GM Volt Forum banner

New App for the Volt

70K views 153 replies 58 participants last post by  chris_ua 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi Volt/Ampera community,

I am really exited to present an App, MyGreenVolt specifically developed for our Volt.
The purpose is to expose to the driver some of the information not available on the dashboard
I have included a snapshot of the main screen below.

Text Font Line Screenshot Parallel


Some of the readings are:
- Instant power delivered by the main traction Li-Ion battery with min and max values
- Voltage and current at the battery level
- Graph of instant power of each of the electric motors
- Clear Bar chart showing Temperature of battery, transmission, AC/DC converter and Gas engine coolant
- State of the battery heater (on or off)
- Energy utilization breakdown for main traction, HVAC, Battery heater and other components
- Energy efficiency including driven electric miles(or km), kWh/mile (or kWh/km), mile/kWh(or km/kWh) and energy consumption in kWh for the last trip.
- State of charge of the battery
- Gas engine rpm and load

You need of course a Bluetooth OBD2 adapter. The App works with WiFi but this is still experimental
This is for Android and BlackBerry devices and the App is free

Be tolerant as I developed this App on my spare time :-; . I am willing to actively support and improve it so feel free to download the App and provide your feedback.

Link to MyGreenVolt web site describing the App and how to set it up: http://mygreenvolt.x10host.com/
If you are interested in news and updates, follow MyGreenVolt App on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyGreenVolt

Fredo
 
See less See more
1
#3 ·
Hi Volt/Ampera community,

I am really exited to present an App, MyGreenVolt specifically developed for our Volt.
The purpose is to expose to the driver some of the information not available on the dashboard
I have included a snapshot of the main screen below.

View attachment 47121

Fredo
This is excellent Fredo, I love my bb10 and am excited to try out this app. Can you point me to your recommended bluetooth odbII adapter?
 
#9 ·
I have tested this app with 3 adapters: a cheap one from ebay (blue plastic around $15) which reports ELM327 version 1.5, an old but good quality ScanTool adapter (ELM v1.2) and a Vgate Wifi adapter.

The cheapo BT from ebay is good enough: no dropped BT connections for hours and get close to 12-13 PIDs per second. As for any cheap stuff, your mileage may vary.

The old ScanTool works well as well but is a little bit slower (10pids/s)

I kept the Vgate Wifi adapter just few weeks for test purposes. The pid rate was slow both with my App and with other apps.

I am considering moving to Android at a point so I will definitely keep this option in mind.

I also started a Facebook page (Mygreenvolt) which is going to be more appropriate to provide updates and collect feedback and requests.

Fredo
 
#10 ·
Gotta search for it, but there used to be a tool that converts BB, Android, and Ios apps to each other. A few years ago I was working on an APP with a group and they showed me the tool. They were android programmers, but we wanted to put the app in Ios and BB as well... Might be worth looking into so you don't have to re-write the app from scratch.

Unfortunately, I have let my programming IT skills get a little rusty these days.
 
#11 ·


Would it be possible for you to expand the EV battery temp reading in the app to reflect the Min/Max/Average readings from the 16 temp sensors in the battery pack? Is the current battery temp reading reflected in the app the Hybrid/EV coolant temp?

Thanks!
 
#15 ·
Would it be possible for you to expand the EV battery temp reading in the app to reflect the Min/Max/Average readings from the 16 temp sensors in the battery pack? Is the current battery temp reading reflected in the app the Hybrid/EV coolant temp?

Thanks!

The problem is mainly to figure out the corresponding PID for each temp sensor. If you provide me that, I can easily extend the capability of the app.
Those PIDS are not published. One option is to ask people with a DashDaq to figure out from the log file what are they.

Fredo
 
#13 ·
Please at least post an update if you convert this to Android (or if I can run a BB10 VM on my phone), since I don't do Facebook. I might even buy an OBDII device for this.
 
#19 ·
Converting an APK to BAR is kind of easy because the BlackBerry OS 10 include an Android emulator. Doing the reverse is trickier as no BBOS is supposed to run on Android.
In addition, it would be difficult for me to support this converted application running not natively on a device.

I have the Android SDK already installed and am playing with it to gauge the porting effort. Stay tuned...

