Unlock car remotely and more

General Discussion
#1

Newbie here,
I have spent a few hours looking through the forum and I am trying to put the puzzle together. I like to do the following and would love any links, pointers etc. I am trying to rent out my car via P2P app similar to Turo. I am trying to find a solution to do the following:

  • Lock/unlock car remotely
  • Get mileage & gas levels from the car remotely
  • Keep track of car location
  • Send above data to my own server

What I have found so far is that

  • I do need a cellular module to send the data, but I can’t seem to find something that also has GPS with 20 pins. Is there one out there? I found this one http://a.co/80Br6cd
  • I would need to send a message to the M2 to query for mileage and gas levels, but can’t seem to find info on either
  • Lock/Unlock also haven’t found much info on this except for this http://www.instructables.com/id/Control-the-relays-via-GPRS-SMS/

Thanks so much in advance about this. Just getting started.

#2

To use the M2 you would need to grab the Cellular via Xbee and GPS via the external UART port. This would be the way I would suggest you do it. The UART port is just a serial port.

You don’t mention the vehicle but assuming it supports CANBUS…

To unlock/lock the car you should be able to track that on the CANBUS assuming your vehicle has support for keyless entry. It MAY not be available on the diagnostic port. Even without keyless entry it could be available on the canbus. Just have to reverse engineer it which is easy… Lock the car with your remote or key and check the datastream for something different. If you lock the door 3 times it should show up on the canbus 3 times. And same for unlock. Then when you think you found the code you can send the code yourself to verify it locks/unlocks.

Mileage and Gas levels are going to be more difficult. You almost have to get the codes from the manufacturer (not likely) or get lucky when your checking the databus. Unless someone else has found it already. Mileage could be tracked in the cluster with no external access to it. Would be much easier to track via GPS unless you find out otherwise. Plus GPS won’t care about your tire size and even though it isn’t 100% accurate it should average out.

Note this response is assuming you just want to pull the data from the CANBUS. You can always try splicing into the factory wiring but that is always dicey if your not skilled at doing so.

Rodney

#3

Milleage and gas level isn’t as bad as you might think. Both are available using OBDII PID codes. You just ask and the car will tell you how far it’s gone and the current fuel level.

#4

For the lock/unlock isn’t there a way to get a spare FOB program it to the car and linking that up to the car to leave it in? I’m trying to go for ease of installation and spoofing the CANBUS is not something anyone can do.

#5

I know fuel level is on my CAN bus 2007 Silverado gmlan. I found it fairly easily on a fill up. I had the key on and logged the bus data at the gas station, just looked for a value that continually changed (increased in my case). It started relatively low as I was pretty empty, then steadily increased to 255. Once you have your min/max it’s just a little math to get the percentage. It’s also nice to have the vehicle off, if you can, it reduces a lot of the bus traffic.