Torque for Android review

[esnap]

I have an OBDII elm unit permanently mounted in each of out cars. They naturally were in the way so I relocated the OBDII plug so it is loose behind the driver side kick plate and I can snatch the unit out when I need to test / read codes on someone else's car.

The units are only 12 bucks on Ebay (free ship)

Torque sells a widget app that I have set so all I do is toggle it on or off and have the ave/mpg, mpg, coolant temp and rpm set on one of my screens.

The only down side is that I have to fire up Torque and set to a different car profile to work when I switch vehicles.

However if I drive the same car all the time I only have to toggle the widgets on to use.

[Jakins]

this is one of the main reasons i got the galaxy s4! haha. i plan on getting a cheep bluetooth reader and running this. my mpguino is really all i need for FE but id like to see how my car is running for diagnosis purposes. and also i can plug it into my friends cars too. also im about to start running a program called bluefrom. its for all nissans89 and up i think. it works for the pre obd2 cars using the consult port. but the hardware for this is a little bit trickier and involves some soldering and translating Russian.

[AntiochOG]

I saw some people say that they might buy a cheap tablet and hook it up in their car to run this. Has anyone done it yet?

[mf70]

Torque is running smoothly on my tablet, using the $13.00 eBay ELM327 adapter.

My passcode was "1234" but I think the crucial thing is to enter the code in the first 60 seconds of activation. I'll have to tr other codes. I suspect they will all work.

Apparently, the MAC address of all the knockoff ELM327 senders are the same, so there is some difficulty in running several bluetooth adapters at once.

I'm powering the tablet from the car, so I'm not worrying about battery life.

Torque is still being actively developed. One cute trick it has is to shut off bluetooth if the app is closed. Also, if the ODB sender is inactive, it only polls once a minute.

Mark

[ssnsvibe09]

Has anybody considered any of the other Android OBD applications. I am a few days away from getting my shiny new interface module and wonder what people are thinking towards the other options.

[mf70]

Frankly, I'm happy enough with Torque that I haven't been looking for anything else. The free "Lite" version is a good approximation of what the full freight (Ooooh! $5.00) does, so you can judge for yourself.

However, the "Pro" version is continually updated and has a number of unexpected "extras" at a number of points in its operation.

MF

[Fat Charlie]

My problem wasn't with Torque, it was with my phone. Torque does a great job and looks great doing it.

[ssnsvibe09]

Well I have installed my OBDlink MX and have utilized the Torque Pro software. I enjoy using the realtime gauges but they take time to setup. What I found annoying was the logging feature, I would have been great if I could select all of the PIDs that I want in just a few steps rather than the back and forth I had to do.

I have uploaded some of my logs on their website but I have not found it as useful as I hoped. What little time I spent on it, I could not manipulate the display graphs of the original data.

I know that I will have to provide my android device with a constant power source. The bluetooth interface, and GPS function with a always on display will kill the battery very quickly. For some reasonm my phone went into USB interface mode each time the key was turned.

[Xist]

I just bought a smart phone. Someone whose advice I am inclined to follow just because I enjoy talking to her told me that the best time to upgrade a phone is after Thanksgiving, Walmart sold new phones for one cent and gave $100 account credit. I looked into it and did not see anything, with everyone having different opinions on the "best time" to upgrade, until I saw a post on SlickDeals that Costco had a deal just like I was told, but this is Costco, which I like, not Walmart, which I dislike.

Unfortunately, that only applied to new lines, the salesman said that there are different deals throughout the year, but for upgrades, the best that you ever get is a "free" phone, they never offer additional credits. Also, instead of offering the phone for one cent, they wanted fifty dollars, although I could get the S4 mini for free.

Verizon had e-mailed my sister, the account holder, offering me the i5C for free, which I never considered.

I like the physical keyboard, but since I chose the Stratosphere II instead of the S4, I need to choose between GPS and MPG? I am not sure how fair the decision is, since I need to use an MPGuino to adapt for lean burn.

Anticlimatically, when I asked that girl about her deal, she simply responded "Upgrade."

[mixu-]

The logging feature of Torque Pro is fantastic! The web service isn't that great but you can export the data and do your own excel magic.

Why is it fantastic? Well first off if you're doing any FE mod testing you MUST be aware of the variables impacting FE. Now I can easily log speed, temperatures, engine load, etc. This allows me to do some proper ABA testing and it leaves out the guesswork about whether the runs were properly comparable.