You can buy I guess a cheap Z10 with the radio broken as you just need BT to work :)
 
#20 ·
Hmmm, I wonder if this could be ported to use phonegap (Android user here). But Bluetooth support is not 100% across the various platforms.

The cool thing about phonegap is they have a build service that will build your app in their cloud for all the platforms they support (including frickkin iOS!). So you could offer it for lotsa folks at once. I am switching over to it from Appcelerator currently. FYI...
 
#21 ·
Thanks, works great! Any chance you could add the ability to have other PIDs? I am specifically looking for Charger Amps as I use that one every day to know when my Volt is almost finished charging so I can max out my SOC.
 
#22 ·
For the next release, I was planning to enhance the lower right screen showing for now rpm. load and speed. When the gas engine is not running, I would display other PIDs.

With regard to your request, don't you think that the charger amps will be close to the battery amps which is shown?

Fredo
 
#24 ·
You give me the occasion to thanks Tboult and other people on this forum to put together this document. My app could not have been developed without this source of information.

Fred
 
#27 ·
I just updated the app facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mygreenvolt/222800784583669

I posted a video showing the basic features of the app working on a Lenovo K900. The interface is pretty much the same as the BlackBerry release. All the PIDS shown on the BB version are working on Android.

I still need to implement the settings, add various resolution support and beef up the connectivity.
 
#29 ·
Intriguing, but many of us are iPhone users...I think. That said you are kind and generous to do the development work. Something I could not do if GM gave me a Volt!
 
#31 ·
At this point, I am quite happy about the Android version. I have done some extensive tests and with the two adapters I have, I have not seen any connection problems.

However, as there are many different BT adapter types, I would be happy if couple of volunteers could install the package on their Android device. If you agree, you would need to install the apk, test the app and provide feedback. Please do not request the app if you cannot test and give feedback within 24 hours after you receive the apk. I may release couple of revisions if problems are identified (worst case)

I am mainly interested in:
- Connection with the adapter.
- Layout of the interface

Also, feel free to comment on potential enhancements, etc. but I do not plan to add new features before the first release but will compile of list of wishes.

If you find any problems, you would need to turn debug logging on and send me the file (in MyGreenVolt directory)

Before starting the App, make sure your adapter is already paired. Once the app is started for the 1st time, a list of paired devices will be shown, select you adapter and while the connection is established, the app will switch to the main dashboard. For the subsequent launches, if the connection was successful the first time, the connection will be done automatically so you do not need to select you adapter anymore.

There are few improvements compare to the BlackBerry version:
- The energy recovered during braking has been added (kWhR)
- Both usable SoC (0-100%) and raw SoC are displayed. The first value is usable.
- Average speed
- Watts per miles per hour (or Watt per km/h)

Send me a PM with you email address, the Android device you will use and the type of adapter and I will send you the apk.

Thanks,
Fred
 
#32 ·
#35 ·
I tried it last night on my Galaxy S5 with a bluetooth adapter that just says ELM327 (orange and blue color) which I bought a few years ago. It is probably an adapter problem but has anyone had one of these reset your oil life meter? It set the oil life to 0% and fired a CEL.

I had to reset the oil life back to 100% and haven't plugged the OBD2 in since (car is running fine/charging). I did some searching and it seems others have had issues with OBD2 readers.

Is the key to having these things work correctly to plug in after the car is powered on and removing before powering off?

The app did not pick up any data from the reader that was paired to my phone btw. I'll try it with torque on my GFs Elantra to see if the adapter is bad...
 
#37 ·
Is the key to having these things work correctly to plug in after the car is powered on and removing before powering off?
The one I bought 8 month ago is this cheap one:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Super-Mini-ELM327-v1-5-OBD2-OBDII-Bluetooth-Adapter-Auto-Scanner-TORQUE-ANDROID-/310960107166?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4866aaae9e
I has been plugged in 24/7 the past 6-7 month without any problem.

I noticed that connecting the app once the car is on gives a better connection rate. The connection still fails roughly 5%. Torque(free) cannot connect when the connect fails with MyGreenVolt.

Some of the adapters have an on/off button to reset/disconnect the adapter.

Fredo
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top