Thread: Voyager: Bluetooth OBDii for the Droid

Great job so far! I like the idea of disconnecting the UI from the comm logic. In fact, this is along the lines of what we aim to to with the OSDash project. For example, there could be an "OBDII user interface" service that is drawn upon when you run the program.

Other users on different phones could use the interface even if they weren't running Voyager on a Droid. Several different interfaces could be designed and the user can choose them from the web interface.

If you're interested, head over to the OSDash forum and see what the deal is. There's already a VIN and DTC web service proposed. These two could work together to compliment each other.

Moved to Software & Software Development.

Show off your projects is basically for CarPC installs etc.

man, add the ability to accept input from a second touchscreen monitor, and play files from a usb hard drive, then FB support.. and i just wasted money on trying to get an actual computer in my car..
that's kinda depressing.
but really exciting too.

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

Great job so far! I like the idea of disconnecting the UI from the comm logic. In fact, this is along the lines of what we aim to to with the OSDash project. For example, there could be an "OBDII user interface" service that is drawn upon when you run the program.

Other users on different phones could use the interface even if they weren't running Voyager on a Droid. Several different interfaces could be designed and the user can choose them from the web interface.

Great perspective, thanks! I am still trying to wrap my head around OSDash, FB. etc. A lot of progress has been made by other users and I think it is beneficial for new apps to mesh with the existing framework. I'll continue to get up to speed and do what I can to "mesh".

Right, so the basic idea would be to write the platform specific code for the Droid. Then, the skin could be supplied by the service. Obviously, you could code a default skin but with the web service, and people could select different skins using the web interface for OSDash. With user ID and password in place, you would store your personal settings.

Since a VIN and DTC lookup service is proposed for OSDash, you could add that to your app without rolling your own.

If someone writes a car maintenance and tracking service, again, you could use your app to supply OBD information to that service or use that service to supply your app with info, if it applies.

Nobody has stepped up to write a client for the Droid yet but since the Linux client is open source, maybe someone will use that as a starting point and we can supply OSDash services to the Droid community.

Although what you are explaining sounds more like a Droid front-end for OSDash, I think it would be possible to have a single UI for OSDash and Voyager after I separate the Voyager UI from the Voyager Service.

For the short term, it may be best to keep Voyager focused on Droid + Bluetooth + OBDii and spin it as "Droid is the carputer", and save "Droid connects to the carputer" for a future, fun project.

Some long-term goals I have for Voyager:
* Add support for vehicle specific OBD codes for things beyond the basic mode-1 PIDs
* Analysis - analyze historical data and provide summaries and reporting
* Add a timepedia chronoscope to view historical data on composite graphs (Load versus speed for example).
* High-level diagnostics - one example might be to tell that the air filter is due to be replaced, based on historical datapoints from the appropriate mode-1 PID or PIDs combined.
* Calculate vehicle weight, power, acceleration profile, etc etc.
* Interface to a central database which stores vehicle metrics, statistics, trip info, etc. for reporting and data mining.
* Interface with GM Driver Information Center (the dot matrix display in the dash)
* Interface with OnStar, anything else on the CAN network.

Sorry, not trying to throw you off track there. OSDash isn't a front end. It is a project to implement web services that can be used by whoever for whatever they want. Sure, front ends can use it but so can standalone apps. The idea is to write once, share across platforms. The mobile hobbyist universe is too small to have to reinvent the wheel all the time.

In your case, support for vehicle specific OBD codes would be something that you could use an OSDash service to retrieve.

The central database stuff would make a good OSDash service as well but hasn't been proposed by anyone yet.

Keep up the good work!

Originally Posted by regulatre

Although what you are explaining sounds more like a Droid front-end for OSDash, I think it would be possible to have a single UI for OSDash and Voyager after I separate the Voyager UI from the Voyager Service.

For the short term, it may be best to keep Voyager focused on Droid + Bluetooth + OBDii and spin it as "Droid is the carputer", and save "Droid connects to the carputer" for a future, fun project.

Some long-term goals I have for Voyager:
* Add support for vehicle specific OBD codes for things beyond the basic mode-1 PIDs
* High-level diagnostics - one example might be to tell that the air filter is due to be replaced, based on historical datapoints from the appropriate mode-1 PID or PIDs combined.

No need to re-invent the wheel: OpenOBD (yup another subproject)

And like bugbyte said these features will be available from the OSDash project.

Aah I'm getting up to speed, slowly . OSDash has a web component that Voyager could interface with to obtain information and upload information, thus offloading the amount of stuff (Logic and stored data) that has to be packaged with the app.

If the OBD data could be uploaded to an OSDash web server then some of the analytics I proposed might be carried out from the OSDash web site. Users might even have an option to compare their vehicle's performance to others' with the same year/make of car.

Thanks BugByte!