Deleted member 6912
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2012
- Messages
- 56
I currently have 10 apps in my CAR folder on my iPhone and iPad. Eight of these are Leaf related (the others are KBB and parkenApp). With that many out there, I thought a brief review of each would be helpful.
My background - I manage app development for a software company who has several iOS and Android apps shipping, with more on the horizon. I also write product reviews for a professional house organ that has over 14,000 members. I’ve had my Leaf for about a week.
One thing many of these apps have in common is their speed (or lack of). To update your information requires communication with your car, I assume through the CarWings servers. This is not instantaneous, and while mobile users are used to getting what we want NOW, these apps will have a delay of several seconds to a minute. This is not terrible, nothing can be done about it, but it’s something to keep in mind when you want to turn the AC on for a quick cool-down.
All of the apps I will review are free. One has in-app purchases for some upgrades but is fully usable without them. They are all written for the iPhone but run on an iPad as an iPhone app (small screen that can be run in 2x).
Nissan Leaf
The first app most owners find is Nissan Leaf, the official app from Nissan. To use this app you must first register with Nissan and link it to your CarWings account.
The main screen displays colored bars and numbers to indicate driving distance. SOC is indicated with 11 colored bars, from red to green. There is an icon to show plug status (red/green), a charging indicator, and a time to charge complete (normal and trickle). You can also turn the climate control on or off from this screen.
Selecting the Charge view just opens a dialog asking if you are sure you want to start charging, with cancel and OK as your choices. The Climate view is another dialog box giving you the chance to toggle the climate control or set the timer. Contact gives you the 800 numbers for Nissan customer support and roadside assistance. On an iPhone tapping the boxes will place the call immediately.
The settings view lets you select if you want the app to update with the Leaf at startup. You can also elect to receive notifications of charge on, climate control, vehicle status, charge complete, and a plug in reminders via text message or email.
Finally, if you have more than one Leaf you can name each of them and select them separately.
I find this app to be useful, does what needs to be done, and has some nice features. It’s kind of fun (for a day or 2) to get emails from your car, saying things like (I’m paraphrasing here) feed me! You parked next to a charger but didn’t plug in, what’s with that? Being able to call roadside assistance with a single tap is a nice feature. I don’t understand why they have the Charge and Climate views as you can do the same functions directly from the home screen. The app is easy to navigate, colorful and has earned a spot on my phone.
4 stars
Leaf Link
LEAF Link is a user written app that does everything that Nissan Leaf does and more but without as much eye candy. The main screen shows at a glance your SOC with a colored bar and written out x bars. The range In miles or km) is under that, in text, both with and without climate control. Plugged/unplugged status is next, followed by time to charge to 80% in both normal and trickle mode.
You can also start, set the timers, and stop both charging and climate control.
Pressing the person button brings up your phones contacts. Selecting a contact brings up the address information with the ability to choose an icon picture (including automatically opening Google streetview when available), then send it to the car. Conversion to latitude/longitude is required, but a button on the page will look it up in Google for you. You can also view it on a map on your phone. The clock icon brings up recent contacts. You can also enter a new location by pressing the paper/pencil button from the home screen.
Pressing the Map button brings up a map view with all of the contacts in your address book marked. This uses Google maps so you can view it in Map, Satellite or Hybrid view. If you press the page curl on the map screen you can toggle viewing contacts, recent place and charging stations.
Lastly there is a Search feature that searches your contact to allow quick downloading to your car.
The app is free but there are 3 paid upgrades. For $0.99 you can buy a different theme color (Blue Ocean is standard, the upgrades are Cayenne Red, Brilliant Silver, Super Black and Green LEAF. All 4 can be purchased in a package for $1.99. Or you can buy the Sync Recent Items upgrade that will sync your recents items across all of your iOS devices. $4.99 and includes the Theme package. The Charge Timer upgrade lets you set a one-shot time to begin charging at a future date and time. $9.99 includes the Sync and Theme packages. You don't need to buy the upgrades but if you like the app I suggest buying in at whatever level you feel comfortable to support the developer, reminds me of the shareware days).
