MiatOff

Open-source tweaks for the Mazda Connect infotainment in the Mazda MX-5 (ND). You build a USB stick on your PC, plug it into the car, and choose what to install. Every change can be undone, and the tool checks your car first and refuses to touch anything it does not recognise.

⚠️ Early release. Modifying a head unit can leave it unusable and is not covered by Mazda's warranty. You use this at your own risk. Read Is it safe? and the support status first.

What you can do

Tweak	What it does
Touch while driving	The touchscreen keeps working in the Mazda menus while the car moves (uses TouchTune).
Touch in Android Auto	Tap, swipe and drag in Android Auto (uses the oem-aa-mod touch shim).
Boot trim	Stops things you don't use from starting at boot, each on its own: DVD/TV, SiriusXM, Pandora, Stitcher, Aha.
Startup warning	Skips the warning screen at startup.
Meters	Gauges under Applications: speed, rpm, G-meter, lap timer, fed by the car's own data. No OBD adapter needed.

You choose per tweak: Install, Remove or Leave as-is. The tool never changes anything you did not pick.

Support status

Only one combination has been analysed so far, and nothing has been fully accepted in a car yet.

Firmware	Car	Feature	Status
74.00.324A	EU MX-5 ND1	Check my car (read-only dump)	Tested in the car
74.00.324A	EU MX-5 ND1	Touch in Android Auto, boot trim, startup warning	Experimental: tested on a simulator, in-car acceptance still open
74.00.324A	EU MX-5 ND1	Meters	Experimental: one in-car failure (busy root remount) was fixed but not re-tested
anything else	any	everything	Unsupported: the tools refuse to change anything

Stay on firmware 74.00.324A and do not upgrade to 74.00.331: it breaks wireless CarPlay more often and cannot be rolled back. Check yours under Settings → System → About → Version Information.

Another car or firmware? Run the check (below) and open an issue with only SUMMARY.txt from the dump. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

What you need

• A Windows PC with Python 3 (including Tk, which the python.org installer has) and this repository (git clone https://github.com/CeyssensHelder/MiatOff or Code → Download ZIP).
• An empty USB stick, 32 GB or smaller, formatted FAT32 with an MBR partition table.
• A 2017 EU MX-5 ND1 with Mazda Connect on firmware 74.00.324A (see the support status above).

How to use it

1. Open the builder: python miatoff_gui.py, and pick your USB stick in the drive box.
2. Check your car first (tab Check my car):
   • Press Build check stick, put the stick in the car (engine on, home screen showing) and choose FULL. It only reads; it changes nothing. Bring the stick back.
   • Press Read last dump. You get a report that compares every file with the versions the installer knows, per tweak: available, installed, blocked or not checked. The same dump always gives the same report.
3. Choose what you want (tab Install / remove): per tweak Install, Remove or Leave as-is. Anything the car cannot take is greyed out after a check. Press Build install stick.
4. In the car: engine on, wait for the home screen, plug the stick into the USB hub. A dialog offers your next step with INSTALL (or REMOVE) and CANCEL. Each step restarts the unit; leave the stick in and the next step appears once the screen is back. When everything is done you see "Your plan is complete".

For a first try, choose CANCEL at the first dialog: nothing changes, but you get a log and a state file on the stick that show the unit is recognised.

Never confirm a Mazda software update screen. If one appears, cancel and remove the stick.

Going back

• Choose Remove for the tweak and build a new stick; every change is restored byte for byte.
• If the Mazda menu misbehaves after Meters or the startup-warning tweak: put an empty file named MIATOFF-RESTORE in the root of the stick and plug it in. It puts those two back without any dialog.
• Last resort: reflash the official EU 74.00.324A firmware.

Details per stick, including exactly which files change on the car: aa-touch-stick/README.md.

Is it safe?

MiatOff changes the head unit only. It never touches the engine computer or the CAN bus, and it needs no OBD adapter.

• It refuses anything unknown. Every file is recognised by its exact sha256, as stock or as already patched. A different firmware, a modified file or an unknown state: nothing is changed, and the state is written to the stick.
• No half-installed state. Each file is staged, verified and swapped in with one atomic rename, in an order where every in-between state still boots. A power cut or a failure is rolled back or finished by the next run.
• Backups and byte-exact removal. Stock copies are kept on the unit and removal restores them exactly.
• No boot loops from the Android Auto shim. A crash can at most switch Android Auto off, not restart the whole unit.
• Tested without a car: a simulator replays installs, removals, power cuts and failures under BusyBox, including against the real stock files. What it cannot cover is the real unit, so start with the dry run described above.

Touch while driving removes a deliberate distraction limit. Follow your local law and keep your eyes on the road.

Troubleshooting

• Nothing happens when I plug the stick in. Look for miatoff-aa-touch.log (or miatoff-dump.log) on the stick. If it is missing the script did not start: check FAT32 + MBR, that only one such stick is plugged in, and that the home screen was showing.
• "This unit differs from the analysed state." The firmware or a file is not the known one. Nothing was changed. Run the check and see the report.
• The dialog comes back every time I start the car. The stick is still plugged in. Remove it.

Documentation

For	Where
Exactly what each stick does on the car	aa-touch-stick/README.md, dump-stick/README.md
The Meters gauges and their data	meters/README.md, meters-app/README.md, collector/README.md
How the head unit works, research and design notes	docs/README.md

Contributing

Bug reports, new-firmware reports and pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md first. Never upload a firmware dump; it contains copyrighted Mazda files and personal data.

Developing with an AI assistant

If you use an AI coding assistant, point it at AGENTS.md first: it explains the layout, the safety rules and how to run the tests. Background and open questions are in docs/ai/.

Credits and thanks

MiatOff stands on the work of the Mazda Connect modding community. Thank you to:

• Miatafy for TouchTune, the free, open-source (GPL-3.0) touch-while-driving tool. MiatOff ships TouchTune 1.2.1 unmodified, uses its launcher mechanism and its install/verify/rollback approach as the blueprint for everything else, and hands over to it for the touch-while-driving step.
• Vitaliy Kurokhtin for oem-aa-mod (AGPL-3.0), the Android Auto touch shim.
• Trevor G Martin (Trevelopment) for MZD-AIO and MZD_Speedometer, which TouchTune and the Meters menu integration build on.
• jmgao (mazda-connector) for the safe boot-hook pattern, junoh-moon (mazda-aa-dr) for hard-won warnings about the vehicle data service, and silverchris (Mazda CMU documentation) for the boot and recovery notes.
• The security researchers at ZDI/Trend Micro whose public work documents how the unit boots.
• The Chakra Petch and Share Tech Mono fonts (SIL Open Font License).

See NOTICE for the exact licences. MiatOff is not affiliated with or endorsed by Mazda. It contains no Mazda files; the scripts only hold the hashes of the stock files they expect.

Licence

MiatOff is GPL-3.0-or-later; see LICENSE. Because it builds on GPL-3.0 and AGPL-3.0 work, anyone who redistributes it must keep the notices in NOTICE and provide the source.