Crazy Idea.....

I just had a crazy idea... it might work..... Automotive scanning and diagnosis software for the ipod touch or iphone.... and a custom OBDII dock connector cable...... Who thinks this is possible???

Hey, that really might be a crazy (in a good way) idea. If there was a way to do it, I'd prolly get a iPod touch and convert it instead of carrying around those big bulky OBDII machine. It's like carrying a plastic brick around.
Only question, how would you be able to create a custom dock cable?

That'd be a lil bit of trouble.. also I have no knowledge of programing. So theres 2 problms.I wonder who I should take this idea too

Not a bad idea at all - I'm sure it could be easily done, and since so many people carry their iPods in their car, it would be a great little accessory.

We'll I'd rather this intended for people who knew what they were ding with the tool..... you can potentially muck things up if you dont

i think that is a spectacular idea!!! they make usb to obdii cables for computers dont they? why couldnt you break down the wiring and wire it to a usb to dock connector cable. so there is one easy fix. how ever getting to work with the ipod would be a different story.

fearlessfreap24 said:

i think that is a spectacular idea!!! they make usb to obdii cables for computers dont they? why couldnt you break down the wiring and wire it to a usb to dock connector cable. so there is one easy fix. how ever getting to work with the ipod would be a different story.

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Yup they do, I have one that plugs into my laptop to collect the data.
You might have the next uber gadget in the making for car/tech geeks

I would love to have a OBDII adapter for my iPhone. I would just have to carry around a cable instead of an entire device. Sounds like a great idea!!

The Wire portion of the project is not such a tough hurdle but it would need some good research. You'll have to find Schematics and wiring diagram on the USB to OBDII cable as well as (which I am not sure if they exist) The Wiring diagrams for the Dock Connector to figure out the Input/Output wires which you'd be using to transfer data back and forth between iTouch/iPhone and OBDII. but that shouldn't be so bad with some trial and error process and a DVM

Creating an interface on the iPhone shouldn't be too hard. I was looking through the videos for the SDK and uses Objective C and gives you tones of options and a lot of flexibility as well.

Good Luck, it will be a sweet project.

I think you can get the schematics for the dock connector from Apple itself through the "Made for iPod" or "Made for iPhone" program.

are there any obdII interface kits out there that have drivers for OS X, because without that you are going to have a lot of trouble getting anything working even if you could tap into the dock connector to allow for connecting a device. I did some programming for an obdII interface in C# but that was easy because it was through a serial port and the makers of the interface box provided decent documentation for it.

Kash said:

I think you can get the schematics for the dock connector from Apple itself through the "Made for iPod" or "Made for iPhone" program.

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If thats true, then cable problem solved.

mynameis said:

are there any obdII interface kits out there that have drivers for OS X, because without that you are going to have a lot of trouble getting anything working even if you could tap into the dock connector to allow for connecting a device. I did some programming for an obdII interface in C# but that was easy because it was through a serial port and the makers of the interface box provided decent documentation for it.

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What was that name of the program that can emulate Windows without actually using windows... I think it was called Wine.

EDIT: yup website is www.winehq.org

May be that will take care of the driver issue, if there is none of OS X

Still I'd like to pussh this further, who would i talk to about that?

A car guy/programmer? I know VW uses Vagcom which can be ran 100% from a PC with out using the diagnostics tool, so I believe it would be very possible.

Awesome Idea! I hope you can make something of it. I think there are amazing things you could do with the iPhone and Touch that have not even been tapped into yet.

I know i'd buy it.

Who knows someone who could get the program to run on just OSX?

If we can get the software to work with the OBDII-USB cable and a Mac, I am sure we can find someone to make this work on the iPhone...

Hmm, I seem to remember a company demonstrating an iPhone web app that was used to access a car's computer wirelessly. I think it could do things like start the car, roll down the windows, and some other things. The car itself was stock as far as I know, so it was all a matter of how the iphone connected.

Maybe someone can dig up that demo or company and figure what they did and how they did it.

EDIT: found an article about the software. It may not be what you're discussing, but it's knocking on the door: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2246496,00.asp

Thats a bluetooth thing that you wire into anything eletrical on the car.

Saw it on pimp my ride :Blushing: