I just started to lease a Leaf a few days ago. When testing it, I had noticed that the displays where very good at showing the same thing in many places and very often, uninteresting things. So I had in mind I should buy an OBD and find an app that tells me a bit more about the Leaf; that’s how I went to Leaf Spy.
After reading many threads about OBD2 and especially this one, I was completely lost.
Very few offers out there do specify 1.5 or 2.1 so how do I find an OBD2 that works? And by the way what are these 1.5 and 2.1? and ELM? and all these protocols.....Besides, on the AppSore, the description of LeafSpy says very little about these topics. Not very encouraging.....
Here is my experience:
So I went fishing on the net, and I actually found a lot to answer my questions, quite easily but I thought I could share it on this thread and may be you would use it to upgrade the LeafSpy description on the AppStore.
Here you can read about the different software versions that exist for the ELM 327:
http://www.outilsobdfacile.com/diagnostic-interface-elm-327.php#introduction_elm_interface" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
As you can see, there is no 1.5, which is confirmed indirectly by ELM itself at:
http://elmelectronics.com/obdic.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
where you can see all the protocols supported by the ELM327 and related; since most sellers of OBD2 readers do not quote the ELM327 compatibility, this helps to understand whether or not the OBD2 reader is ELM compatible or not!
You will note though, that the firs l ink mentions a v2.0 whereas ELM jumps from v1.4b to v2.1. But you can read there as well that V2.1 is backwards compatible and can read 1.4b, but is most of all, faster.
After reading this I decided I could start looking for my OBD2 reader in the jungle
I had noticed that Vgate was making a very compact wifi reader, that would likely not be in the way. From the descriptions it seemed to be ELM compatible but was also putting forward the advantages that ELM itself were putting forward for the relevant IC. This seemed to be a good fit and it was confirmed when I found this page:
http://www.buyobd.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=88" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
So Vgate seemed to be a potentially reliable product, but where to find a reliable supplier, in order not to wait 3 weeks to get my gadget?
Further scanning of the internet revealed that the latest version, iCar3, although very interesting, was not starting automatically as it is supposed to be, which is annoying when there is no button to activate it. I decided to buy an iCar2 instead, and I would have to live with the need to start it up for each drive and cope with the flashing lights...after a few runs, I don’t see these lights while driving and pressing the button is not an issue, because it is reacting immediately.
Finally, I found the iCar2 at a local electronics store chain in Sweden for 40€, so I know where to turn back if I have issues later on.
By the way, the version of LeafSPy I could get from the AppStore is the 1.0.10, is that normal?
I noticed a few hickups and hangups but I haven’t gone through all the details of the app yet.
In a future release, could you make the tyre pressure metric (screen 4), and add it to the metric switch in the settings? Not very important, just annoying.
Thanks for a very good work. I wish Nissan takes notice of this for the next Leaf generation.
