Any Car Enthusiasts/Drivers Here?

[IGNTNUNLMTD]

Originally Posted by emotionap1

I think a OBD Scanner would be cool... As far as a track logger, I think that's my fall project.

Cool! I never actually track my R32, so I personally wouldn't develop such an app, but I can't wait to see what you come up with. Nice S2000 by the way!

Alright, so... here's my idea.

It will be a dashboard-friendly app, meaning large, easy to press buttons with icons rather than words for easy recognition while driving. Proposed features are as follows:

• Grip: A G-Meter. Will give direction and magnitude (in Gs) of lateral acceleration. Will have an auto-zero feature to make readings more clear.
• DriveComm: Will provide multiple (I'm thinking six as of now) large buttons to automatically send pre-written SMS messages to pre-assigned recipients (possibly multiple). Also exploring the possibility of automated SMS responses to phone calls on reject.
• Grand Tour: This is the big one that will take extensive amounts of work and I'd need some help creating. It will start out as a route-mapping and POI tool that lets you save points and good driving routes to a database in your phone. Eventually there could be a server backend where driving roads and interesting points could be accessed and searched by everyone. Of course, this will be very difficult and if I could enlist some help from someone who has experience with this, that would be AWESOME.

So, what do you guys think? Anything else?

[jbg7474]

GrandTour: great idea. You could expand this to include various social aspects such as posting times or Grip readings on certain turns (though I suppose you don't want to encourage "dangerous" behavior) based on what kind of car you have. Being able to find fun roads to drive when I'm out of town and in unfamiliar territory would be really useful. It would be cool if you could send waypoints to Telenav so you could navigate to it. I could imagine this being a little bit like "GolfPinFinder" but for driving instead of golf. There may be existing "fun road" databases that you could tie-in easily.

[IGNTNUNLMTD]

Originally Posted by jbg7474

GrandTour: great idea. You could expand this to include various social aspects such as posting times or Grip readings on certain turns (though I suppose you don't want to encourage "dangerous" behavior) based on what kind of car you have. Being able to find fun roads to drive when I'm out of town and in unfamiliar territory would be really useful. It would be cool if you could send waypoints to Telenav so you could navigate to it. I could imagine this being a little bit like "GolfPinFinder" but for driving instead of golf. There may be existing "fun road" databases that you could tie-in easily.

You can tag each Google Maps point with data such as speed, altitude, etc, and therefore I probably WILL add G-meter readings to each point if I can. As for dangerous behavior, hey, I just code. I'm not telling you to oversteer around a public cul-de-sac.

[Rkguy]

Hi guys, i've begun to port an ODBII scanner app to the palm pre :-)
It is the one called obdgpslogger and is open source (note the spelling)

I would like to keep it open source and have some (I think) excellent ideas for what it could do. I will say that gas mileage is my main interest.

I am going to test it with both the PLXDevices Kiwi Wifi interface (AKA WIFI) and a bluetooth dongle I bought. These are the most logical ways to connect with your car.

Unfortunately, after compiling the obdgpslogger software for the phone, I discovered that serial bluetooth is NOT SUPPORTED yet and ad-hoc WiFi (which the kiwi wifi is designed for) is ALSO NOT SUPPORTED as far as I can tell. I've asked on irc to webos and webos internals and on the palm dev blog.

THis is a big disappointment BUUUT it runs fine using obdsim which literally generates simulated data that is streamed into the obdgpslogger app so development can continue while PALM gets their communications up to par (BOOOO!)

IGNT --- what do you think?
Anybody else. what do you think? I may start a new OSS project page and put my compiled files up there to start with. BTW I am running the app in the linux terminal right now so this is a heavy port.

[IGNTNUNLMTD]

Originally Posted by Rkguy

Hi guys, i've begun to port an ODBII scanner app to the palm pre :-)
It is the one called obdgpslogger and is open source (note the spelling)

I would like to keep it open source and have some (I think) excellent ideas for what it could do. I will say that gas mileage is my main interest.

I am going to test it with both the PLXDevices Kiwi Wifi interface (AKA WIFI) and a bluetooth dongle I bought. These are the most logical ways to connect with your car.

Unfortunately, after compiling the obdgpslogger software for the phone, I discovered that serial bluetooth is NOT SUPPORTED yet and ad-hoc WiFi (which the kiwi wifi is designed for) is ALSO NOT SUPPORTED as far as I can tell. I've asked on irc to webos and webos internals and on the palm dev blog.

THis is a big disappointment BUUUT it runs fine using obdsim which literally generates simulated data that is streamed into the obdgpslogger app so development can continue while PALM gets their communications up to par (BOOOO!)

