Car Scanner now showing some info on Android Auto without needing work-arounds

[B177y]

My Car Scanner for Android app updated a couple of days ago to version 1.111.5. I didn't think much of it and the "What's new" just says "Updated connection profiles database. Bugs fixed."

The big news however, is this morning on my way to work, I noticed the Car Scanner icon in my Android Auto as a native app. When I opened it from the MME screen, I was given a text menu with "Connection", "Dashboard" and ""Acceleration".

The "connection" screen allows the phone to connect to the OBD dongle. The "acceleration" screen goes to an acceleration test menu with different 0-whatever times, and the "dashboard" menu (I was the most excited about this) sends you to......

Well, I guess it's a work in progress.... But hey, it's a start! All of the different dashboards and custom dashboards just show as text, but the information is there and it's live. No need to use Screen2Auto or any of the other hacks to get the Car Scanner information on to the MME screen. I could only get it to show 3.5 parameters at a time, but you can scroll up and down if you are looking for information from a particular gauge.

If you have a different version or if your Car Scanner shows more or different information or has graphic gauges, please share!

Tagging @mkhuffman and @kennelh as you both seem to be working on apps or ABRP/Car Scanner/Android/Google Maps, etc...

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[kdonnel]

Car Scanner also now works with CarPlay for the iPhone users.

I think support for CarPlay was added in late August.

 

[Snakebitten]

I hope you are right and this implies that Car Scanner app will eventually display some/all dashboards on the Sync screen?

 

[B177y]

Car Scanner also now works with CarPlay for the iPhone users.

I think support for CarPlay was added in late August.

Does the car play version show text only or does it have graphical gauges?

 

[kdonnel]

Does the car play version show text only or does it have graphical gauges?

It is text only. It is my understanding that Apple CarPlay rules do not allow for charts and graphs.

 

[B177y]

It is text only. It is my understanding that Apple CarPlay rules do not allow for charts and graphs.

Ah. I hadn't heard that before. The Android version is probably destined for the same then.

Seems funny to me though that trying to scroll and read through text is much more distracting than being able to look at a graphical gauge cluster. ?‍

 

[kdonnel]

Here are some screen caps from CarPlay.

 

[Snakebitten]

Still, that's cool!

 

[alexgorod]

That's a great addition!

Any chance it can show when the brake lights are on? Or it is not in OBDII and Car Scanner physically cannot show it?

 

[B177y]

That's a great addition!

Any chance it can show when the brake lights are on? Or it is not in OBDII and Car Scanner physically cannot show it?

I know that the Android version of Car Scanner is able to show the brake lights on. Unfortunately it only shows when the brake pedal was pressed, it didn't show if they were on for one pedal or the automatic hold.

 

[mkhuffman]

Thanks for sharing this, Bill! I am not normally a AA user, but for this functionality I am going to give it a shot with my extra phone (the one I use for Car Scanner).

Very cool!

 

[B177y]

Here are some screen caps from CarPlay.

The CarPlay version looks like it shows much more of the data at once. Your screen grab shows 10 gauges while I could only get my android version to show 3 and a half. I have been poking around trying to find some sort of AA settings in Car Scanner, but coming up empty so far.

 

[carbonizedbrett]

I had to shift to Park to see the results but this is pretty cool! And for the one run I did while also running Dragy, the 0-60 time was within a tenth of a second of the Dragy number.

 

[Tbird]

Wow, I am so excited that Car Scanner has finally come to Car Play. I'll take text data for now but it would sure be nice to have the graphics also.

Ford could have/should have made some of this data available to us long ago on a technical data screen. Just saying they forced us all to a third party app.

 

[bruddahmanmatt]

I posted these last week in another thread. This is a page I built in CarScanner to monitor AC charging current, voltage and temps. I’ve been throttling my Home Flex down to 32A recently because it’s been ridiculously hot here in SoCal. In fact wifey’s car even gave me a message to charge later when temps are cooler earlier today. Dat 114 degree whether doe. Yeesh.

Anyway the only limitation I’ve seen so far from CarScanner within CarPlay is that it’ll only display the first 10 PIDs on any given page. As you can see on the bottom of the page I’ve created I have a blank tile, SoH and another blank tile, all three of which are cut off on the page in CarPlay. Still, this is big for owners who want or need to monitor vitals on their cars. The TPMS data on the tire pressure page even displays tire pressure to the nearest hundredth.

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