official websites:
US site: www.autopumpkin.com
UK site: http://ift.tt/29hvZcz
German site: www.autopumpkin.de