2019/10/12

Hybrid Assistant usage in high school

We just received an interesting email, from France, about an unexpected usage of Hybrid Assistant: thank you Antony.


My name is Anthony Berçon, I’m a technical trainer in a french high school specialized in car repairing. I’d like to share my experience about Hybrid Assistant, and my way to use it.
First of all, it’s a powerful and compact app to get data about hybrid powertrain. Usually we use a professional tool like a Sun PDL 5500 to collect and export data, to be analyzed with MS Excel.
HA makes the same thing and its data collection has enough precision for our usage.
At this moment, with my students, I'm working on the regenerative brake, and the relationship between SOC battery, regenerative brake and battery temperature. With the help of the HA staff, it was easy to export data and make some charts to explain that relationship. 
My next step will be to create exercises about potential energy, kinetic energy, negative acceleration and SOC. I’ll use it to help students understand how Toyota hybrid works.

Here are some examples of HA usage in my teaching:
Graph 1 explains the relationship between vehicle speed and regenerative/mechanic brake system.
Graph 2 shows partitioning of braking torque between the 2 braking systems.



The next 2 graphs show battery temperature being influenced by regenerative brake.



2019/10/06

More on Android Head units

Head Units are Android-based devices that can be installed in the car dashboard, usually in place of the car builtin infotainment module.
Since their Bluetooth module is primarily intended for hands-free usage, sometimes it's quite difficult to use a Bluetooth OBD adapter with them: in such case and USB adapter may solve the issue.
While we do not officially supports head units, we are happy to report user success stories.
Marijan Pribek wrote us:

My experience with connecting OBDLink LX and SX to HYBRID ASSISTANT
My car is a Toyota Yaris HYBRID, 2016, EU edition. Android HU is Pumpkin CN01
One month ago I bought an OBDLink LX and tried to connect to the Hybrid assistant app but no avail.
On the advice of the HA team returned from the LX (BT) device and purchased the OBDlink SX (USB).

Today I finally received my OBDLink SX. I connected it to the free USB on the HU port and after selecting the USB connection in the OBDLink application it worked from the first. The connection is very stable and the connection is very fast.



Unlike a Bluetoooth device, this is a big difference - a positive one.
Connecting an SX device to a HYBRID ASSISTANT application is very easy. Everything works smoothly and without error.
Tested on Chinese HU: Pumpkin CN01 and Xtrons 708L, no problem.

In my experience, the OBDLink SX (USB) device is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for use in the Android HU and HYBRID ASSISTANT app.
I hope someone will use this information.


Thank you Marijan

2019/09/14

Toyota Corolla

Toyota Corolla (1.8L and 2.0L version) is now recognized by the latest version of Hybrid Assistant.


2019/08/10

Android Head Unit pairing trick


Android Head Units use a different Bluetooth module from standard phones, so using a Bluetooth OBD adapter may be tricky.
An USB OBD Adapter like the OBDLink SX may be a better solution.

We do not directly support running Hybrid Assistant on Android Head Units, but we are happy to report success from our users.
Oliver S. writes us about a trick he used to overcome a pairing problem on his unit:

If HA hangs during initialization and you cannot select a Bluetooth device because the “button” is not responding, it is probably due to HA not getting the correct data from the Bluetooth
stack in your device.

To lift this issue follow these steps:

1.      Connect from a different device (e.g. mobile phone) to your OBD adapter
2.      Quit HA on the non-working device.
3.      Copy file hybridassistant.db from the working device (located in internal storage/_hybridassistant/) to your  non-working device, overwriting the existing hybridassistant.db 
4.      Restart HA
5.      Now everything should work. If not continue reading:
6.      Sometimes HA now stops at this point
and the OBD adapter needs an additional push: 
a.      Start “Torque” (free on Playstore) and wait until it connects.
b.      Quit Torque (or don’t, does not matter) and start HA

If you have read up to number 6, steps a) and b) must most likely be
performed on this unit once per driving session if you wish to use HA.



Thank you, Oliver

2019/06/17

Gear Assistant

Differently from Toyota and Lexus cars, which have a PSD, Hyundai and Kia have a gearbox.
The gear panel of the new version of Hybrid Assistant, shows the selected gear and a color evaluation of the current efficiency.


The colors of the gear indicator show how you are using battery power in EV mode. It is useful after a pulse with ICE when you maintain constant speed in EV mode.
Try to keep green for low battery drain. 
If yellow appears, speed is increasing and you are slightly discharging the battery more than expected to have a good distance in EV. 
If red appears you are really asking too much battery power and you have to turn on ICE with a short but strong pressure on accelerator, or to decrease speed. 
When ICE is turned on you have always white color. When the battery is recharging (i.e. during regenerative braking) you always have green color.

