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Vendor Scan My Tesla, a CANBUS reader for Android

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Hi Amund and all;

Any thoughts about SMT on the New MS Plaid?

Two deliveries here in California.

All I've seen so far is that Tesla Service will use BroadRReach to connect to them, so that's going to be a tough one.
The only question that really applies given ANY car is if there is an easy to access connection to the vehicle (or other) CAN bus.

The model 3 similarly uses a locked down ethernet for service, but we found an accessible CAN connection so that's where all our tools tap in.

If anyone in the area has a refresh Model S they wouldn't mind me poking through (DEAD SERIOUS), let me know.
 
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I am here and willing to poke around a bit--I used another tool when I was having BatteryGate fun (Apple Guy), so familiar with the process, but not sure if I'd need a diff cable (probably) and no idea where the port is on the Plaid.

Before you do a unplugged performance rearrangement of your interior, perhaps you could borrow a small boroscope and poke around under the edges of the plastic trims.

My guess is the ports have to located where a Tech could get at them from the driver's seat easily. Foot well panels and under the dash...
 
Before you do a unplugged performance rearrangement of your interior, perhaps you could borrow a small boroscope and poke around under the edges of the plastic trims.

My guess is the ports have to located where a Tech could get at them from the driver's seat easily. Foot well panels and under the dash...

That would more likely be the secured service ethernet and not a random connector that gets tapped into for our purposes
 
FYI: I was pretty confused the first time I used the new interface tho and didn't know how to get to menu for BMS, battery, Perf, etc (2nd graphic).
FWIW: show the screen to my TM3 owning kid as well and he was happy with the tip on how to get to other menu as it was not clear to him either. Maybe query other users to see if you need to change/tweak this. Maybe for a while add text after the option "BMS (tap for opts)" or something.


Q8qAvOF.jpg


Please consider adding... "BMS (tap for opts)" ... another user complained in a thread that it was hard to find. Quote from them: "Ok I found the battery page (man the app is hard to figure out)"

Quote: Maybe for a while add text after the option "BMS (tap for opts)" or something.



 
Yeah, it should have a down arrow or something.
To be honest, the more blatantly obvious you make it the better. It can be very frustrating for new users of any app to not be able to the core features of the app. I've been a developer in those positions as well. It can be useful to "look over" new users shoulders as they try a new app/interface and watch and hear their thought process and actions. HTH and I'm not just being snarky.
 
I absolutely agree, this app is growing maybe too fast and I see these things in hindsight. For example I hear a lot of users never find the 'signal lists', and keep complaining they 'want what Bjørn has' - even if it's already in there. But I can't think of a more obvious way to add it in - maybe a better title than 'signal lists' - but if you have a new app that you are unfamiliar with, wouldn't you try to press the two upper main menu items before writing an email to the developer to complain? I would. But I am absolutely open for suggestions, but they have to be something concrete, what better to call these 2 modes than 'dashboards' and 'signal lists', I am seriously open for ideas. Maybe 'classic UI' ? Any better suggestions?

As for the signal list's pulldown, I'd like to follow some logical UI design, to me it would be logical with a small down arrow. But that might be my Windows user brain thinking. How are pulldowns usually outlined, in modern Android and IOS systems?
 
I absolutely agree, this app is growing maybe too fast and I see these things in hindsight. For example I hear a lot of users never find the 'signal lists', and keep complaining they 'want what Bjørn has' - even if it's already in there. But I can't think of a more obvious way to add it in - maybe a better title than 'signal lists' - but if you have a new app that you are unfamiliar with, wouldn't you try to press the two upper main menu items ...
[again I'm not being snarky with the below, but just genuinely trying to be helpful]

I think the disconnect (perspective) between what your brain automatically sees and what a new user sees is there there is 'two upper main menu items'. I think these users in question (me the 1st time too) ONLY saw the top ('hamburger') menu and they had no idea that 'BMS' (below example) was another menu. As @Veggen indicated it 'feels' (looks) like a header instead of a menu.

@Veggen, gave a couple of good options IMO.
a) From the hamburger menu there could be an option for your 'signal list' (alternative language: data collections [my fav], data list, data groups, info groups, data opts, data sets, data types, data sections).
b) "tabs" (aside: I do think your COLS- COLS+ etc buttons (tabs) are very helpful and 'blantantly' obvious. I think people appreciate that!)

hVR6pMJ.jpg


---- TABS ----
CPU-Z mentioned 'tabs':
qr0ub1G.jpg



Below via: Android vs iOS: 14 Must-Know App Design Differences {Infographic}
Title: Android vs iOS: App UI Design Differences and Comparison {Infographic}
N2WEDFF.jpg


P.S. I get why you say signal ---- Signal term: "CAN Signal – an individual piece of data contained within the CAN frame data field. You also can refer to CAN signals as channels. Because the data field can contain up to 8 bytes of data, a single CAN frame can contain 0 to 64 individual signals (for 64 channels, they would all be binary). " via: Controller Area Network (CAN) Overview
 
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Yes, tabs are a great idea, Scan My Tesla used them since ~2016. But they eat a lot of the screen, and with more than 3 or so you have to start scrolling them sideways. If you turn to landscape mode, they are taking up something like 15-20% of your screen height, and you almost never use them, but they constantly take up a large portion of the screen. This is why I tried to think differently this time.

