myEV by MyCarma: electric vehicle logger & app

[ChadS]

I tried the QR sticker - it's a great idea to let people scan a code on your car to be able to contact you anonymously about charging. It worked fine if I scanned it from the app, but went to an invalid URL if I scanned it with another QR scanning app. I hope that's because they don't have everything set up yet, and not the plan, because I definitely won't put it on if it only works for people that have the mycarma app.

 

[efusco]

Was notified that mine has shipped, and that I'd immediately need to do a firmware update before I install it in the car. I'm a data junkie, but I, too forgot what all it was supposed to do.

 

[ZBB]

Mine arrived today and I installed it, but haven't driven yet. still need to get the cubby reinstalled (if anyone else is having trouble, here's a thread with some tips: cubby removal - anyone know how? - Page 2 )

 

[jvonbokel]

Was notified that mine has shipped, and that I'd immediately need to do a firmware update before I install it in the car. I'm a data junkie, but I, too forgot what all it was supposed to do.

I got mine last week, but didn't get anything about a firmware update.

So far, mine seems to be having trouble staying connected via bluetooth, and often gets backlogged on data transfer. I've seen it saying as many as 200+ files queued for transfer. Maybe the firmware update improves connectivity and/or transfer speed?

 

[jvonbokel]

For anybody following this thread, the loggers have shipped, and are being discussed in a new thread, linked below.

MyCarma myEV Data Logger for Model S Discussion Thread

 

[strochaniak]

Hey guys, Sunny from MyCarma here. I don't mean to poke my head into the discussion, but I thought I could chime in on a couple of these and offer my input:

Lets start a discussion thread for MyCarma myEV data logger (Model S version). For those that don't know about this, it was an Indiegogo campaign from FleetCarma (a company that specializes in data logging).

myEV - electric vehicle logger app | MyCarma
myEV by MyCarma: electric vehicle logger app | Indiegogo

I got mine about 2 weeks ago. Install was a little tricky, but the Model S specific instructions were helpful (myEV Start Guide | MyCarma then click "Have a Model S?"). Basically, it says "The Tesla proprietary cable along the back wall (as it was initially), the harness connector in the back left pocket, and the harness cable curving around to the front wall, with the logger ending up on the left side." The only suggestion I have is that the last part is more like the logger ending up in the middle to right side of the panel rather than the left side.

There was some incompatibility with the P85D initially but the folks at MyCarma were very helpful and provided several quick software updates and now it works fine.

I have the iOS version. Bluetooth Low Energy works great and can transfer files from halfway across the house.

Thanks for starting the discussion and the great feedback!

I've got one too. I supported it so many months ago I forgot what it was supposed to do. Now that I have it...well, I'm a little disappointed. It is nice that it shows how much energy went to driving vs how much went to accessories. But I'm not sure what else I'll really use it for. Supposedly they will support the Roadster soon; I would like to try it there and see if it gets more info. (Different cars put out different info on the canbus, but I'm not sure if the app can do more than it's doing for the Model S).

I do like the easy way it connects to your cell phone and lets you control it from there. I also suppose if you keep the data you can compare data for similar trips under different weather conditions (or driving different speeds) and it might be a little easier to compare using this rather than writing down wh/mi for each trip. Although I don't see a way to name trips, so maybe not.

Yeah I hear you.. there's a lot more that we'd like to do with this. Reliable Bluetooth connectivity I think has given us more trouble than we ever expected (especially with having to switch to BLE), so most of our focus has just been on getting it to work smoothly. We plan on essentially letting our backers determine what gets added to the app moving forward.

This is great. Any idea how they discovered the APIs for battery health and auxiliary power draw? AFAIK, these have never been discussed here on the forums.

Matt did his PhD on battery degradation, so the system uses an advanced algorithm to estimate battery health. Here's a video he made to help explain this: myEV Backer Update #2 - Battery health explained - YouTube

I've had mine since the first batch (LEAF, no Tesla, yet), and the whole team has been amazing about listening to user suggestions. Data junkies will love this app, and there is supposed to be a social aspect to it as well (they include a nice looking QR sticker, but links aren't active yet), making it easy to contact the owner of the vehicle.

