AutoFlugel: check your charge via a text message

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haykinson

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
87
Hi all,

I am launching https://www.autoflugel.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; -- a new free service for LEAF owners to check their charging status by text message. To use the service, sign up and add your mobile phone number, and then send a confirmation code.

Then, any time you want to check your car's charge, send "status" to the service's phone number, and less than a minute later, get a reply with the current charge status (plugged in or not, charging or not, %SOC).

You can also send a text with the word "charge", and AutoFlugel will ask your car to start charging (i.e. if it's plugged in, but on a timer).

If there's enough interest, we can start building other services on top of this. The one I'd most like to build next is "send me a text if it's 9pm and my car is not plugged in, and charge is less than 80%", or something similar. However, for now, I'm looking for feedback and folks to try using the service as-is. There are some rough areas that I'll improve if there's enough interest in the service.

Let me know if you find it useful, broken, or a stupid idea.

-ilya
 
LEAFfan said:
Maybe you aren't aware, but the LEAF sends us text messages/emails and so does the Blink EVSE.

Of course; this is to actually _ASK_ your Leaf what its status is, and have it reply back with the current situation. For people without a smartphone and thus can't run the Leaf/Carwings app, or just those that find text messaging easier to use.

I have been using it for a couple of weeks, and find it really helpful since it's faster than firing up the carwings app and hanging around while it logs in and refreshes. This way, while I'm at work, I can get the current SOC. Or I can check how the car is doing for my wife is doing during the day, if she's out and about with the car.
 
Looks like a very convenient service, Good Work.

Have you taken steps to see that your Carwings password database is protected from hackers?

Can one create (at NissanUSA and Carwings) a Carwings-Only UserID and Password, separate from one's NissanUSA account and password?
If so, how, please?

Then, I would just need to have a cell phone which can send (and receive) text-messages. :D
 
awesome! i have the Text Plus app because I am too cheap to pay for text service that i rarely use. Neither Carwings or Blink work with Text Plus. Autoflugel does!! Thanks!
 
garygid said:
Looks like a very convenient service, Good Work.
Thanks!

garygid said:
Have you taken steps to see that your Carwings password database is protected from hackers?

Can one create (at NissanUSA and Carwings) a Carwings-Only UserID and Password, separate from one's NissanUSA account and password?
If so, how, please?

Then, I would just need to have a cell phone which can send (and receive) text-messages. :D
I've taken some steps. You'll note all connections are secured with HTTPS, and all Carwings passwords are stored encrypted. I have to submit the password to carwings in plain text, so it is decryptable given the right key, but if someone was to steal the database on its own they wouldn't be able to see or use any passwords.

I don't know of any way to create a Carwings-only account on Nissan USA, unfortunately. But I hope that you will be able to trust your credentials to my service in the end.
 
It's too bad you can't improve Carwings connectivity for me, since more often than not, I can't seem to communicate with the car. Where I live, Verizon and Sprint generally have the best coverage, and AT&T is spotty. In the future version of the LEAF, it would be nice to have the ability to connect through WiFi networks.
 
abasile said:
It's too bad you can't improve Carwings connectivity for me, since more often than not, I can't seem to communicate with the car. Where I live, Verizon and Sprint generally have the best coverage, and AT&T is spotty. In the future version of the LEAF, it would be nice to have the ability to connect through WiFi networks.

Yeah, I wish we could put the car on wifi... and also extract all the detailed data from the EV system, wirelessly ;-)
 
haykinson said:
Yeah, I wish we could put the car on wifi... and also extract all the detailed data from the EV system, wirelessly ;-)

I agree, Carwings is too slow & unreliable. I think your service is a great idea. I'd rather use text than to launch the Carwings app on my phone.

One problem I found ... there's no way to change your Carwings ID or password if you enter them incorrectly.
 
lincomatic said:
One problem I found ... there's no way to change your Carwings ID or password if you enter them incorrectly.

Yeah, I'll get this fixed in a couple of days by allowing you to edit your info. For now, the easiest thing to do is to go into your profile (click on your name in the upper right corner), cancel your account, and signup again.
 
haykinson said:
lincomatic said:
One problem I found ... there's no way to change your Carwings ID or password if you enter them incorrectly.

Yeah, I'll get this fixed in a couple of days by allowing you to edit your info. For now, the easiest thing to do is to go into your profile (click on your name in the upper right corner), cancel your account, and signup again.

Thanks, I did that actually, and it still says "Sorry, your login to CARWINGS did not work." We're supposed to enter the Carwings pin & password that we enter in the car, right?
 
Do you mind my asking why you're offering this service for free? Is there intention to maybe charge for premium services that will be built on top of this free basic service later?
 
lincomatic said:
Thanks, I did that actually, and it still says "Sorry, your login to CARWINGS did not work." We're supposed to enter the Carwings pin & password that we enter in the car, right?

It's supposed to be the username and password that you would use on http://www.nissanusa.com/owners" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If it still doesn't work for you, I will troubleshoot in a couple of hours.
 
Volusiano said:
Do you mind asking why you're offering this service for free? Is there intention to maybe charge for premium services that will be built on top of this free basic service?

Yeah, if it takes off and enough people find it useful, hopefully I can build some more interesting functionality and charge something nominal to offset hosting costs etc. I'll keep it running for at least a few months without charging, though, and will let people know if my feelings on this change.
 
haykinson said:
lincomatic said:
Thanks, I did that actually, and it still says "Sorry, your login to CARWINGS did not work." We're supposed to enter the Carwings pin & password that we enter in the car, right?

It's supposed to be the username and password that you would use on http://www.nissanusa.com/owners" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If it still doesn't work for you, I will troubleshoot in a couple of hours.

OK, works now, thanks! You should ask people to enter their Nissan Owners Portal login info rather than Carwings.

Also, the confirmation code doesn't show up in IE9 (not surprising .. IE9 seems to have problems with lots of websites), but it works OK w/ Chrome.
 
haykinson said:
If there's enough interest, we can start building other services on top of this. The one I'd most like to build next is "send me a text if it's 9pm and my car is not plugged in, and charge is less than 80%", or something similar.
-ilya
Beside "status", can you currently text message the other Carwings commands like "Start Charging" or use the Climate Control "On" and "Timer" function? And do you also get the Estimated Driving Distance info with/out AC status back, too? Basically do everything that CarWings does at this point.

One thing Carwings doesn't do but I would love to be able to do is the "Stop Charging". If you can figure how to do this, I think this can be considered a premium service worth paying for. Once you can figure this out, there's also no stopping you from being able to offer remote timer functionality outside of the Leaf or Blink. You can now build timers to stop charging at any % beside 80%.

Maybe that's why Carwings doesn't offer the "Stop Charging" function in the first place, so that people can't create their own remote timers.

Also, does anyone know whether the "Start Charging" command on Carwings equivalent to charging with the Timer Override to 100%? Or is it subjected to the Leaf timer and will stop if it hits 80%? I've tried using before after the Leaf hits 80% and stopped, and it looks like it started charging as instructed and kept on charging past 80%.
 
Tried to go to the website and I get this:
Code:
Secure Connection Failed
An error occurred during a connection to www.autoflugel.com.

Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s).

(Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap)
This is with Firefox 3.6.22 on Mac OS 10.6.8. I have a proxy server at work but this seems unrelated to proxy problems. Seems to work fine on my iphone though.

EDIT: It works fine in Chrome so it's not my proxy. Something you did is not compatible with Firefox, for some reason.
 
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