[SUGGESTION] Add "discussions" and "wiki" sections to some WiCAN repo(s) on GitHub?

[Hedda]

@meatpiHQ Suggest that you consider adding "discussions" and "wiki" sections to one or some WiCAN repo(s) on GitHub?

(not sure if best would be to add to https://github.com/meatpiHQ/WiCAN and/or https://github.com/meatpiHQ/wican-fw ?)

Anyway, while "issues" in a GitHub repo is good for reporting specific bugs/problems, the "GitHub Discussions" feature/section is better as a community forum for generic support + discussing general ideas or feature requests, and "GitHub Wiki" feature/section i better for hosting an open public wiki for documentation to let others help with contributing guides and other docs without having to submit a pull request.

GitHub Discussions

• https://github.com/features/discussions
• https://docs.github.com/en/discussions
• https://docs.github.com/en/discussions/quickstart

GitHub Wiki

• https://docs.github.com/en/communities/documenting-your-project-with-wikis/about-wikis
• https://docs.github.com/en/communities/documenting-your-project-with-wikis
• https://docs.github.com/en/communities/documenting-your-project-with-wikis/adding-or-editing-wiki-pages

[Brakelmann]

Would really appreciate a WIKI and discussion section. +1

[meatpiHQ]

Coming soon!

[deepcoder]

@meatpiHQ do you have a date? My out the gate experiences is not really good with your product. I understand that CAN and ODB2 is a complex and not well documented area. However, for the coin I paid you, I would like to see a better set of basic, complete and tested steps to get basic state from your device to say a python application that you wrote and support. I don't want to be pointed to other applications that may or may not work, or I think as I just found require payment to connect. You should provide a simple, complete example to get folks to first step getting basic data from their cars.

For example, your monitor tab on the devices web page, zero documentation by you. As I understand it, you should be able to show folks for pretty much any car how to enable this page and see raw data flowing out. Correct? Whether yes, or no, how about documenting what the Monitor tab does and how to use.

[meatpiHQ]

@deepcoder a bit aggressive comment hey?

How about you open a new issue and tell me what you're trying to do and I'm happy to help you and walk you through it?

Yes I'm behind on the documentation and the WiKi, I'm sorry for that but resolving bugs and providing support are the priority.

However, for the coin I paid you,

sigh..

I understand that CAN and ODB2 is a complex and not well documented area.

No, CAN and OBD2 protocol is well documented, however the complexity comes from the car manufactures. Every car manufacture has there own implementation, some expose the internal CAN bus on the OBD2 connector some don't, some don't support all the OBD2 PIDs. So there will always need to do some tinkring to know what sort of data you can extract from your car.

I don't want to be pointed to other applications that may or may not work, or I think as I just found require payment to connect.

Which applications have you tried and not worked? non of the application mentioned are paid.

As I understand it, you should be able to show folks for pretty much any car how to enable this page and see raw data flowing out. Correct?

The monitor page has a drop down list and start and stop button. The documentation would be select your bitrate and click start :). If you don't see any data it's either you've selected the wrong bitrate or your car doesn't expose the internal CAN bus on the OBD2 connector.

[deepcoder]

@deepcoder a bit aggressive comment hey?

IMHO, no. As I said, as a paying customer you do get to have some expectations. And the 'on boarding' experience is a good example. I would spend a little time with a friend that had never used your product and have them articulate their experience getting started. We have all been there, being too close to something for too long, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees.

I am happy to share and help, once I get the basic product working. So to get to that point, here are couple comments. 1) I updated to the latest firmware, v1.74. I have device configured for both AP and Station mode. I enabled BLE. I am able to communicate with the device on both wifi methods. However, I do not see the device broadcasting any BLE advertising. I note a couple comments around the github, that there seems to have been issues around having both enabled. Does it work to have both these options enabled? If so what should you see in bluetooth area? Is there any documentation on bluetooth functions? Does this mean if you are in station + ap mode as well?

Note: When the BLE is connected, the device will automatically turn off the WiFi configuration access point. Once BLE is disconnected the configuration access point will turn back on.

2) The battery alert option. That seems to be a good simple first step for on boarding. As far as I can tell, no CAN 'stuff' required from your car other than power. The documentation incomplete and what is in the configuration screen is confusing. I've already set a SSID, password in other places, what are these? What is the definition of the other fields? Why would I want a URL going to some public mqtt broker? What is the port? This would be a very clean and helpful first experience, if it could be made to work.

