Torque for Android
 

Well, my bluetooth OBD2 thing came from Amazon yesterday and I bought Torque (I figured I've got $50 into the reader, so there isn't really a point in going with the free version of the app). I didn't want to bother figuring anything out last night, so it waited until lunchtime today. I hadn't played with any bluetooth things before and didn't know how easy it was. Everything came right up without a hitch.

Now my mini dash has gauges for throttle position, engine load, current and average MPG and something called an eco widget. I don't know what that is yet, but I'll figure out pretty soon if it's worth the screen space.

It'll be interesting to see how it works out. I figure worst case means I spent $55 and now have a code reader. Best case, I got a tool that's going to help me drive more efficiently. We'll see.

Keep us up to date.

Not that I need another gadget, you understand....

Crazy talk.

Darin, I suspect this man's wife/girlfriend/better half has hacked his account and does not have his best intentions in mind!

(ROFL)

Well, the first trip was good. Informative.

I just spent the last 20 minutes looking up android screenshot apps. Sorry, guys, but I'm not getting my USB cable right now or rooting my phone. At some point I'll get the cable and get some pictures up, but it looks really nice.

The app comes with six gauges on the screen and it looks quite pretty. Some guys on the Torque forum have pictures of their installs and they look good. Then you get into your car and hold the phone out at arm's length and realize just how tiny the gauges are. 2cm is too small for a useful gauge.

The eco widget is a waste of space and I'm only going to put it back on to get screenshots of it. It takes up half the screen and has a tree with branches. There are some green circles on it representing "greenness," I guess. When I started out it rated me as "Mum and Dad's taxi." Soon more green appeared and it rated me "sunday driver." Then came "green machine" and when it was completely green, "eco warrior." Kind of a pathetic use of so many sensors and so much screen space.

So for tomorrow I made another, simpler dash. I'm using large gauges, so there are only two- throttle and load. Just for fun I put a speed display in the bottom center. It's in KPH, but maybe I can find something more Murrican. Torque can measure speed by GPS as well as from the OBD, and there's even a measurement of the difference between them.

As time permits I'll be getting deeper into it and figure out how to get screenshots. In the meantime, I'm glad I got it.

Can it datalog?

It says it can, and email it to you. That's a few steps down my road of exploring it, though.

...have you read the Owners Manual / Operating Instructions (yet)? ;)

Now that's crazy talk.

Surely you must be joking.

Types of display:

Sensors it will display:

I'm home, the groceries are put away and the kids are fed. Someday the grownups will be able to eat and the kids might even go to sleep, then I'll work on those screenshots.