Hi,

i just discovered the Torque app and am awaiting the bluetooth scanner to come in.

Does anyone have experience using it? It comes with some gauges built in already but are there any incompatibilities and/or useful PIDs that I should program in?

Thanks!

 

I have not had any issues at all with mine, basically you plug in the adaptor, turn your phone's bluetooth on, put in the code that came with the adapator and you care done. Works great, some pictures are in my profile, not the greatest shots, but you get the idea

 

I've had no problems either. I have NOT figured out the data logging feature yet and would love to hear from someone how to use it.

 

I have a ScanGaugeII, keeping an eye on this thread to see if the Droid app is worth it

 

Still waiting for the bluetooth scanner to come in. Takes a while from Hong Kong! Also bought a windshield mount for my phone.

Where the scanner will be located in the footwell, does it get in the way while driving?

 

The Bluetooth adaptor goes in the OBD11 port and is pretty small, I have not hit it with my leg or foot. Craven Speed has a real nice mount for the Phone and it moves in different directions so you can view it basically any way you mount it.

 

Love the app and it works great. Although the adapter i got from Craven Speed is rather large and i have knocked it off the ODBII port a couple of times. I need to see about moving it up and out of the way.

 

I had to get a right angle adaptor cable to hide the bluetooth dongle. I was hitting it with my left foot and did NOT want to break the OBDII port.

The only one I found was: http://www.obd2cables.com/products/c...1962f-2ft.html

Now the dongle is behind the left footwell panel and I have not hit the OBDII cable again.

 

Can you phone be connected to the OBDII Bluetooth and Vehicle Phone Bluetooth at the same time?

 

Yes i do it and when a call come in it overrides the Torque App. Going back from a phone call to the app means having to restart Torque though.

 

Like the cable but don't like the price. But I guess it will have to buy it soon

 

I have the Pay version of the Torque app, and when I get a call it shows on my phone, once I hang up it goes right back to the Torque app, i do not need to re start it, however I am just using a bluetooth headpeice, it is not the car bluetooth, plus it is a Gen 1 car, not sure if that makes a difference or not

 

I also have the pay version and as for it returning to Torque that may be a function of the phone and car or the app I am not sure. I have nto had a lot of time lately to play with it.

 

Recommended wire for torque app.
Cheaper versions can sometimes not work properly.

http://www.plxkiwi.com/kiwibluetooth/buynow_torque.html

 

Just got the scanner in and tested it. Works well but sometimes it doesn't sync and have to restart the app.

What a fun toy!

Question: will leaving the unit plugged into the port while the car is off drain the battery? I noticed the red led is still on. Maybe it will turn off after so many minutes?

 

I got a cheapie made-in-China OBDII device and ended up sending it back the day after. It just couldn't maintain a connection. I wish I took rohicks advice and got the Kiwi the first time, but I ended up buying that and am waiting for it to arrive.

The Kiwi has a power switch so you have peace of mind that it's not going to drain your battery. I honestly don't know if the unit you have will drain the battery, it probably shouldn't when the ignition is off. I guess you could test it by leaving it connected for 10-15 min and then seeing if any of the LEDs are still on. The Kiwi cost about 3x as much as the first one I got, but I honestly think it's going to have at least 3x the quality.

 

Once my car is shut down the adaptor stay on for a minute or 2, then shuts down, I have had No issues at all with this.

 

My adapter doesn't seem to shut down. LED stays lit and felt warm to my touch. Either that or the Texas heat makes it warm.

Anyway, it does mess with my clutch foot since I have big feet so it won't be staying on there all the time anyway.

 

for the Craven Speed mount. A little expensive, but does a nice job and makes things look clean.

If the bluetooth mount drains the battery, and the Kiwi one is too expensive, why not just unplug it after each use? I figure turning the power switch off is just about as much of a hassle to unplug it. Maybe slightly less.

 

The problem with anything other than the KIWI is that they don't always connect and are not as reliable as the KIWI setup. Even the description in the app in the android market place says that. I would go with what recommended IMO. I've learned in life doing it right the first time is the way to go; even if it's just a bluetooth wire.

 

^^^ Agreed.

I'm sure there are other devices that will work fine, but the $35 one I got sure didn't. The other cool thing about the Kiwi is that it has a fairly long cable so you can route it and mount it somewhere out of the way and just leave it plugged into the OBDII port permanently.

I'm not saying the Kiwi is the best solution (heck, mine hasn't even arrived yet lol) but for less than $100 it's pretty darn good IMO. And aside from the actual device, I have to say the Torque app is really a great app. The paid version has a much better UI and seems like it might be less buggy too (at least, that's what the author hints at).

Hey Ryan, did you happen to mount the Kiwi somewhere and if so, how did you mount it? TIA!

Update: after reading what I wrote, I guess I shouldn't say too much until I actually get mine and use it. My opinions are mostly what I'm hoping for. Will post back here once I've used it.

 

Well I learned long ago... "If you don't make the time to do it right the first time, you damn will make the time to do it right the second time."

At least this sounds like a decent app. Kudos to the android devs.

 

I figure I'd post some feedback since I've been using my PLX Kiwi for about a week and a half. I've never had it not work before, but sometimes it take a couple of minutes before the phone connects to it via bluetooth. I can force it by disabling / enabling the bluetooth on the phone, but I've found that just letting Torque retry on its own, it eventually establishes communication.

I haven't found a great place to permanently mount it yet. The cable is ridiculously long (I wish they actually sold these with different sized cables, but it's a very minor gripe). Under the dash seems like the best location as I don't want people to see it, but I need to figure out where to stash the excess cable.

Torque is by far the most useful android app I have. I use it every day and I've data logged to create some graphs of IAT before installing my Helix IC. Mini2a: PM me if you're still having issues with data logging. When I'm in the "Realtime information" section I just hit menu -> toggle logging and it starts logging. Then later on you can hit menu -> email logs to get them off the phone. Or you can go to your file manager and you should see them under the /torqueLogs directory.

I guess the only downside is that (with my phone at least) when I'm driving for more than a couple hours it really does a number on the battery. I like to keep the brightness high so I can actually read the gauges, so I guess I can't have it both ways. Luckily I bought an aftermarket 3000 mAH battery recently.

 

Just to ditto all of the foregoing, I bought the full-pay Torque app and a cheap $40 chinese version of the adapater from Amazon (Xitech XL7). It worked only intermittently, so I returned it and I am awaiting the Kiwi version.

I'm ready with zip-ties for mounting it somewhere under the dash.

 

I have the KIWI nd the paid version of Torque. No problem,work great. I have the Garmin setup in the other Mini, it is better. The GPS display is easy to read, stays connected and has a few more reading.