A custom dashboard for the BYD Shark 6 head unit, by Muzz. It installs alongside the factory software and gives you cleaner, themeable screens for climate, driving data, off-road angles, fuel tracking and more, laid out for the car's big landscape screen.
Important
Unofficial. Shark Hub is an owner's hobby project. It isn't made, endorsed or supported by BYD. It talks to the car through the same services the factory apps use and never gets around the car's own safety limits, which are enforced below Android. You install it at your own risk. Don't fiddle with it while driving.
- Dashboard. A page of cards (clock and odometer, climate, battery, fuel, vehicle modes and shortcuts), a second page with the truck, and a shortcut rail down the right. Layouts, backdrops and the rail are chosen in Options.
- Vehicle overview. The truck drawn live, with wheels that turn with road speed, a shell to x-ray slider and callouts for tyres, incline and energy. Pedal bars and small see-through cards for pitch and roll, steering and compass float over it, next to the drive modes.
- Climate. Dual zone, heated and ventilated seats, airflow, fan, Auto, A/C, recirculation and defrost. Hold and swipe on any fan or temperature control to change it.
- Gauges. Six gauges; tap one to choose what it shows from 25 readings, such as speed, motor and engine rpm, fuel and energy use, battery, coolant and tyres. Four looks: Dial, Classic, Bars and Columns.
- Inclinometer. Pitch and roll drawn on real photos of the Shark from the side, front or rear. Zero it once on level ground.
- Fuel log. Enter litres on a small numpad and the odometer fills itself in. The card shows your average over the last three fills and a calculated range. It can ask for the litres by itself when the fuel gauge jumps after a fill.
- Vehicle controls. Drive modes, Normal / EV / HEV, terrain modes (Sport, Mud, Sand, Mountain), SOC save with a target, cruise and driver-assist settings, lights and quick toggles. Anything risky asks before it changes.
- Themes and styles. Five colour themes (Deep Sea, VN Mint, Slate Blue, Amber HUD, Daylight) and three styles (Glass, Infotainment, Glass HUD).
- Sideload and updates. Install APKs on the car over Wi-Fi from a phone or PC, and update Shark Hub itself from this repo's releases.
- Service Probe. Lists the car services and methods your firmware offers, exported as JSON over Wi-Fi. That's how new car functions get mapped.
- Bluetooth helper. Scan, classify and pair mice, keyboards and gamepads. See the caveat below.
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The pictures are the app's own screen renders, with sample data.
Shark Hub has run on one car so far: an Australian right-hand-drive Shark 6 with the Desay SV head
unit (Android 11, build SOC_260811_S). An earlier build ran the home screen, live telemetry, the
Service Probe and the vehicle controls there. Climate is wired to BYD's own API, and a driver
temperature change was confirmed on the car.
Much of 0.2.0 hasn't been on a car yet. That covers the new dashboard, gauges, fuel log, SOC save, terrain modes, the photo inclinometer and both installers. Expect rough edges, and please open an issue with what you find.
Other BYD models may partly work. The car API is found at runtime, and the Service Probe shows what your firmware offers.
You need ADB on the car once, for the first install. After that Shark Hub updates itself.
- With the truck switched on, rotate the screen to portrait. The hidden menu only shows in portrait.
- Open Settings → System → Version and tap the Factory Reset text about 10 times, until a developer screen opens. Tap the words themselves. If a reset question ever pops up, press Cancel.
- On that screen, tap the top button to switch ADB on.
- Put the car on the same Wi-Fi as your PC or phone. A phone hotspot is easiest.
Everything is on the latest release.
- Windows PC:
SharkHubInstaller-Windows.exe. One portable file with nothing to install. It finds the car on your network, downloads the latest Shark Hub and installs it. It isn't code-signed, so Windows shows Windows protected your PC: press More info → Run anyway. A PC with Smart App Control switched on may refuse it, so use the phone installer or adb there. - Android phone:
SharkHubInstaller-Android.apk. Install it on your phone and allow installs from your browser or files app when asked. Turn on the phone's hotspot, join the car to it, then tap Find the car and Install. - adb, if you have it:
adb connect <car-ip>:5555 adb install -r SharkHub-0.2.0.apk
The first time, the car asks Allow USB debugging? Tick Always allow and tap OK. Switch ADB off again on the same developer screen when you're done.
Options → Updates checks latest.json in this repo and installs the newer APK
over the top, keeping your settings. You can also install a release APK from the Sideload
screen, or with adb install -r.
Every release is signed with the same key. A copy you build yourself is signed with your key, so it can't update a release install, and vice versa. Uninstall first to switch, which clears Shark Hub's settings.
