RevHeadz Engine Sounds

OBD2 connection instructions for Android

The following instructions are for the Android version of RevHeadz Engine Sounds.

Disconnect OBD2 adapters from the vehicle when not using your car to avoid drained battery.

Electric Vehicles are not supported by RevHeadz at this time.

Avoid using Bluetooth audio output while using RevHeadz OBD2 as it introduces significant lag in the sound output.

We recommend using an aux cable from your phone/tablet to your car sound system aux input for optimal performance.

1. Bluetooth OBD2 Adapter

Connect the adapter to the OBD2 connection port in your vehicles (Usually found near the drivers position, the exact location will vary from car to car.) Shown here is a cheap ELM327 Bluetooth clone adapter from eBay. These usually have identical MAC addresses such as AA:BB:CC:11:22:33 and so may cause communication issues if there is more than 1 in the same vicinity. We have experienced connection dropouts with these adapters during our testing.

Start the engine of your car.

elmbluetooth

2. Connect Screen

Run the RevHeadz Engine Sounds app and navigate to the Connect Screen by clicking the OBD2 button from the main menu. Then click the Connect (Bluetooth) button.

3. Choose Bluetooth Device

From the Bluetooth OBD2 Connect dialog you should see a list of already paired devices. If your device is not in the list you can click Scan for devices. You can optionally check the Secure connection checkbox. Click on the OBD2 device in the list. If prompted for a PIN then enter the PIN number supplied by the manufacturer of your adapter. The adapter in our example uses 1234

bluetooth device list

 

 

1. Wifi OBD2 Adapter

Connect the adapter to the OBD2 connection port in your vehicles (Usually found near the drivers position, the exact location will vary from car to car.) Shown here is a cheap ELM327 Wifi clone adapter from eBay.

Start the engine of your car.

elmwifi

2. Wifi Connect

Connect to the OBD2 adapter's Wifi prior to running the app on your phone. From the settings on your phone click on the Wifi item.

settings

Now choose the OBD2 Wifi device in the list.

wifilist

If this is the first time connecting to this device you'll probably be prompted for the password. Enter the password supplied by the manufacturer of the device. In our example the password is 12345678

wifipassword

3. Connect Screen

Run the RevHeadz app and navigate to the Connect Screen by clicking the OBD2 button from the main menu. Then click the Connect (Wifi) button.

4. Choose Wifi Address and Port

Specify the Host and Port Number supplied by the manufacturer of your adapter. In our example it is 192.168.0.10 and 35000. Then click the Connect button.

hostname

 

Connection

If everything works you should now see the connection showing some data reported by your car. Specify your vehicle's redline RPM using the scroll buttons. This is so the app can map the RPM range of your vehicle to the RPM range of other vehicles that may have different rev ranges than your car. Optionally you can set this value slightly lower to achieve higher revving engine sounds from lower revs. Leave the Optimize Communication setting to On unless you experience issues. Navigate back to the main menu by clicking the Back button in the top left. On the main menu the OBD2 button light will be green when there is an active connection and entering the Drive mode for any of the engines will use OBD2 data to drive the sound simulation.

connection

 

Troubleshooting

Make sure no other apps are trying to communicate with the OBD2 adapter while trying to connect with the RevHeadz app as they may prevent it from connecting. Note that some of these apps will maintain an OBD2 connection with your adapter even after closing the app. If you experience issues getting OBD2 to work then click the Diagnostics button after you have tried to connect. The diagnostics screen will contain information that can be saved to a log file on your phone. Click the Save Log File to save the information to a file on your phone that can be emailed to us.

diagnostics

The log file can usually be found in on your phone at the location \Android\data\au.com.revheadz.revheadz\files\revheadzobdlog.txt

Connect your phone to your PC and find the file to attach, or alternatively navigate to the file on your phone from the My Files app, select the file and click the share button in the top right then choose email.

Email the log file to:

email

filemanager

 

The OBD2 feature of RevHeadz is still relatively new so there may be bugs or incompatibilities that we're unaware of yet so please be patient while we work on bringing future updates and improvements.

Tips

Some cheap OBD2 adapters don't use a low power mode so should be disconnected from your car's OBD2 port when not in use to avoid draining your car battery.