Update: I just became a beta tester and received version 1.0.8 of the app. It now continues to work in background mode, and if you have requested an update and the app is not active it pops up a message to provide the information. I really like this feature and can't wait until it is rolled out so I can install it on all of my devices.
This is a good app to display the facts with minimal distractions, and a great app for sending contact information to the Leaf. The addition of the background process and notification make this a no brainer. By all means get it.
5 stars
GreenCharge
This is another user written iOS app. This app is pretty basic but has some nice features. It supports the Leaf, Volt and Plug in Prius. There are 2 main screens, you swipe to go between them. The main screen shows a speedometer style meter that has a needle pointing to battery % and a readout that shows range in miles or km. Two button on the bottom control climate control and charge control. Pressing either brings up a confirmation screen to either toggle the state or “nevermind.”
I’m not sure of the true value of the second screen. It shows 3 boxes labeled Energy usage since dd/mm/yy, energy cost (kwh) and total expense ($). I think ’m paying 13 cents/kwh so I entered that using the up and down buttons. The energy usage value has up and down buttons, but I think is read from the car as well. The total expense is the product of the first 2. Unfortunately there is no indication of how far you traveled on, so knowing your cost is fairly meaningless. And if you use several different chargers there is no way to know how much of that cost you actually spent. But the data is there if you want it.
Options settings allow you to turn notifications on and off, allow demand response to notifications from your power company due to high demand, turn on auto update (request update every time the app is launched) and toggle between US and metric measurements.
My favorite feature of this app is that it badges the icons with the SOC%. You do not need to open the app to see your charge level. And I expect a future release to allow that to show miles remaining as an option. (Badging is the number in a red circle on top of the icon, the same way mail shows how many unread emails you have, and Facebook shows how many notifications you have).
3 Stars (would be 2 without the badging)
That’s it for the car related apps I’ve found to date. The remaining show charging information and energy usage calculations. I'll get to them as time permits.
And by all means, since these apps are free, download them all and give them a try. Your opinion may very well be different than mine. If so, post them and tell us all.
My background - I manage app development for a software company who has several iOS and Android apps shipping, with more on the horizon. I also write product reviews for a professional house organ that has over 14,000 members. I’ve had my Leaf for about a week.
One thing many of these apps have in common is their speed (or lack of). To update your information requires communication with your car, I assume through the CarWings servers. This is not instantaneous, and while mobile users are used to getting what we want NOW, these apps will have a delay of several seconds to a minute. This is not terrible, nothing can be done about it, but it’s something to keep in mind when you want to turn the AC on for a quick cool-down.
All of the apps I will review are free. One has in-app purchases for some upgrades but is fully usable without them. They are all written for the iPhone but run on an iPad as an iPhone app (small screen that can be run in 2x).
Nissan Leaf
The first app most owners find is Nissan Leaf, the official app from Nissan. To use this app you must first register with Nissan and link it to your CarWings account.
The main screen displays colored bars and numbers to indicate driving distance. SOC is indicated with 11 colored bars, from red to green. There is an icon to show plug status (red/green), a charging indicator, and a time to charge complete (normal and trickle). You can also turn the climate control on or off from this screen.
Selecting the Charge view just opens a dialog asking if you are sure you want to start charging, with cancel and OK as your choices. The Climate view is another dialog box giving you the chance to toggle the climate control or set the timer. Contact gives you the 800 numbers for Nissan customer support and roadside assistance. On an iPhone tapping the boxes will place the call immediately.
The settings view lets you select if you want the app to update with the Leaf at startup. You can also elect to receive notifications of charge on, climate control, vehicle status, charge complete, and a plug in reminders via text message or email.
Finally, if you have more than one Leaf you can name each of them and select them separately.
