Trackaroo Trackmaster

I have done a little OBDII testing (via bluetooth). I'm still evaluating whether to pursue this. One issue is having a reliable source for the ELM327 bluetooth OBDII adapters. You definitely can pick these up on ebay and various odd sites. But I'd like be able to recommend a reputable company to purchase from. Otherwise, there is a good chance your app will get blamed for hardware issues. The same goes for relying on another app to do the logging/processing.

On a related note, you may find that these OBDII interfaces aren't needed on a newer cars. There is an effort by the automobile manufacturers to also jump on this app craze. Ford is the most notable. They plan on allowing you to write apps that interface with some of the engine diagnostics and more:

Ford Sync AppLink

Continental Corporation (same that brings you Continental Tires) is working on an Android library for cars:

AutoLinq

Jeff

i just noticed that the dealextreme adapter is not actually an elm327 chip. its a pic chip programmed to mimick an elm327. though probably no different in functionality for laptops and included drivers, i am sure this is the type of questionable hardware that you wanted to stay away from.

Yes, this is under development right now. I have a few different OBD devices I'm playing with.

Jeff

It depends on the phone (processor, bluetooth stack), but should be more than one.

Jeff

Any update on this?
I'd love to see this happen...

I am eagerly awaiting this as well. I would love to test it out for you when you are ready. I am mainly looking for RMP Data in the short run for RaceChrono2avi. Thanks for all the work that you have done so far. I Love this app. I Bought the OBDLink Bluetooth Scan Tool from scantool.net myself. It is just what caught my eye.

RPM and Throttle position would be awesome. You've already got them in your video data export file, so hopefully it's your plan to put them in. I just spent over an hour attempting to synch up a Torque export (at 1hz) with a TrackMaster export (at 5hz). Slow process and not too accurate. I could probably write an excel macro to copy the Torque data into the appropraite TrackMaster export row it with a bunch of vlookups.

Here's a sample video on youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsRIK0JpLLE

Definitely Bluetooth. It's easier and cheaper.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,
I am the leader of a small motorcycles track racing team,
i was wondering, once you have implemented the OBD2 data logging,
have you planned an option to accept datalog data thru a normal serial stream ?
What i mean, so far we used your competitor RaceChrono ( its development seems kinda defunct
and not supporting android ), it allow us
to send datalog data thru a bluetooth connection and it maps it with the gps data,
it use a known format like "rpm,tps,analog1" etc etc.
We use an Hardware device that send this data over a bluetooth connection,
basicali its the same as obd2 just with the difference that since on bikes there
is no obd2, we need the hardware tap in the ECU signals to inject the raw data.

We would like to switch to your application if you ever implement such feature.
thank you for your time and have a nice day

Any updates on this? With the new AIM that just came out, I really think trackmaster needs this!!

The problem is with the phones and handling multiple high-rate bluetooth connections. Trackmaster supports bluetooth 5Hz and 10Hz external GPS units. Many racers are using these. When you add in the OBD data from another bluetooth device, most phones are crushed by the rate and amount of data coming in. Data acquisition becomes unreliable. I'm seeing better results with the newer dual core phones, but most people don't have these yet.

Jeff

What about a dual core 1.5GHz rezound?

Or a dual core tablet?

I still think a 7" dual core tablet with lap times and OBDII info, mounted between the steering wheel and dash would be the best setup. Better than a traqmate or racepak setup...

This has so much potential.

Being done in the sim racing world. > Video

Also the tablets are really coming down in price like $130 shipped for a dual core 7" tablet.

I understand this, however android devices are so cheap now, I would happy use 2 devices and get them to sync up some how (Bluetooth Each Other?)

I already have a work android phone and my own, I am sure others have an old phone now too due to upgrades...

Any thoughts?

+1 Jeff, do you still have plans for this?

How much of the processing power is being used up by the Video recording? I know in my case, and probably many others too, we are using another device for the video anyway since phone cameras kinda suck and positioning is so much more limited. Just being able to have one program take the feeds from a bluetooth GPS and a bluetooth OBDII and combine them to one output log would be immensely valuable. Overlaying a video from whatever source(s) you choose after the fact isn't that big of of a deal.

Why not just make this feature only selectable if one has a dual core phone? I imagine there must be a simple command to poll that.

I know nothing about Android software development, but, does this help at all?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7962155/how-can-you-detect-a-dual-core-cpu-on-an-android-device-from-code

Seems like OBDII data should be a std. feature on any track recorder app -- I realize the challenge of dealing with BT bandwidth (or rather, the lack thereof), so why not give options to selectively enable/disable features based on phone speed, connectivity, etc? Personally, I use the built-in GPS in my phone and it seems to work reasonably well. If I use Torque for OBDII data over BT, it works fine too. I also don't need video on my smartphone sucking away processing power, as I use a GoPro and overlay everything later w/RaceRender. So how about OBDII data capture when using built-in GPS and maybe video disabled (based on phone processing power)?

-Stuart-

Agreed 100%. We're now almost half way into 2013 and Trackmaster still doesn't have OBDII functionality. I'd be happy with just a throttle input if nothing else... How much longer are we going to restrict the majority of Trackmaster users for the small minority who can't afford to spend $100 on hardware to allow this dual functionality?

first of all I have to say I love this app asit is the only existing laptimer which is constantly improved and developed and somewhat competitive against iphones Harrys Laptimer which is the reference for me when it comes to mobile laptimer apps.

While I understand that many features Harry already supports take more time to realize with Android due to the fact that there is so much hardware which has to be tested for compatibility unlike with iphone where everything has to be approved by Apple so the developer can be sure his app will work I would really love to have this OBD feature working.

I have tested about every app in the app store and found aLap Recorder HD which is a wonderful laptimer unless the developer for some reason stopped continuing the app so with the most current android version you encounter crashes or freezed screen.

Even though this aLap featured OBD and ext GPS connection back in 2011 and from what I found at youtube and read on different forums it worked just great. While I dont understand these people stopped developing their app it would be awesome if now Trackmaster finally makes the move to support OBD as this is about one of the most important features to take this app to the next level.

Please Jeff make it happen ! I assume almost every phone which is on the market now is more than capable of computing the data stream.

Thank you !!

Chris