2019/04/28

kWh is the new Litre

As the automotive world is moving towards electrification, measuring consumption in Litres won't have any meaning anymore.
To ease transition, and familiarize yourself with the new unit, Hybrid Assistant can now show average kWh/100km consumption and total kWh over the trip.
This is available on EV cars and Toyota/Lexus cars.
Other models will account only for the energy coming from the HV battery, excluding the petrol engine.


Con la progressiva elettrificazione del mondo dell'automobile, la misura del consumo basato sui litri non avrà più senso.
Per semplificare la transizione, ed abituarsi a ragionare con le nuove unità, Hybrid Assistant mostra ora anche il consumo medio in kWh/100km e il totale di kWh consumati durante il viaggio.
Il dato è disponibile per le auto interamente elettriche e per gli ibridi Toyota/Lexus.
Il conteggio negli altri modelli comprende solo l'energia in arrivo dalla batteria HV, escludendo il motore a benzina.

2019/04/27

Recyled Energy

Hybrid cars are also known as "energy recovery" cars.
Beside having an on-board energy generator (the internal combustion engine), they can recover kinetic energy (and potential too, once converted back in kinetic) using the regenerative braking system.
Surplus energy coming from the thermal unit may also be stored in the battery.
Recovered energy, together with the one coming from the engine, is called recycled energy.
How much energy is recycled over the total used for moving the car?
Hybrid Assistant provides 2 estimates of recycled energy:

The energy chart draws one bar each kilometer during the trip.
The positive section of the bar tracks spent energy (coming either from engine or battery), while the negative one tracks energy flowing into the battery, from braking or charging.



The end-of-trip panel also provides the total used energy and the percentage of that energy flowed through the battery.
On a traditional car, that energy will be simply wasted, with no additional use.



Energy count is available only on those cars that provide engine power readings, like Toyota, Lexus and pure EVs.
Hybrids from Kia and Hyundai don't have this data available, and provide only HV battery energy readings.
Plugin versions of these cars, when not using the petrol engine, show correct data.


Le auto ibride sono anche chiamate auto a recupero di energia.
Oltre a essere dotate di un generatore di energia (il motore a combustione interna), sono in grado di recuperare l'energia cinetica (e quella potenziale una volta trasformata in cinetica) tramite l'impianto di frenata rigenerativa.
In molte situazioni, il surplus di energia generata dal motore termico viene immagazzinato nella batteria.
L'energia recuperata, più quella proveniente dal motore, viene definita energia riciclata.
A quanto ammonta, sul totale di quella consumata per muovere l'auto?
Hybrid Assistant fornisce 2 stime dell'energia riciclata:

Il grafico dell'energia traccia una barra per ogni km di viaggio.
La parte positiva della barra indica l'energia spesa (presa dal motore o dalla batteria), la parte negativa quella immessa in batteria, da ricarica o da frenata.

Al termine del viaggio, la schermata riassuntiva fornisce il totale di energia impiegata e la percentale di essa che è transitata dalla batteria

Giova ricordare che, in un'auto tradizionale, questa energia verrebbe dissipata, senza produrre nulla di utile.
L'indicazione di energia è disponibile solo su auto che forniscono indicazione della potenza motore, quindi Toyota, Lexus e pure EV.
Hyundai e Kia ibride non hanno questo dato disponibile e forniscono solo i dati della batteria HV.
Le versioni plugin, se usate senza motore termico forniscono dati corretti.

2019/03/30

BSFC Scale

Colors of the power bar and the BSFC chart are based on a scale of efficiency.
Here is the reference for a 1.800cc Toyota engine.


Kona EV and e-Niro

Kona EV and e-Niro are now recognized by Hybrid Assistant



2019/03/13

Measuring charge efficiency

Hybrid Assistant can be used to measure charging efficiency on plug-in cars.
Here's a Ioniq PHEV charging at a wallbox: 3.3 kW out measured at the outlet and 3 kW entering the battery, with a 10% powerloss.


2019/03/09

Current Gear Indicator for Niro and Ioniq

The new version of Hybrid Assistant, available on the Play Store, displays the current selected gear on Ioniq and Niro, even while driving in D.
Newer models of Kia and Hyundai car that previously displayed a wrong fuel consumption, now have a consistent indication.


2019/02/02

High Precision Logging

While Hybrid Assistant main purpose is helping while driving, its data capture feature can be proficiently used by an expert technician for troubleshooting and fine tuning of engine parameters.
One example is LGP fuel quality evaluation, based on LTFT and STFT.
For this purpose, it's best to enable the High Precision Logging in the settings screen.
This will cause collection of data at the highest possible frequency.



Warning: enabling high precision logging will have a performance hit of about 2.5x.
Use it only when required.

This settings also affect the export data function of Hybrid Reporter.
Trips recorded with High Precision turned on, will produce logs with multiple samples per second.

As always, using a good and fast OBD adapter is highly advised.

Please note that, while performing an HV Battery Check, high precision logging will be enforced automatically.