I find this app to be useful, does what needs to be done, and has some nice features. It’s kind of fun (for a day or 2) to get emails from your car, saying things like (I’m paraphrasing here) feed me! You parked next to a charger but didn’t plug in, what’s with that? Being able to call roadside assistance with a single tap is a nice feature. I don’t understand why they have the Charge and Climate views as you can do the same functions directly from the home screen. The app is easy to navigate, colorful and has earned a spot on my phone.
4 stars
Leaf Link
LEAF Link is a user written app that does everything that Nissan Leaf does and more but without as much eye candy. The main screen shows at a glance your SOC with a colored bar and written out x bars. The range In miles or km) is under that, in text, both with and without climate control. Plugged/unplugged status is next, followed by time to charge to 80% in both normal and trickle mode.
You can also start, set the timers, and stop both charging and climate control.
Pressing the person button brings up your phones contacts. Selecting a contact brings up the address information with the ability to choose an icon picture (including automatically opening Google streetview when available), then send it to the car. Conversion to latitude/longitude is required, but a button on the page will look it up in Google for you. You can also view it on a map on your phone. The clock icon brings up recent contacts. You can also enter a new location by pressing the paper/pencil button from the home screen.
Pressing the Map button brings up a map view with all of the contacts in your address book marked. This uses Google maps so you can view it in Map, Satellite or Hybrid view. If you press the page curl on the map screen you can toggle viewing contacts, recent place and charging stations.
Lastly there is a Search feature that searches your contact to allow quick downloading to your car.
The app is free but there are 3 paid upgrades. For $0.99 you can buy a different theme color (Blue Ocean is standard, the upgrades are Cayenne Red, Brilliant Silver, Super Black and Green LEAF. All 4 can be purchased in a package for $1.99. Or you can buy the Sync Recent Items upgrade that will sync your recents items across all of your iOS devices. $4.99 and includes the Theme package. The Charge Timer upgrade lets you set a one-shot time to begin charging at a future date and time. $9.99 includes the Sync and Theme packages. You don't need to buy the upgrades but if you like the app I suggest buying in at whatever level you feel comfortable to support the developer, reminds me of the shareware days).
Update: I just became a beta tester and received version 1.0.8 of the app. It now continues to work in background mode, and if you have requested an update and the app is not active it pops up a message to provide the information. I really like this feature and can't wait until it is rolled out so I can install it on all of my devices.
This is a good app to display the facts with minimal distractions, and a great app for sending contact information to the Leaf. The addition of the background process and notification make this a no brainer. By all means get it.
5 stars
GreenCharge
This is another user written iOS app. This app is pretty basic but has some nice features. It supports the Leaf, Volt and Plug in Prius. There are 2 main screens, you swipe to go between them. The main screen shows a speedometer style meter that has a needle pointing to battery % and a readout that shows range in miles or km. Two button on the bottom control climate control and charge control. Pressing either brings up a confirmation screen to either toggle the state or “nevermind.”
I’m not sure of the true value of the second screen. It shows 3 boxes labeled Energy usage since dd/mm/yy, energy cost (kwh) and total expense ($). I think ’m paying 13 cents/kwh so I entered that using the up and down buttons. The energy usage value has up and down buttons, but I think is read from the car as well. The total expense is the product of the first 2. Unfortunately there is no indication of how far you traveled on, so knowing your cost is fairly meaningless. And if you use several different chargers there is no way to know how much of that cost you actually spent. But the data is there if you want it.
Options settings allow you to turn notifications on and off, allow demand response to notifications from your power company due to high demand, turn on auto update (request update every time the app is launched) and toggle between US and metric measurements.
My favorite feature of this app is that it badges the icons with the SOC%. You do not need to open the app to see your charge level. And I expect a future release to allow that to show miles remaining as an option. (Badging is the number in a red circle on top of the icon, the same way mail shows how many unread emails you have, and Facebook shows how many notifications you have).
3 Stars (would be 2 without the badging)
That’s it for the car related apps I’ve found to date. The remaining show charging information and energy usage calculations. I'll get to them as time permits.
And by all means, since these apps are free, download them all and give them a try. Your opinion may very well be different than mine. If so, post them and tell us all.
