Gadgetory

I'm from Detroit Michigan better known as the Motor City although I'm not a gearhead I do have an appreciation for cars it's in my blood it's important as a car owner to be on top of the maintenance and properly understand what your car is telling you by its performance or error codes today we're taking a look at an O bd2 tool that communicates directly with your Android or Apple device I'm Kevin the tech ninja this is the blue driver and this is my review onboard diagnostics better known as o BD has been around since the early 1980s it's a dongle that you plug into your car and normally the port is located under the steering wheel back in the 80s it would just flash a light if something was wrong and then you'd have to figure it out this tool was mainly for mechanics it was bulky and it had cords coming out of it starting with cars that were built in 1996 obd2 was the standard this provided you with detailed feedback on what is wrong and this is the standard for cars today over this time period this tool has evolved to become smarter and that brings us here obd2 to bluetooth to a mobile device is nothing new just recently it's become completely wireless Blu driver provides you with the dongle and free application from the Play Store installation is a breeze you find your old DD port and plug it in there once it is plugged in it starts to flash blue when it's initialized then you connect to the blue driver on your mobile device via bluetooth settings once you are connected open the application the application then searches in fines of the blue driver once you are connected you are taken to your main screen from here you have an array of options from reading codes clear and cold smog check and detailed vehicle information okay so let's say we want to see our vehicle info you click on vehicle information and it takes you to a new screen that has all the detailed information from here we can share this report beyond that each section we go into provides us with information relevant to our car the next tab over is live view this shows you detailed information as it's happening you can add dozens of different options to that screen they show up in a list view and they update in real time although the live screen is nice and detailed for some people for me who may not know exactly what everything is it becomes a bit much look I'll be honest I don't know much about airflow but it'll be great to have a more detailed breakdown on what each section means and what are the average readings so I put a parrot against something otherwise I don't know if my car is behaving correctly or incorrectly it's sort of I have to figure out what the reading is and then look it up if I think there's an issue the last tab is the more tab now there are things in here like user manual update firmware and more settings the user manual is video based the videos appear to be a bit static and boring but they provide you with enough information that you need it was a tremendous help to me during my time with the blue driver I just wish the videos had a bit more life to them although my car has no error codes I did test it on a car with a check engine light we found that the problem was an evap issue we googled the error message I found out that was caused by a faulty gas cap we then replaced the gas cap deleted the error code and turn the car back on so that alone right there saved us a trip to the auto store or even a mechanic I found a $100 blue driver to be simple and clever the application on the surface appears to be bare-bones but once you dig into the menus and customize the live view you can have all the information you need at a glance if you're a mechanic or truly understand the ins and outs of a car this is a no-brainer this should be something you find in your tool kit on the flipside if you're like me and really don't know much about cars this will let you know that you may be having an issue with your vehicle this also allows you to research it however the live view may not be that useful to you but having the ability to download a detail report for your car and emailing it to someone could be pretty big I've used cheaper dongles out there and they work pretty much the same for Ronald four for the price just sometimes finding that adapter support could be pretty difficult I had a search for applications that were compatible with my adapter and that alone made it a chore and I actually had a returned one and buy one that was compatible with the application so having an application and hardware pairing upfront does make things a whole lot easier overall it accomplishes the goal that it sets out to do provide detailed diagnosis of your car directly to your mobile device as always guys my name is Kevin a tech ninja make sure you like this video subscribe to this channel and also give me a shout on my youtube channel it's the tech ninja and also talk to me on twitter at tech ninja speaks as always guys i'm kevin the tech ninja have yourself a great day this is android authority your source for all things Android take care guys