The original idea was to auto-hide the whole hamburger menu including the buttons, so that after say 30 seconds or one minute it would disappear and give you the whole screen for gauges. But realized if you were in the middle of customizing or reading the buttons, an auto-hide would be super annoying. Still pondering how to do this right.

I still think it's better than tabs, some adjustments are needed to make it more intuitive for new users. I am still trying to figure out what new Android and IOS apps use as design language for a pulldown menu, but I suspect we are both barking up the wrong tree, phones don't use pulldown menus, only Windows and PC OS do that. I think.

What I always wanted to add to the Android tab interface, that wasn't possible (with the UI framework I used), was a side-swipe on the signal part to get to the next or previous tab. Maybe we can make that happen here, so that even if the whole hamburger is closed, you can still quickly swipe from side to side to get across the different 'lists'. That is another challenge to make work, and more so a challenge to make it intuitive.

We can also imagine that even if you didn't get that it was a pulldown on the first run of the app, if I had a 'tutorial' popup, such arrows as you already drew, pop up on the first run, you would learn where to click and how to use it right away. This was my idea behind the 'welcome pages', but it didn't turn out as nice as I imagined it, and it's already vastly outdated in comparison to what the app is today.

I should, probably a long time ago, hire help from some real UX designers/implementers. I am using C#/Xamarin.Forms, feel free to PM me if you are out there and think you can help.
 
I still think it's better than tabs, some adjustments are needed to make it more intuitive for new users.

I think in the mean time you could go a long way toward not frustrating new users by doing this even if a little kludgy for while. I don't think people consider that a menu like your brain does when you look at it. HTH and I'm not trying to be snarky.

Please consider adding...

"BMS (tap for opts)"
or
"BMS <-- tap for opts"
 
On further thought.
If screen area usage is an important concern, I do not see how a header with a drop down menu is any more efficient than tabs. In both cases you will use up a line, for the header/dropdown the rest of the line is normally not in use, for tabs at least it contains something useful and may save an extra click.
Putting the signals into the hamburger menu would free up the entire line, and is already easily reached by swiping from the left edge.
 
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On further thought.
If screen area usage is an important concern, I do not see how a header with a drop down menu is any more efficient than tabs. In both cases you will use up a line, for the header/dropdown the rest of the line is normally not in use, for tabs at least it contains something useful and may save an extra click.
Putting the signals into the hamburger menu would free up the entire line, and is already easily reached by swiping from the left edge.
This menu can be hidden completely by clicking the right hamburger. Pulldown and all. My idea was it should auto-hide after a certain time, but haven't yet figured out how to do that without it being annoying.

Tabs can't be hidden. Also, sideways tab will fit maybe 3-4 tabs in portrait mode on a phone, depending on the name length, whereas this pulldown will probably fit 15 vertically, with as long names as you want. That was my rationale behind it.
 
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Hi all. I know which cable to get (this one Tesla CAN Diagnostic Cable (Sept 2015 and up) – Self Crimp OBD-II – Maxwell Automotive Technologies) for my 2016 AP1 Model S (currently in SC for MCU2 upgrade), but what I'm currently struggling with is what is the correct OBD-II dongle to buy to use with Scan My Tesla. I am happy to use either Android or iOS. I would like to get realtime feedback.

I also saw this thread Diagnostic Port Index and it has some OBD dongles in it. But there are too many choices and I've spent an entire evening but am not any closer to knowing how it will work/what apps/modes i might expect it to work in.

OBDLink MX?
OBDLink MX+?
OBDLink LX?
Comma? Panda? Why is it $300?

So far it looks like the bluetooth LE devices are out of the question (probably not enough bandwidth for realtime). I've done a lot of searching in amazon reviews but I'm hoping I can convince someone here (since a lot of you know how all the pieces fit together) to summarize what the actual capabilities are between the different devices.
 
MX+ works with IOS.

JWardell CanServer works with both Android and IOS beta versions

LX, MX does the same job on Android, but much cheaper, if you don't need IOS support. MX+ works with Android too.

Panda not supported

BLE not supported.

Bluetooth classic is supported on Android. In short, every ELM327 Bluetooth Classic, that has a proper name on it should work. Some no-name cheap ones do work, some don't, you can't even tell by the looks as the insides vary. The reason some don't work is they don't support CAN-bus.


If you have a stomach for beta software, I'd say go for the CanServer. (Not because canserver is beta, but you have to use the Scan My Tesla beta). It works so fast & smooth with Scan My Tesla, and it has lots of extra possibilities with scripting, micro displays etc etc. And the guys are rapidly developing new features, that can be installed with over-the-air updates.
 
Thank you! I think I will order both a MX+ and canserver to maximize the possibilities. I do like to tinker with electronics so canserver is up my alley and I know that there are some related raspberry pi projects along these lines as well, but I also need a solution that is ready to go.
 
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