Freematics

Chris sent me a very interesting dongle. It is called a Freematics ONE. The simplest way to describe it is it being an ELM327 CANbus interface, plus a fully programmable Arduino UNO, plus an SD-card interface, plus a Bluetooth interface, plus serial-over-USB (oh yeah, could do a fast, wired CanZE version) plus an accelerometer, plus (optionally) one of WiFi, GPRS+GSM or xBee modules. Pricepoint is not crazy expensive: a bare version would come in at 70 USD.

I am still figuring what to do with it, but it sure is a great datalogger. And assuming the ELM327 “look-alike” chip inside is reasonably compatible with the V1.5 dongles we use, the Arduino code is in large part available, as I made that for the WiFi gateway. Anyone got cool ideas?

11 Comments on “Freematics

  1. Hi, my idea to that, if it is possible to connect a display on the Rx/Tx Bord, (the connector where the GPS module is planed) Than you have the hole CanZE Information on Screen in the car, the processor power should be great. And in additional you can make the same display via GSM to your smartphone every where (for example in the restaurant, to see the state of charge)…

    • Sorry for the late response……

      A better option would be (IMHO) to use the USB connector for a display. But then why? A phone or tablet is the best/cheapest display I would argue ;-).

      Yes, when equipped with the GPRS module, the Freematic should be able to send things like SOC. At least during charging hte CANbus stays alive.

  2. Hi there..
    Did you manage to connect with the freematics?
    I’m trying to read the realtime speed from renault zoe, but no success..
    Got no idea how to do it… on other regular cars it works with no problem..

    i would really appricate your help..

    • Apologies for my very late reply.

      The Freematics is a complete programmable dongle that comes with some example programs with it. Those programs use more-or-less standard diagnostics commands defined for ICE cars. ZOE doesn’t do things that way, as it’s drivetrain is of course totally different.

      TO make it work you’d have to write your logger program yourself using the Arduino IDE. Our (open source) CanZE program can help as you don’t need to figure each and every command.

      All in all it’s a complicated job. At this moment we have no plans to write drivers for CanZE for the Freematics. Reason is simply there are no many around in the ZOE community and it is quite a substantial job to do it.

      • Any new informations about that ?

        I try to retrieve data from Kangoo Z.E obd port with Freematics dongle unsucessfully.

      • Kangoo ZE and Fluence are almost the same. It uses 11 bit CANbus on the standard pins. If you want to program the Freematics, I think you need to study the CanZE source code, at least for the field definitions.

        CanZE should more or less work on the Kangoo if you tell it it’s a Fluence. Also, FLuenceSpy by Alexandre Moleiro (another Android app) should work.

        Hope this helps.

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