Not sure if I would buy this again, but it has been an interesting, and positive experience. These guys also know what they are doing as they have been doing fleet loggers for long time.

Thanks for the kind words!

I tried the QR sticker - it's a great idea to let people scan a code on your car to be able to contact you anonymously about charging. It worked fine if I scanned it from the app, but went to an invalid URL if I scanned it with another QR scanning app. I hope that's because they don't have everything set up yet, and not the plan, because I definitely won't put it on if it only works for people that have the mycarma app.

Exactly. The app simply parses the ID that's in the URL. The reason we made it a link as opposed to just the 6 digits is so that we can create an informational page for users who scan the code without having myEV installed. Making that page is still on my to-do list :tongue:

I got mine last week, but didn't get anything about a firmware update.

So far, mine seems to be having trouble staying connected via bluetooth, and often gets backlogged on data transfer. I've seen it saying as many as 200+ files queued for transfer. Maybe the firmware update improves connectivity and/or transfer speed?

We discovered a connectivity bug shortly after a few units had left the door on the first day. We then chose to rip up all the shipping packaging for the 100+ remaining units, load the new firmware ourselves, and apply the packaging again. It wasn't super fun, but it hopefully saved some people a few steps

Let me know if the firmware update we sent out yesterday helps at all. We're also working on improving the way we handle Tesla data. The Model S does a lot of battery conditioning, and thus creates a large amount of files (which are also showing up as trips). Here's an article Matt wrote last month that explains what's going in (it's an interesting read!): Charged EVs | FleetCarma digs deep into cold-weather EV data

For anybody following this thread, the loggers have shipped, and are being discussed in a new thread, linked below.

MyCarma myEV Data Logger for Model S Discussion Thread

The link doesn't seem to work for me. I'm guessing it was just merged with this thread?

--

Keep the open conversation going!

 

[efusco]

I'm glad you chimed in, Sunny. Perhaps this will be a good secondary option for questions/problems.
As pointed out above, if you miss the one link to get to the Model S specific instructions the logger won't work at all in the standard OBD2 port (though it will fit in there without the connector cord). My Bluetooth connected initially, but only logged 2 drives out of maybe 100. It is a pain in the butt to get into the cubby spot, so I haven't yet had time to disassemble the cubby (gotta remove my center console first), pull it out and dump the new firmware update that is supposed to fix the Bluetooth issues. I do hope I don't have to do this process very often.

As others have said, so far functionality has been tough to appreciate, much b/c there's no data to look at and in part b/c I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the data.... maybe once I have it I'll figure that out.

 

[jvonbokel]

Let me know if the firmware update we sent out yesterday helps at all. We're also working on improving the way we handle Tesla data. The Model S does a lot of battery conditioning, and thus creates a large amount of files (which are also showing up as trips). Here's an article Matt wrote last month that explains what's going in (it's an interesting read!): Charged EVs | FleetCarma digs deep into cold-weather EV data

Thanks for posting about that here! Gmail decided to tuck your e-mail in another tab, and I missed it. I'll apply the firmware update tonight and see how it goes.

The link doesn't seem to work for me. I'm guessing it was just merged with this thread?

Looks like a mod decided to simply merge the pre and post delivery threads.

 

[efusco]

I'm not ready to call this a failure yet, but I installed the update, plugged in, watched some blue and green flashing for a while, then the LED went black and at no time did the BT connect.

I closed & restarted the app, but no change. I unplugged and replugged the device,ms till no change after it went through the blue/green flashy cycle again.

Maybe after the Tesla sleeps & wakes back up it'll work in the AM, but so far I'm not optimistic.

