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Kristoffer Smith edited this page Aug 20, 2014 · 35 revisions

The Car Bus Interface Project

An android application for interfacing with a vehicle's communication bus via Bluetooth OBD2 dongle (ELM327 compatible). It allows the Android device to respond to specific bus messages, such as those occurring when the user presses physical buttons inside the vehicle.

Purpose

The original use case was for those with an Android based tablet acting as a carputer who wanted to have their steering wheel mounted factory stereo buttons control the Android device (adjust volume, change media tracks, etc). However, you could have the Android device respond to any messages that are broadcast on the vehicle's bus - from a window rolling down to having reached engine operating temperature.

This is NOT an OBDII or "code reader" type application. An OBDII dongle is used only to provide a hardware interface to non-diagnostic vehicle buses which also use standard OBDII protocols (SAE J1850 PWM, SAE J1850 VPW, ISO 9141-2, ISO 14230-4 KWP, ISO 15765-4 CAN, SAE J1939 CAN).

Disclaimer

EVERYTHING INCLUDED IN THIS REPOSITORY IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO VEHICLES, DEVICES OR YOURSELF. DO NOT ATTEMPT ANYTHING MENTIONED HERE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

Getting Started

  1. Verify you have everything listed on the Requirements page.

  2. Turn on bluetooth, find and pair your OBD2 adapter with your Android device.

  3. Install and launch the app.

  4. There will be notification in the Android status bar with a key icon. Tap this notification to go to the app's settings screen. Select your device under the "OBD2 Interface Device" setting and then tap the "Apply Changes & Restart App" option. After a few seconds the notification should say "Connected to (your adapter)".

  5. Configure the app for your scenario. See the Configuration page for details. Be sure to tap the tap the "Apply Changes & Restart App" option after updating settings.

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