Help Rooting an industrial Grade Android Tablet

[Linux Light Foot]

I have several of these interesting Android gadgets.

These are super high quality tablets that run Android 7.1.1 from 2018. They are mounted in the cab of big semi-trucks hauling cargo.
On startup it runs the companies proprietary trucking cargo manifest/log type program and it obscures the rest of the Android OS to run just THAT program.
99% of the hardware is wasted.

I restart in "safe" mode, (holding the volume down button I think) and do a factory restore, and it blows away that proprietary trucking crap and it turns back into a full functioning touch pad Android device.
For the bland job it is meant to do, it is really a hidden gem!!!
It has a super sharp, super crazy bright (designed for reading in the sun) LED display, a touch screen made of glass, weatherproof gaskets and UV resistant high impact plastic,
a decent sounding mono speaker, wifi, bluetooth 4.0. a USB 2.0 port, and an SD card. Under that its got a quad core ARM A9 CPU, 2GB DDR3 RAM, and 16 GB of storage.
It even has an 18650 cell inside for running short periods.

The thing I like almost as much as that is the flexibility of the power it needs to run!

On a male serial joystick type port on the back, it will run from as low as 5v all the way up to 30v DC. If your charger has the balls it will charge its internal battery from USB.

It has zero issue playing SNES, NES, Sega ROMs, playing these games with a USB PS4 controller, displaying PDF files and running 720p movies and FLAC music.

It is a Peoplenet PD5 Android tablet.

https://transportation.trimble.com/sites/default/files/file/2020-12/PD5.pdf

I want to root it and do other things with it only a rooted device can but I don't know where to begin, HELP PLEASE!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! If you haven't already, check the forums at XDA-Developers.com. They're generally a better resource for rooting, especially for more obscure devices. Good luck!

 

[Mooncatt]

As a former user of that tablet in a trucking setting (company switched away from it recently), they are not really that good for a general purpose device. They are low spec, designed only to meet the requirements of the dispatching software they come with, but even that is questionable. The 2 GB of memory is enough evidence of that, and were often laggy running just the software it came with. It may be fine for light use, but I wouldn't expect miracles from it. Maybe it'll be good for kids, which don't need heavy apps but do need durability.

 

[Linux Light Foot]

Mooncatt, thank you for chiming in, somebody who actually used it out in the field. I would never dreamed of doing anything heavy with it. But for light tasks it is an excellent sharp little tool.
I dissagree that the 2GB of RAM is holding it back and making it slow.
I find it's ARM CPU handles opening PDFs, text, internet browsing (single tab), and HQ FLAC playback, YouTube, and displays video from 720p mp4 files without studdering very nicely.

I don't know why it has so much hardware and features: Bluetooth, such a sharp screen, wireless, HQ audio dac, full Android os, a betcuilt in video chip that will display 720p movies and light gaming! that is really not used as Tremble intended it to be used in the field.

 

[Linux Light Foot]

I made an LCARS wallpaper and login screen from scratch for this in mspaint, taking a page from Star Trek TNG, and Picard's desk computer (in his "I'm ready to bang Beverley" room).
Drilled some holes and bolted it to the stand from an old LCD monitor.
It's perfect for reading, and internet radio, YouTube and running a flip clock program by my bed. Bluetooth speaker and I like to listen to old time radio

 

[Linux Light Foot]

As a former user of that tablet in a trucking setting (company switched away from it recently), they are not really that good for a general purpose device. They are low spec, designed only to meet the requirements of the dispatching software they come with, but even that is questionable. The 2 GB of memory is enough evidence of that, and were often laggy running just the software it came with. It may be fine for light use, but I wouldn't expect miracles from it. Maybe it'll be good for kids, which don't need heavy apps but do need durability.

I forget to mention, it can and will run ArduinoDroid, and control/program Arduino boards with relays attached. Which is the heart of a lot of cool experiments and home automation stuff.

 

[Mooncatt]

I'm glad you got it working for your uses and yay for LCARS! Usually when people acquire equipment like this and want to convert it into a regular tablet, they are expecting almost flagship performance. That isn't going to happen, and was the perspective I was coming from when I made that comment since you didn't elaborate much on your intended uses.

