Announcing the PriusChat OBDII Phone App Project

Great idea to make an Priuschat project!

I am earning my living as a Software Architect and in parallel I write apps for the iPhone. Due to lack of time I would prefer to take a humble seat in the back row. My code is open source and I would be more than happy if I can lend a hand at times.

In the past I had a look at writing an app to work with OBD codes. Apple has its own ideas about using the Bluetooth interface and the Dock Connector together with Hardware. That seems to be the reason why most of the commercial offering are based on Wifi.

And on a technical note: Xcode (the development tool for the iPhone) currently supports SVN only, git support is expected for a future release but last time I looked it was not in a state one wants to use.

- Olaf

 

That's interesting. The software he's using is VoyagerDash from GTOSoft, which sells for a dollar. Brad Hein is the developer. An earlier component, VoyagerConnect, seems to be mostly an Android service and content-provider that takes care of getting the data from the Elm dongle (exactly the way I was thinking the software should be structured) and seems to be available for free download but not on Android Market.

It seems to know some Prius-specific codes. I don't know how user-extensible it is. Although the FAQ has a link to a Users' Manual PDF, the link is dead. I can't find a license statement for it anywhere. Although he's charging nothing for -Connect and just a buck for -Dash, I don't get the impression it's open source. I wonder if he'd be willing to consider a deal.

-Chap

 

Another name suggestion: "OBDience"

 

I'm the CleanMPG author "Dan". I would like to be included in the project. Just set me up with SVN access and I'll set up a class or library to house the data however you need.

As I mentioned in the excel file, Atilla did most of the work. My efforts were to "port" them to the SG format.

11011011

 

Is it possible to discover what information is on the bus with a device so that the software then allows you to pick and choose any of the various bits of data that are available? If this is possible, and the software could incorporate this to some extent, it would be of value for all vehicles, not just Prii. It could also discover new information put on the bus by future models of the Prius, or by software upgrades.

Having to know apriori what the bus codes are in order to extract information, a la the Scangauge, seems to really limit the usability of the device

 

There are literally thousands of parameters available. How is it going to pick something you are looking for out of this huge amount of data automatically?

I've spent many, many hours studying the CAN bus myself, and so have lots of other people. Even with lots of smart people looking often there are still plenty of mysteries! The only way to prevent this is for the automakers to offer full disclosure which I doubt will ever happen.

 

I work with a lot of PHEV Priuses and have purchased most of the aforementioned products in the market. They are all good. None of them are great. It is high time for a modern automotive GUI tool for the Hybrid enthusiast. Smartphone/Ipod touches are dirt cheap for the computing power they contain.

A lot of Prius drivers want prius specific gauges such like what you can pull out of Scangauge using Xgauge features.

Scangauge is nice, but I would rather see an Iphone/Ipod touchscreen app that would let you see more than 4 gauges at a time....and a better user interface for switching between gauges...the Scangauge is a bit of a PITA if you want to view more than 4 gauges....and a PITA to configure it each time you want to add a new gauge.

Canview provides great data, but it is expensive, hard to install, and "the UI is so 80's DOS". A touchscreen iPod/iPhone/iPad would be much more pleasant to use. (I'm an Apple guy but Android would be similar)

The GoPoint interface has the most potential, but it currently does not speak CAN, required for Xgauge type functionality. I do like the fact that GoPoint is a hard wire connection to your ipod/phone...you don't need to have a wifi or bluetooth connection and it charges your phone at the same time. (the kiwi/plx device requires you to have a separate connection to your phone for charging it)

Ideally when this product gets developed it has open libraries where people can add their own gauges based on the year/model of their car and data they care about (i.e. PHEV drivers). Hopefully one can easily share/download gauge sets that others have designed (instead of entering CAN hex codes) and have customizable/downloadable "skins" (for custom look and feel) and the ability to upload and share certain data points (if the user wants to share their cars technical information)

There could be a maintenance log where you could enter service procedure date/mileage etc. and it could remind you when you need a certain service performed (i.e. change your transaxle fluid).

There could be efficiency games that teach you how to drive using less fuel. And with an iPhone GPS tracking that could show you fuel used over the same trip over time. (for example, you drive the same route to work, the application could tell you if you used less fuel or more fuel today than over your historical average). You could enter your fuel cost per gallon and have a "taxi meter" ticking away in dollars how much you are spending on a particular trip.
Perhaps if people saw how much in dollars they spend driving their car they would learn to drive less, or combine errands to save fuel.

For the super geeks, one could use an Ipad and have a huge screen full of all kinds of gauges simultaneously. Many PHEV users would love to have more data available as they drive...of course you wouldn't want it to distract you too much so you could use audible sounds for certain alerts.

And for troubleshooting, to be able to read all the codes and subcodes that Techstream reads would be wonderful, but somewhat hard to implement I'm sure.

Sorry for my ramblings, but I've wanted to see a product like this ever since the iphone came out.....perhaps this community can put its heads together and make it happen.

 

This thread kind of died suddenly. Are people talking on the SourceForge wiki now?

 

has a sourceforge project been created already? I wasn't aware.

 

Sorry, I haven't disappeared, got caught up in a house project I'm trying to complete before the tax credit goes away. If everybody can manage to enjoy the holidays without a sourceforge project, I'll announce the details here shortly.

Cheers,
-Chap

 

Now that the holidays are over, is there any work being done on this?

 

Yes - I've made contact with Brad Hein, author of the VoyagerConnect and VoyagerDash software mentioned back here, and he sounds like he will be willing to open-source some of that into a larger project! I think that's pretty cool because that's a bunch of wheel we'd otherwise have to reinvent.

I still have to create the sf project - give me tomorrow evening, or the weekend.

Cheers,
-Chap

 

Ok, who's got that champagne bottle? Great, thanks. Kerrack; bloosh; fizz;

obdchat

Don't anybody get too excited yet, I'm still putting pieces in but there's how it looks so far.

Good time to make sure you have an ID to log in to sourceforge if you're interested in contributing.

I believe the wiki requires you to be logged in before edit buttons appear on pages. I think anybody with a login can contribute to the wiki (i.e. I don't think the wiki is limited to logins that are developers on the project, just anybody with a login) and it might also be possible to use OpenIDs from other sources. I haven't tried that but somebody might.

For now sourceforge has me as the only developer and the project admin (because, well, I registered it). I'll get around to adding the developers who have expressed interest in this thread. If you haven't already expressed interest in this thread, now you can just go to sourceforge and use "Request to join this project." I'll also be happy to share the admin permissions with somebody (Danny? Tony?) someday when I've figured out how to do that.

Cheers,
-Chap

 

Poof! You're a developer.

-Chap

 

Hi Dan,

Do you have an account on sourceforge? You can either let me know the username here and I'll add it, or log in to sourceforge, go to the obdchat project and use the "Send a request to join this project" link.

Do I understand right above, that your file on CleanMPG (which I can't see without a CleanMPG account), might be just the same data as in the vassfamily.net xls file that reeed posted a link to, only converted to xgauge format?

If so, maybe it's easiest for me to take the xls file, convert it to VehicleDatabaseFormat - since the format docs are a little thin right now in svn, then let you check my work.

-Chap

 

The project page has a timeline view that can be a good way to see what's been happening.

-Chap

 

Hi all,

I would be interested in helping out on this project, I am a new Prius owner, a Scangauge user and develop for iOS devices for a living..
Anything I can do to help. I suppose I should get a SourceForge account to get started. Please PM me so I can get some details.

Best,
Steve

No git! Oh No!!

Actually I know SVN just fine.. thank god its not CSV or Perforce!

 

nice

android app that what it needs to be