IGNT --- what do you think?
Anybody else. what do you think? I may start a new OSS project page and put my compiled files up there to start with. BTW I am running the app in the linux terminal right now so this is a heavy port.

Wow, awesome work! Yeah, way too bad about the Bluetooth but hey, we're probably going to get support for other profiles at some point! I would LOVE to be able to use said open source to create a digital tachometer, analog or digital (a la Le Mans Prototype and other race cars), with a shift indicator. I've always wanted that!

If we do get those profiles, rest assured I'll be in touch for sure.

[stir fry a lot]

I like the Grip and Grand Tour ideas.


OBDIBMWFTMFWBTW

[xtn]

I could really use a track session and setup log.

[brendu]

what about an app that could act as a digital speedometer? Something that with a windshield mount could act like a heads up display... I'd love that... By the way what year is your R32? I've got an 08 speed3 and I love the R32 it's a sweet car...

[IGNTNUNLMTD]

Originally Posted by brendu

what about an app that could act as a digital speedometer? Something that with a windshield mount could act like a heads up display... I'd love that... By the way what year is your R32? I've got an 08 speed3 and I love the R32 it's a sweet car...

Thanks! 2008 Volkswagen R32 Mk V (United Gray Metallic, #976/5000) My friend used to have an MS3... awesome car. One of the only FWD cars that can stomp my R32.

About the digital speedo... if we wait until the serial bluetooth profile is enabled, then we can go all out and make a configurable HUD app. Here's to hoping!

[rpr]

Originally Posted by brendu

what about an app that could act as a digital speedometer? Something that with a windshield mount could act like a heads up display... .

There are lots of them in Preware/App Catalog that use GPS for the speed. I've tried the free/lite ones and they all work as advertised.

[JamMasterClay]

Originally Posted by brendu

what about an app that could act as a digital speedometer? Something that with a windshield mount could act like a heads up display... I'd love that...

+1

[neit_jnf]

Car nut here! I'd like something like the Racelogic VBOX for those enthusiasts that do more than just the dragstrip!

I'd like to be able to datalog (in addition to drag times and horsepower), a full session or multiple sessions of open track racing, drifting or autocrossing, recording lateral acceleration, forward acceleration, braking, instant and average speeds, lap times, etc. Map the trajectory of each lap, graph the values measured and be able to choose any section of the track to analyse the data. Make sense?

[IGNTNUNLMTD]

Originally Posted by neit_jnf

Car nut here! I'd like something like the Racelogic VBOX for those enthusiasts that do more than just the dragstrip!

I'd like to be able to datalog (in addition to drag times and horsepower), a full session or multiple sessions of open track racing, drifting or autocrossing, recording lateral acceleration, forward acceleration, braking, instant and average speeds, lap times, etc. Map the trajectory of each lap, graph the values measured and be able to choose any section of the track to analyse the data. Make sense?

Yeah, that's just a LOT more difficult to do. I'd love to see that if I did track days too!

[ToniCipriani]

Another thing I thought would be cool but potentially dangerous, is a shift point advisor. Like you know in GT on PS3, when you're too fast into a corner it'll flash which gear you should be in?

Combine that with GPS track analysis and car data it might be possible it seems.

[IGNTNUNLMTD]

Originally Posted by ToniCipriani

Another thing I thought would be cool but potentially dangerous, is a shift point advisor. Like you know in GT on PS3, when you're too fast into a corner it'll flash which gear you should be in?

Combine that with GPS track analysis and car data it might be possible it seems.

Again, would require OBD access and therefore Bluetooth Serial, which is not yet available. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[neit_jnf]

Up! Any news? I just saw the App I want (but it needs to be ported from the iphone ) Anyone want to do something similar? Here it is:

Harry's Lap Timer and Harry's Trainer for iphone/ipad/etc

App Shopper: Harry's LapTimer Pro (Sports)

Would it be too difficult to port it to webOS?

Originally Posted by neit_jnf

Car nut here! I'd like something like the Racelogic VBOX for those enthusiasts that do more than just the dragstrip!

I'd like to be able to datalog (in addition to drag times and horsepower), a full session or multiple sessions of open track racing, drifting or autocrossing, recording lateral acceleration, forward acceleration, braking, instant and average speeds, lap times, etc. Map the trajectory of each lap, graph the values measured and be able to choose any section of the track to analyse the data. Make sense?

[IGNTNUNLMTD]

Something like that could certainly be in order, yes, although I don't have time to make it. Stay tuned, there will be news regarding Grip this coming week! (Yes, it's *nearly* done!)