You need Android Studio (Koala or newer) and JDK 17 or 21 for Gradle. Newer Android Studio releases bundle JDK 25, which Gradle 8.9 can't run on. Set Settings → Build, Execution, Deployment → Build Tools → Gradle → Gradle JDK to a 17 or 21 install.
./gradlew assembleDebug # the app: app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
./gradlew :installer:assembleDebug # the phone installer
./gradlew recordPaparazziDebug # render every screen to app/src/test/snapshots/images/On Windows use .\gradlew.bat. The first sync downloads the Android Gradle Plugin and libraries.
The camera probe in app/src/main/cpp is switched on in gradle.properties. That means the first
build also downloads the Android NDK and CMake, about 1.5 GB. To skip it, add
-Psharkhub.nativeCam=false to the Gradle command. The Probe then reports the camera check as
unavailable.
The screen renders use Paparazzi, which draws each screen at head-unit size on your PC, with no device needed. Look at them after any UI change.
The Windows installer builds with the C# compiler that ships with Windows, plus Python and Pillow for its icon:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\installer\build.ps1Builds are signed with the key named in a keystore.properties file in the project root. The file
is gitignored:
storeFile=C:/Users/you/.android/sharkhub.jks
storePassword=…
keyAlias=sharkhub
keyPassword=…Without it, Gradle's standard debug key is used. Android only installs an update that's signed with the same key as the installed copy, whether it arrives by adb, Sideload or the updater.
BYD's car functions live in android.hardware.bydauto.* device classes that the factory apps load.
Method names and value codes differ between models and firmware, so Shark Hub doesn't hard-code
one. car/CarBackend.kt finds the services at runtime and calls methods by name. car/CarManager.kt
and car/VehicleControls.kt hold the candidate names and codes for each function. To support a new
firmware you edit those lists, not the plumbing.
The Service Probe screen shows what your car offers:
- Export over Wi-Fi shows an address like
http://192.168.4.21:8090. Open it on a phone on the same network and savesharkhub-probe.json. The report is built in memory and nothing is written to storage. - Dump to logcat writes the same report to logcat, for use with adb:
adb logcat -s SharkHubProbe:I
The report includes your car's VIN. Delete it before sharing the file with anyone.
probe/2026-09-28/ holds a report from a Shark 6 for reference, with the VIN
removed.
Research notes on cameras and sentry mode are in docs/CAMERAS_SENTRY.md.
The vehicle-control codes are in docs/VEHICLE_CONTROLS.md.
The Sideload screen, under Options, installs APKs through Android's own installer. It needs no root, and you confirm each install once.
- Wi-Fi upload. Start the upload server and open the address it shows in a browser on your phone or PC, on the same Wi-Fi, then pick an APK. The server has no password, so only run it on a network you trust. It stops when you leave the screen.
- Install from URL. Paste a direct
.apklink. - Local files. Install
.apkfiles already on the car's storage or a USB stick.
The Bluetooth screen scans, classifies and pairs devices, and pairing works. Whether the head unit then accepts a paired device as live input is decided by the car's Android build, not by Shark Hub. In practice gamepads usually work, keyboards often do, and mice are the most likely to be filtered. Getting past that would need root or system access, which is out of scope.
app/ the head-unit app (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose)
src/main/java/com/chris/sharkhub/
car/ finding the car API, climate, telemetry and vehicle controls
data/ settings and the fuel log
ota/ sideload/ self-update and APK installs
sensors/ inclinometer
ui/ screens: dash/, overview/, gauges/, climate/, inclino/, theme/ …
src/main/assets/car/ truck art for the overview and inclinometer
src/test/ Paparazzi screen renders and unit tests
installer/ the Android phone installer
tools/installer/ the Windows installer (C# and WPF)
tools/model/ the 3D-model and photo pipeline behind the truck art
docs/ research notes
probe/ a Service Probe report from a Shark 6
latest.json the update manifest the app checks
CLAUDE.md has the detailed architecture notes and conventions, and CHANGELOG.md records what
each change did and how far it was tested.
- The camera and sentry research follows the method documented by OverDrive by Yash Srivastava (MIT).
- The phone installer talks ADB with dadb by mobile.dev (Apache 2.0).
- Built with Jetpack Compose and OkHttp. The screen renders use Paparazzi.
THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.mdlists the libraries and their licences.
BYD, Shark and DiLink are trademarks of BYD. The truck pictures in the app are made from BYD's press and configurator images and publicly available photos, with number plates removed. They're used only to show the vehicle. If you hold the rights to one and want it removed, please open an issue.
The code is released under the MIT licence. The licence doesn't cover the BYD-derived imagery, which remains its owners' property.