With ZOE production coming to an end soon, and us only chasing issues (usually caused by Android upgrades or ever changing dongles), we feel it is time to put the CanZE development project to rest. We have really enjoyed the project, both maintaining an app for a fairly large user base (10.000+) as well as the nitty gritty reverse engineering, which all started in summer 2015.

CanZE will not be taken from Google play and the source code in its current state will remain available on Github for a long time. Also the present page will not be deleted!

If anyone is interested in taking over the head of the project, just manifest yourself. We are open to share the codebase as well as the present blog and whatever you need else to continue.

Thank you all so much for the many words of praise we have received.

As Google changed how permissions work in their apps, CanZE had to be updated in order to continue to work on more recent devices. This is why where has been a bunch of releases yesterday and one more this morning.

Symptoms are that the app crashes as soon as the settings page is being opened.

This is because actually CanZE needs the permission to view nearby devices, which a BT dongle is quite obviously 😉

If you want to help, please share any detail about this problem on the following issue:

https://github.com/fesch/CanZE/issues/781

SpeakEV user sr06 kindly send me this video. The mechanic is complaining about water/coolant ingress, but that is not why I am posting it. It gives a nice overview of the mechanical build-up of the Q motor. Especially the position sensor was new to me. Also the gearing is shown.

Quick update: 12100 devices reached on March 20th, exactly 100 days for 10%. This represents a 42% compound yearly growth, exactly corresponding with last years rate. If we approach things from the other end, we see a growth rate of 39% from today a year ago. Looks like things are all rather nice and steady. iOS news coming up soon.

Linked is a session I did with Lukas Bernhardt from the University of Lübeck, explaining CANbus, ISO-TO and how it’s used by the higher protocols. Serious Geek level but if you’re interested in that stuff, you might want to watch it. Léopold, one of the ZE50 team members also participated. Thanks Lukas for recording.

It’s just over 2 months ago that I reported 10.000 active devices with CanZE installed (Android stats only). We went over 11.000 on December 9th . 10% in just under 2 months, it doesn’t seem much, but a compound growth of 77% annually is nothing to sneeze at. I doubt we will reach that BTW; compared to December 2020 the real compound growth was 42%. Still great I would say. And that’s up from 29% the 12 months before that.

A big thank you to all users, new and existing, of CanZE!

2 weeks ago my 2013 Q210 Zoe refused to charge anymore. At the beginning it was like only sometimes and worked again after a few tries, but rapidly this behavior change to “not at all”. So I tried what I was able to:

  • Let the car sleep for a while and try again.
  • Charge the 12V battery.

… but nothing worked out, so I ended up visiting the national dealer here in Luxembourg. Things over here are still a bit complicated because – for now 8 year already – we have one and only one person that is allowed to touch the high voltage parts of electric cars at Renault. This meant I had to wait 3 days before getting their verdict: the charger needs to be replaced!

After some fast calculations and the question about a new car or not, I ended up giving them my consent to replace the charger but with the condition that I want to get the old one back 😉

You see right, they replaced the entire block, including the filter unit and the cable to the charge port with even the plug lock motor, although I am quite sure that only a very specific part is malfunctioning. Ohhh … you are right: having to pay 3700€, this was a quite expensive replacement, but at least my car now charges again. (I got a Twingo as replacement during 2 weeks … uhh … ahh … it’s a nice small car with which you can make a u-turn anywhere, but that’s the only positive thing a found about it …)

Some changes I have noticed:

  • The charging process starts a lot faster compared with the old charger. After connecting the cable, the “ongoing checks” takes only about 2-3 seconds, which is about 10 times faster than before.
  • The buzzing during the charge process is not as loud.
  • Although my battery health dropped from 102% to 98% after the invention, the range at the end of charge is about 20km higher than before and I’ve noticed that the battery indicated do longer drop very fast on the first half. The magic 98% hints that the battery computer was reset and/or updated so it has to learn how to calculate a reasonably accurate range again.

Last weekend we handily crossed the 10.000 “active installed devices” benchmark (on Android). It’s just an arbitrary number, but hey ho! Thank you all for using CanZE!

A few weeks ago we announced a new release of CanSee. After running it for quite a bit, it’s now time for a true release. As said in the linked announcement, it is truly significantly faster and more stable.

If you have made your own version, you need to merge the changes, or (after checking with this release) issue a pull request so we can incorporate your changes, that have to be non-breaking and configurable of course.

We got contacted by Scott Heim, reporting how well CanZE can be used with a Chromebook. Here is what he wrote on RZOC:

Haven’t heard talk about using a Chromebook with CanZE. As I’m a computer geek & experimented with a cloud version of chrome. It gave me the idea a Chromebook would be perfect if it works. So local shop had a sale & Chromebook was at the price point. Took a punt, found CanZE was available for install. Did a little happy dance! Then the real test out in the car. At first had some issues, all turned out to be my stupidity. Chromebook turns out to be an excellent partner with CanZE & Zoe. Actually way more stable connection then I got using my mobile. Seeing Melbourne has had 200 days of lockdown, most with curfew & 5km distance. I been keen to see how my 12 volt battery was copping. It’s been quite a cold winter. The motorcycle required a new battery. As you can see my main battery has great health! Eventually I’ll get to enjoy Zoe, she is about to have her first birthday with 3050 km on the odometer.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RZOC.CLUB/permalink/2550694458407407/