OBD2 scanner apps for smartphones

I don't know much about that I've heard of the ELM business talked about before not in any kind of a bad light I guess there's some kind of problem possibly with the software because it's maybe Russian. But seemingly the best bang for the buck is the AP200 thingy. If you wanted to pay a monthly subscription the carista seems like it's the way to go with most modern cars it can bring up TPMS sensor identification numbers for each wheel generally able to program said to the car all of that sort of thing I don't know what the monthly subscription is but the carista if you really need to play with the TPMS and some other things might be a good thing to have and just turn on your subscription on an as needed basis if you don't do much scanning and then having the AP200 outright and it can bleed your brakes and read all of your codes and do most things except the TPMS business which apparently the carista can do very well and it has interfaces that look just like the TIS or Toyota software business so that's a plus The AP200 is 56 bucks and I imagine the carista hardware piece is probably $40 or something like that and I don't even care what the monthly subscription is because I wouldn't use it but every few years probably maybe a little more often working on other cars but we'll see In those two devices you don't have anywhere near an MK 808 or any of that kind of business and shouldn't need it.

 

I haven't used Car Scanner myself but it seems pretty decent from what others report.

We have this thread that compares a bunch of different offerings, testing them on Prius gen 2. So the thread's not absolutely specific for gen 3, but it should give some useful comparative info.

Gen2 OBD2 app review | PriusChat

 

I have on my phone:
Car Scanner
Hybrid Assistant
Torque
Dr. Prius
Scan Master
And OBDLink from my OBDLink MX.
All are fine.

 

Right and your phone no matter how capable it is or big or amount of memory and RAM and all of that is becoming a glorified scan tool essentially look at all those apps you have to open a different times for different things on different days or whatever My plug in this AP thing and everything is at rest in the world of my Prius except for manually entering in TPMS sensors which I don't generally do so I'm covered six ways of Sunday generally speaking for the $56 and only have one app essentially and that's a nice thing when I start having to scroll through all these apps just to work on the card starts to get a little silly seemingly to me.

 

I use Torque Pro while I'm driving to monitor vitals. It has good widgets.

I have Dr. Prius on my phone but never used it except to check the batteries once.

I use GaragePro to clear airbag codes and similar. Torque Pro cannot do some of these.

 

Can you expound on the "AP Thing"? What is it? Where do I get one?

 

Autel AP 200 scan tool.

 

Autel AP200. About $60 at Amazon.

 

The AP200 that I bought when I bought it was like $56. Now you have to be careful there are several AP200s there's a red and black model I think called an AP200h and I just saw this funny shaped looking thing called an AP200 max or something along those lines when I talk to the customer service line about this is very narrow dialogue about the differences between them seems like a bunch of poo poo to me but such as life same with the scanners you see this company's they make scanners that cost $5,000 and then tablet scanners that are actually nicer looking tools based on the $5,000 scanner even put part of the $5,000 scanners name in the other model that's much cheaper's number like take them MK 808 if you follow that unit there's a $5,000 version of that that comes with all kinds of different plugs and all kinds of foolishness I guess that's for vag cars or whatever that European standard business is like Saabs and all that. And then they have the tablet scanner in the same series the MK 808 is like $399 like the AP200 with those tablet jobs you get one car model with the registration of the product and any other car models you have to buy subscriptions and all that sort of thing but I think even on the $5,000 model the shops by they still have to pay subscriptions and whatever not just for each model but for overall the whole unit which is expensive for a year.