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TL;DR: it's a device that gathers metrics from the car sensors. The product is aimed at hackers and car enthusiasts. You want to know your top speed, 0 - 60 et

by brad0 9y ago

TL;DR: it's a device that gathers metrics from the car sensors. The product is aimed at hackers and car enthusiasts. You want to know your top speed, 0 - 60 etc? This might be the device for you. Afaik there's already products out there that do the same thing. This could be at a lower price point though.

Meegul 9y ago
You can find similar products that work over bluetooth for under $10 on Amazon. I use an old smartphone on a mount to show all of the same information using a third-party app - no need for an $88 proprietary dongle. There doesn't seem to be anything new about this product other than marketing and a high price tag. I'd love for that to not be the case, however. Maybe I'm missing some features of it.
- rjeli 9y ago
  From the README[0]: It supports 3x CAN, 2x LIN, and 1x GMLAN. It also charges a phone. On the computer side, it has both USB and Wi-Fi. It uses an STM32F413 for low level stuff and an ESP8266 for Wi-Fi. They are connected over high speed SPI, so the panda is actually capable of dumping the full contents of the busses over Wi-Fi, unlike every other dongle on amazon. ELM327 is weak, panda is strong. https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md
  - Meegul 9y ago
    Interesting. Seems to be more of an enthusiast data-focused product rather than something aimed towards traditional car-folk then. Might be interesting to play around with even if you don't want to contribute the data back to comma.ai
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tim333 9y ago
  From the article comments: >George Hotz: None of the < $100 ones can dump all the data, they don't have the bandwidth. Or be reliable enough to send a packet at 100hz for hours without dropping any. Trust me, I wouldn't be building hardware if I didn't have to.
en4bz 9y ago
ODB2 Bluetooth readers for Smartphones can be had for $10 [1]. I guess the hard part is writing the software that logs all the data. Currently most Android apps simply display the data and don't log it. The logging/software aspect of this is certainly where the value is added. [1] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=odb2+bluetooth&sprefix=ODB2+Blue%2Caps%2C158&crid=368FHTS3WNOF1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aodb2+bluetooth https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias...
- Devthrowaway80 9y ago
  Not sure if you're interested in such things, but I've written a Python data acquisition framework (and a shitty GUI for my RaspPi) that works with those cheapo $10 dongles that I'll be releasing under the MIT license as soon as I can be bothered. Main reason I haven't released it yet is that the connection management, while quite resilient, is so hackish that I am bit embarrassed by it.
  - BenjiWiebe 9y ago
    Are you the author of pyobd-pi?
    - Devthrowaway80 9y ago
      Nope! Was unaware of the project before you mentioned it. Looks like it might have similar goals.
- CWuestefeld 9y ago
  I've been using Torque[1] for about three years now. It's got a pretty nice UI to show just about anything your car outputs via OBD-II, and lots of things that can be derived from that, as well as integrating GPS and accelerometer data. You can log the data to your phone, as well has have it uploaded to the cloud. The only time I've really used that data was the time some jerk stopped me, cursing at me for driving like a maniac and endangering his children (who he'd been allowing to play in the street). With the logged data, I was able to show that from the time I turned onto his street, I had been going no faster than 10mph below the limit. The OBD-II error-reading software is very useful. It showed me that the Hyundai mechanics were completely incompetent. After holding my car in the shop for a week, they finally concluded that the problem is exactly what these diagnostics told me they were (plus 10 minutes of googling). [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torque https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq...

by brad0 9y ago

Meegul 9y ago

You can find similar products that work over bluetooth for under $10 on Amazon. I use an old smartphone on a mount to show all of the same information using a third-party app - no need for an $88 proprietary dongle. There doesn't seem to be anything new about this product other than marketing and a high price tag. I'd love for that to not be the case, however. Maybe I'm missing some features of it.

rjeli 9y ago
From the README[0]: It supports 3x CAN, 2x LIN, and 1x GMLAN. It also charges a phone. On the computer side, it has both USB and Wi-Fi. It uses an STM32F413 for low level stuff and an ESP8266 for Wi-Fi. They are connected over high speed SPI, so the panda is actually capable of dumping the full contents of the busses over Wi-Fi, unlike every other dongle on amazon. ELM327 is weak, panda is strong. https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md
- Meegul 9y ago
  Interesting. Seems to be more of an enthusiast data-focused product rather than something aimed towards traditional car-folk then. Might be interesting to play around with even if you don't want to contribute the data back to comma.ai
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tim333 9y ago
From the article comments: >George Hotz: None of the < $100 ones can dump all the data, they don't have the bandwidth. Or be reliable enough to send a packet at 100hz for hours without dropping any. Trust me, I wouldn't be building hardware if I didn't have to.

en4bz 9y ago

ODB2 Bluetooth readers for Smartphones can be had for $10 [1]. I guess the hard part is writing the software that logs all the data. Currently most Android apps simply display the data and don't log it. The logging/software aspect of this is certainly where the value is added. [1] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=odb2+bluetooth&sprefix=ODB2+Blue%2Caps%2C158&crid=368FHTS3WNOF1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aodb2+bluetooth https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias...

Devthrowaway80 9y ago
Not sure if you're interested in such things, but I've written a Python data acquisition framework (and a shitty GUI for my RaspPi) that works with those cheapo $10 dongles that I'll be releasing under the MIT license as soon as I can be bothered. Main reason I haven't released it yet is that the connection management, while quite resilient, is so hackish that I am bit embarrassed by it.
- BenjiWiebe 9y ago
  Are you the author of pyobd-pi?
  - Devthrowaway80 9y ago
    Nope! Was unaware of the project before you mentioned it. Looks like it might have similar goals.
CWuestefeld 9y ago
I've been using Torque[1] for about three years now. It's got a pretty nice UI to show just about anything your car outputs via OBD-II, and lots of things that can be derived from that, as well as integrating GPS and accelerometer data. You can log the data to your phone, as well has have it uploaded to the cloud. The only time I've really used that data was the time some jerk stopped me, cursing at me for driving like a maniac and endangering his children (who he'd been allowing to play in the street). With the logged data, I was able to show that from the time I turned onto his street, I had been going no faster than 10mph below the limit. The OBD-II error-reading software is very useful. It showed me that the Hyundai mechanics were completely incompetent. After holding my car in the shop for a week, they finally concluded that the problem is exactly what these diagnostics told me they were (plus 10 minutes of googling). [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torque https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq...