Torque for Android review
 

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque01.jpg

Well, I've had torque for almost a week now and I'm quite pleased with it. Mostly my time has been spent trying to figure out which gauges in what sizes and what locations would be the most useful. I had some disconnection problems that I couldn't figure out until I found that my left foot managed to hit the OBD scanner. The scanner itself is small and if I find this to be a continuing problem I'll just move the connector.

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When you select "Realtime Information" it takes you to a screen that's full of gauges and looks great, but at arm's length while driving is too busy to be useful. That's fine because changing the screen is easy, and there are seven screens that you can drag between. Having gauges or groups of gauges readily available but not taking up screen space all the time is a great feature.

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque05.jpg
There are several types of display. Here are Dial (Round), Graph, Dial (Meter) and Digital Display. Each one is useful in different ways. Note that the three displays that give hard numbers are all off a bit. It looks like there's a little slop between all the widgets taking readings from the car. That's going to happen, and the revs were fluctuating- I had just started the car so that the gauges would have something to read for the screenshots.

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque03.jpg
After four days of commuting with it, this is the screen I'm using right now. I just threw the coolant in there because it was "extra" space. We'll see how it goes. It could even go to HUD mode, but I think that's more of a clever developer trick than a useful feature.

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque04.jpg

Raw Data display
http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque06.jpg

The stunningly useless "Eco Warrior." It adds leaves to the tree as your driving becomes "greener." Get it?
http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque07.jpg

Options while in the display screen
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The "Add display" menu
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Settings
http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque11.jpghttp://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque12.jpg

Data logging settings
http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque13.jpghttp://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...h/Torque14.jpg

Sensors that Torque will display, if your car has the sensors:
The gauges are as accurate as anything you could want- they're getting their data from the same place your OE instruments are. Because this is my phone I'm not installing it in my car, but there's a great cubby in the dash right above the EVIC display that the phone fits in perfectly. I leave the car's display on cumulative MPG and the phone on instantaneous. I already have a tach and a speedometer. I already have a coolant temperature gauge as well, but it was unused space and I was curious about the temperature my car runs at. I already know it's in the middle of the OE needle, but I don't know how hot that is.

I'm glad I got Torque. It's going to help me be more effective at hypermiling. I just hope that I bet right on which Bluetooth OBD2 scanner to buy, because if I didn't then I'm buying another one. This app is worth it.

Awesome review! How much is the app?

The app is like 5 or 6 bucks, but there's a free version, then you have to get the scanner that's $44. Just ordered one to try it out since I got a american express gift card from work. I'll be using it for work since I drive to locations for jobs, so I bet I can write it off as a business expense. :P How accurate is the mileage widget? I love how my car tells my mileage and hopefully now I can do the same for my truck in real time.

The mileage is accurate. When I started with it I had instant and cumulative on together and they were both in line with my car's display, which is really close to what the odometer and gas pump agree on.

The app itself was less than $5, some oddball number because the developer is British and probably prices it in Euros or something. I spent $49 on the bluetooth ODB scanner.

One more thing- Your phone still works while Torque is running. Incoming calls aren't a problem and the default setting is to remain running in the background when you leave it, so any logging isn't interrupted. I'll leave any study of the logging features to the next guy, but I do like returning to an app in progress more than starting the app up all over again. If you're using your truck for work, the logging can probably help you deduct a little bit more than the price of the scanner & app. A pile pf receipts with log data is always better than a pile of receipts. That could really be worth looking into.

Awesome !

I downloaded the free version for now.

Hope my ebay module works. If not I'm only out $18.

This could give a Scangauge II a run for the money.

I can pick up a Nook color for <$200 and root it. Hmmm.......

Nook's have bluetooth?

They do now: Nook Color Can Now Use Bluetooth For Keyboards And SIP Calling

There are also ODB scanners with USB output. That falls into the "I don't see why it wouldn't work" category, but I don't see why not. I asked over at the Torque forum if anyone has done that yet.

Well, now I see why not. Ian Hawkins answered me pretty quickly.

I'm pretty sure that it's completely possible if Google decides to let people do that. In order to get screenshots without rooting my phone I had to download the SDK. It provided a datalink from my computer to the phone to log application activity (and get screenshots). Unfortunately Google hasn't seen a reason to let regular developers use the datalink feature by USB when it does let them use Bluetooth, WIFI and cell signal. Kind of a silly oversight if you ask me.

In a thread about MPG calculation someone posted a picture of their display.

I just set up a screen with instant MPG, average MPG and trip length. I'll compare it against the car tomorrow and see how well they agree.

If you're at all curious, the Torque site is here.

The answer for Android USB is here: Android ADK. Of course it's not fully implemented yet and will only support newer devices, but it's a start.

I recently had to remove my MPGuino to fix some engine warnings (where I spliced the wires was getting loose and the wires themselves were starting to rust) and I've been meaning to check out alternatives. I think I may go this route. Thanks for doing the review :thumbup:

Note:
If you buy the $18 ELM knock off from Ebay like I did, the documentation is wrong. A little web searching shows the bluetooth passkey is 6789.

After that it works fine. Lots of choices. The MPG seems accurate for the last tank.
Found that doing 60 or 70 is better than 65MPH. Must be an engine curve thing.
Also learned around 35 is a bad spot for FE, whoda thunk it? Maybe high RPM without lockup?

Thanks for telling us about this. Really nice screen. Way better than a scan gauge.
Reads DTC as well. Looks like my bank 1 O2 sensor 2 is going. The fuel trim is way off the others. Bet replacing it pays for the adapter in a month.

Got mine in and took it for a spin on the way to work. A 130 mile trip. Seemed kinda weird at times, showing my truck was doing 30-40 mpg in 35-45 mph zones. But seemed to average out once I accelerated from a redlight or something. Will have to wait to next fill-up to actually test the accuracy of it.

Thx for the review, I've downloaded the app just have to wait for the bluetooth adapter to come in!

If someone would like the full version pm me your email, I'll send it to you!

The adapter came in yesterday.

That app is really great. Hope that my mpg will get up with that!

Sadly, I've replaced Torque. Everything good I've ever said about it still stands and I really miss it, but it's not the best thing for my needs. The biggest problem for Torque is that my commute is so long and the bluetooth draws so much power. If I forget to disable bluetooth or don't exit Torque properly when I get to work then my phone's going to run out of juice by the time I'm halfway home. I can't effectively hardwire my phone to the car because it's my phone- I need to take it with me and sometimes I get calls when I'm in the car. The other main problem is the connectivity. Sometimes it takes a while for everything to get on the same page, and EOC without a kill switch breaks the connection. Some days Torque was up less than half the time.

None of this is Torque's fault. I'll bet I could smooth out the connection issues by configuring the protocol and getting that kill switch done, but I can't fix the large amount of time that my phone is tied up. I got an Ultra Gauge, which is better suited to my commuting needs, but every time I look at it I get a twinge of regret that I'm not looking at Torque's pretty display. That thing just looks great, and having actual gauges makes it easier to read out of the corner of your eye than a screen full of numbers.

I'm not getting rid of it, though. I have to figure out the logging and I expect it to do quite well for studying snapshots of my driving and testing mods. It's going to be perfect for displaying the A-B-C coastdown tests of my roof top box, for one thing.

I was in on the development of torque as a tester. I use an 7" eBay LCD connected to my LG Revolution via the HDMI cable in my Fit with Torque. I have the LCD velcroed to the dash with a cardboard bracket to hold it upright. I don't experience any "Cutouts" during my 153 mile commute every day. One of these days I'm going to recess it into the dash.

Torque also still works on my not activated Droid 1. I discovered this before I got the LCD. So when you update your Droid, don't retire the old one, it will still have many functions via WiFi and Bluetooth. I use the old one with IonRoad now via the WiFi access point from my Revolution. A fella could acquire several retired droids and setup a complete digital dash. There are a ton of apps that still work on the old one.

I found Car Home (and bought Car Home Pro) and use it in the car as a "mini launcher" with 3 screens of 6 applications each.

It has options to start bluetooth and stop bluetooth when you exit the app.

So far it works great, as I use bluetooth to connect to my handsfree kit. I just launch "car home" manually when I get in my car (home screen icon) and set Android to use it as the "Car" application, so it goes to "car home" when I press "home".

I do an "options" exit as I get out of the car, to exit Car home and end "car mode". Bluetooth turns off reliably at that point. When running Torque, you'd have to exit or press home to get to Car home, and then exit car home. But the big 6 button home screen will remind you to exit. I also set it to keep my screen "on". I do plug in a charger while in the car.

[QUOTE=Fat Charlie;254597]Sadly, I've replaced Torque. If I forget to disable bluetooth or don't exit Torque properly when I get to work then my phone's going to run out of juice by the time I'm halfway home.

I have been considering Torque but wanted to ask, can you still use a Bluetooth headset while using the BT for the car data?

Maybe its an obvious 'no', but I know a lot of headset now can be connected to multiple devices and it would make sense for a smart phone to be able to connect multiple devices.

Just wanted to know before I commited to the product.

I suppose I got lucky when I bought the super cheap adapter for $3 on ebay....it works fine on my 2004 kia optima. As far as Torque app is concerned I have no complaints. Heck I have a scanner now for $8.

I'd think the number of bluetooth connections you can have at once depends on your phone or OS. I've never tried it or even heard the question asked- but it does make sense, wanting to use your phone as a phone.

I also have the Pro version of Torque and a very cheap 'Chinese Special' adapter. It isn't the best fit with my VW Golf Diesel, but the author is apparently working on making it work better with VW's in-house ( ie non OBD2) protocols.

It works very well in my and my wifes little Daihatsu cars - although they are also not quite compliant with the OBD standard in that power to the OBD socket is switched via the ignition key rather than being on all the time.

there is a graphing feature in torque where you can plot any variable against another. has anyone used this yet?

I was thinking of using it to plot engine coolant temperature against miles.

The MPG is very accurate on torque. it matched my tank to tank calculation to within 0.4mpg where as the MPG gauge on my ford focus was a whole 6MPG higher.

I haven't used the graphing, but I have used the logging feature, which you can make graphs with in Excel. It works pretty well. The only thing I don't like is that the instant mpg is either 255MPG (moving) or 0MPG (stopped) in EV mode, so another reading like RPM or gal/hr is needed to tell if I was getting 0MPG in EV mode or with the engine running.

i did a couple of graphs yesterday.

I calculated the potential savings from a grill block by plotting trip litres/mile against miles. subtracting the area under the curve of the warmed up section from the cold section gives you the fuel volume wasted warming up the engine. this seemed to be about 0.05 litres in the 6 miles it took to reach opperating temperature.

Too bad no one ever develops readers for the scan port of my Honda CBR250R. It has all the same information present to the Honda scan tool as a car but doesn't use an OBD style plug.

I have an OBDII adapter and the torque pro app, but I don't use it much, because it is a pain to set up my phone for it and I like the "it's always there" nature of my permanently plugged in Ultragauge. Also, the displays are pretty tiny on the little screen of my phone. Nice looking, but I'd have to duck tape it to the steering wheel to be able to actually see much of anything.

I'm looking, therefore, for an alternative; something I can dedicate solely to running Torque, mount it in the car and leave it, permanently hooked up to a charger and everything.

I saw a 7" screen android tablet at Fry's electronic for $59, almost grabbed it, until I realized no bluetooth. Cheapest bluetooth one I've been able to find is $129. I may go ahead and get that, but I'm wondering if folks have found other options. The small tablets look like 7" which seems like overkill, is there a 5" option that would work? A large phone which would work without needing to pay for phone service (looks like someone earlier in the thread discovered that works) or a cheaper bluetooth ready tablet, or perhaps there is an OBDII adaptor that runs mini-USB out and a cheap tablet that will accept mini-USB in?

there is a usb obdii adapter may be just a matter of having the right adapter or putting your own mini plug on it, and usb bluetooth adapters as well, don't know about compatibility w/android, but I don't think you will regret the 7" screen, especially if you add in GPS and rearview camera and etc.

Sorry to bring up an oldish topic, but I have been using the Lite version for a while. I really do like it and hoope to buy the full version soon. I have been using a few others as well, just to see what they do. I bought one of the generic ELM327 Bluetooth adapters last year and so far its been one of the best things I've ever bought for ANY vehicle I've ever owned. I don't leave it plugged in all the time though, I hate anything I can't turn off. Besides, I use it in other vehicles as well. Including my work truck. There is a wifi adapter that is compatible with iPhones and such...

A wifi OBDII adapter would be great, there are lots of cheap tablets that are wifi compatible, it's just Bluetooth that seems to triple the cost of the device. I'll look around for that adapter!

elm
 

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.

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.

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?

Torque running on Samsung Tab 7.2
 

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

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.

Happy Torque wrencher
 

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

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

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.

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."

The logging feature!
 

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.