I don't know why it has so much hardware and features: Bluetooth, such a sharp screen, wireless, HQ audio dac, full Android os, a betcuilt in video chip that will display 720p movies and light gaming! that is really not used as Tremble intended it to be used in the field.

Most of those features are actually used in the field. Bluetooth for connecting to something like the truck stereo for audio if desired. The audio and display for taking and viewing photos and videos that may be needed, such as cargo damaged in transit being reported back to the company. PDF's for document scanning and viewing to send and receive from the company. Wi-Fi to connect to a communication hub in the truck that then sends and receives data via mobile or satellite networks, and also connecting to the truck's telemetry data for monitoring and electronic log compliance. Gaming actually was promoted as an option from Tremble for companies to offer an extra creature comfort to the drivers, though I don't know if many actually made use of that and the games officially offered were limited (not via the Play Store if I recall). And then some of those features, like FLAC playback are probably just part of whatever bundled hardware/software they ordered, kind of like some car features come standard even if you don't specifically spec it that way.

 

[Linux Light Foot]

I'm glad you got it working for your uses and yay for LCARS! Usually when people acquire equipment like this and want to convert it into a regular tablet, they are expecting almost flagship performance. That isn't going to happen, and was the perspective I was coming from when I made that comment since you didn't elaborate much on your intended uses.



Most of those features are actually used in the field. Bluetooth for connecting to something like the truck stereo for audio if desired. The audio and display for taking and viewing photos and videos that may be needed, such as cargo damaged in transit being reported back to the company. PDF's for document scanning and viewing to send and receive from the company. Wi-Fi to connect to a communication hub in the truck that then sends and receives data via mobile or satellite networks, and also connecting to the truck's telemetry data for monitoring and electronic log compliance. Gaming actually was promoted as an option from Tremble for companies to offer an extra creature comfort to the drivers, though I don't know if many actually made use of that and the games officially offered were limited (not via the Play Store if I recall). And then some of those features, like FLAC playback are probably just part of whatever bundled hardware/software they ordered, kind of like some car features come standard even if you don't specifically spec it that way.

I had no idea it's full array of features we're used out in the field!
I'd orihinally got nine or ten of them literally out of a half Frozen mud puddle at a scrap yard. All of them worked perfectly and charged up, except one which displayed a thin line down the center of it's screen, but worked as well as the others. Some grunt probably threw it at the frozen ground with enough force to shake a small country.
Autopsied that one to see what made it tick, gave away another one.
They all had a copy of Adobe Acrobat installed. Saved that API file.

 

[Linux Light Foot]

I'm glad you got it working for your uses and yay for LCARS! Usually when people acquire equipment like this and want to convert it into a regular tablet, they are expecting almost flagship performance. That isn't going to happen, and was the perspective I was coming from when I made that comment since you didn't elaborate much on your intended uses.



Most of those features are actually used in the field. Bluetooth for connecting to something like the truck stereo for audio if desired. The audio and display for taking and viewing photos and videos that may be needed, such as cargo damaged in transit being reported back to the company. PDF's for document scanning and viewing to send and receive from the company. Wi-Fi to connect to a communication hub in the truck that then sends and receives data via mobile or satellite networks, and also connecting to the truck's telemetry data for monitoring and electronic log compliance. Gaming actually was promoted as an option from Tremble for companies to offer an extra creature comfort to the drivers, though I don't know if many actually made use of that and the games officially offered were limited (not via the Play Store if I recall). And then some of those features, like FLAC playback are probably just part of whatever bundled hardware/software they ordered, kind of like some car features come standard even if you don't specifically spec it that way.

It DOES look stylish on that old LCD computer monitor stand doesn't it?
Strange, the PD5 was apparently released in 2018 and I got the fat stack I have in late 2020 or early 2021, two years and it's trash?

I took an old 90s joy stuck cable, found out the pinout for that port on the back, made a power cable with a 12v 2.5A wall wart.

Why the photo I took made the LCARS screen look washed out and bland, I don't know. But to the eye it's colorful and sharp even with the brightness turned wayyyy down.

 

[Linux Light Foot]

If there is ever a nuclear war, all that will survive are cockroaches and ARM based Android dash computers