 

[ZBB]

Let me know if the firmware update we sent out yesterday helps at all. We're also working on improving the way we handle Tesla data. The Model S does a lot of battery conditioning, and thus creates a large amount of files (which are also showing up as trips). Here's an article Matt wrote last month that explains what's going in (it's an interesting read!): Charged EVs | FleetCarma digs deep into cold-weather EV data

So that explains the phantom trips for zero miles and infinite MPGe...

I did get your email about the latest firmware update, but haven't had a chance to pull the logger out of the car and update it yet... Will do that this weekend.

As for app functionality requests (and some odd bugs):
- I'd love to to be able to export stats in a csv from the app -- send via email or open in another app?
- Time stamps seem off at times -- it had a commute in to work at 3am or so instead of 6:30ish. But others are accurate.
- font sizes in the app, especially for some labels are really small
- graphs of Wh/mi over time would be good
- daily / weekly summaries similar to lifetime
- ability to change the default leaderboard to just my model
- any way to also log GPS position and elevation? To show route for trips? If the car doesn't report that, you could use the phone to log...

- - - Updated - - -

It is a pain in the butt to get into the cubby spot, so I haven't yet had time to disassemble the cubby (gotta remove my center console first), pull it out and dump the new firmware update that is supposed to fix the Bluetooth issues. I do hope I don't have to do this process very often.

I agree that it is a pain to get in. But once installed, I can easily pop the cubby down by releasing the front clips only and not taking it all the way out, access the logger, and then pop the cubby back up. I've had to do this a couple times when the logger lost its BT connection. Hopefully this firmware update fixes that!

One other tip for installing the first time: I was able to route the adapter cable behind the cubby slot -- there's a hole on each side. That left more room for the logger itself. Took a little finagling to get the adapter cable threaded, but it was much easier to get the cubby back in after I did that (and by releasing the side panels...).

 

[efusco]

I'm not ready to call this a failure yet, but I installed the update, plugged in, watched some blue and green flashing for a while, then the LED went black and at no time did the BT connect.

I closed & restarted the app, but no change. I unplugged and replugged the device,ms till no change after it went through the blue/green flashy cycle again.

Maybe after the Tesla sleeps & wakes back up it'll work in the AM, but so far I'm not optimistic.

Update. Still had no BT connection this AM, but noticed my iPhone 6 was acting a bit buggy (delayed GPS connection on Waze). I cleared all apps and restarted the phone and lo and behold the logger connected and began transferring a plethora of saved data!

- - - Updated - - -

I agree that it is a pain to get in. But once installed, I can easily pop the cubby down by releasing the front clips only and not taking it all the way out, access the logger, and then pop the cubby back up. I've had to do this a couple times when the logger lost its BT connection. Hopefully this firmware update fixes that!

One other tip for installing the first time: I was able to route the adapter cable behind the cubby slot -- there's a hole on each side. That left more room for the logger itself. Took a little finagling to get the adapter cable threaded, but it was much easier to get the cubby back in after I did that (and by releasing the side panels...).

I found the same when I pulled and reinstalled last night. I was able to shove the cable far into the hole on the right back side leaving less cable to deal with and plenty of room for the logger on the left back side.

 

[AEdennis]

A question for the MyCarma guys...

What denotes the "region" I belong to? North America? USA? California? Los Angeles County?

What if I'm traveling around the country/North America?

... Also, I just posted my hardware review of the Model S install of the product... (Drafting a Roadster one later...)

 

[Kalud]

A question for the MyCarma guys...

What denotes the "region" I belong to? North America? USA? California? Los Angeles County?

What if I'm traveling around the country/North America?

... Also, I just posted my hardware review of the Model S install of the product... (Drafting a Roadster one later...)

I asked them and was told that region are State/Province.

 

[AEdennis]

I asked them and was told that region are State/Province.

I wonder how it ranks you if your out of town for a week or two.

 

[Kalud]

I wonder how it ranks you if your out of town for a week or two.

Out of town or out of state? The later I wonder too... Maybe it rank you live in the state you are when checking.