3) one of the first 3rd party apps you point to is RealDash. Talk about poor UI and documentation as a starting point. Then we you finally find the config menu on iOS, it sure looks like the only way to connect to anything is to 'pay'. But I have no clue, cause there is no documentation. Makes your stuff look bad, and that should not be your fault. So my point on providing a simple app that you control 100% that just does some basic handshake to your device is under your control. I can see data on SavvyCAN, a little subset of that might be a good start. So I do not understand what I am missing to get just a raw dump on your monitor page. Or if too much, maybe just publishing a heartbeat timestamp and voltage to MQTT. You do seems to be publishing any retained MQTT messages or updates. So if you unless you reboot the device it is invisible on MQTT to anyone.

4) The documentation how to use MQTT to query CAN seems very incomplete. Again, a very straight forward starting point if there are a set of steps that made sense in the documentation.

I support some number of open hardware and software developers over time. So my comment, if you are going to take money for your product, then that comes with opins. Hope you can move your product forward.

[Hedda]

@deepcoder a bit aggressive comment hey?

IMHO, no.

Let us agree to disagree. Here, recommend read this before posting again -> www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

[meatpiHQ]

@deepcoder

1- I updated to the latest firmware, v1.74. I have device configured for both AP and Station mode. I enabled BLE. I am able to communicate with the device on both wifi methods. However, I do not see the device broadcasting any BLE advertising. I note a couple comments around the github, that there seems to have been issues around having both enabled. Does it work to have both these options enabled? If so what should you see in bluetooth area? Is there any documentation on bluetooth functions? Does this mean if you are in station + ap mode as well?

The webpage won't allow you to enable BLE if you have (AP + Station mode) enabled. When you select (AP + Station mode) the BLE option will automatically be disabled. The reason why I have this disabled is that if you have BLE and WiFi enabled at the same time it will affect drastically reduce the performance.

https://github.com/meatpiHQ/wican-fw#important-notes

2- The battery alert option. That seems to be a good simple first step for on boarding. As far as I can tell, no CAN 'stuff' required from your car other than power. The documentation incomplete and what is in the configuration screen is confusing. I've already set a SSID, password in other places, what are these? What is the definition of the other fields? Why would I want a URL going to some public mqtt broker? What is the port? This would be a very clean and helpful first experience, if it could be made to work.

I'm not sure what you mean by "what is in the configuration screen is confusing." ?

Here's more information about the battery alert feature:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/meatpi-electronics/wican/updates/setting-up-battery-alerts-in-home-assistant

You can have 2 SSID/Password set. One for normal CAN stuff use, such that if you an AP in your car. The SSID/Password for the battery alert can be a different, it could be your home WiFi.

What is the definition of the other fields?

Alert voltage: is the threshold battery voltage, after which WiCAN will send an mqtt alert message. Alert URL: MQTT broker URL Alert Port: MQTT port Alert Topic: is the topic where the alert are published Alert every: 1hr = publish alert every 1 hour

Why would I want a URL going to some public mqtt broker?

I don't recommend connecting to public broker you should connect to your own broker if possible, but if you do there's not security risk. Because the device connects to the broker and publish the alert and then goes back to sleep. If does not publish any other data or subscribes to any topic.

3- one of the first 3rd party apps you point to is RealDash. Talk about poor UI and documentation as a starting point. Then we you finally find the config menu on iOS, it sure looks like the only way to connect to anything is to 'pay'. But I have no clue, cause there is no documentation. Makes your stuff look bad, and that should not be your fault. So my point on providing a simple app that you control 100% that just does some basic handshake to your device is under your control. I can see data on SavvyCAN, a little subset of that might be a good start. So I do not understand what I am missing to get just a raw dump on your monitor page. Or if too much, maybe just publishing a heartbeat timestamp and voltage to MQTT. You do seems to be publishing any retained MQTT messages or updates. So if you unless you reboot the device it is invisible on MQTT to anyone.

Realdash is a great app, it's free and you can connect without paying anything. There's enough documentation to get started, if you're having issues you can ask for support on https://forum.realdash.net/ the community there is very helpful.

Can you tell me more what sorts of issues with the monitor page? What's the bitrate and when you click start to you see the green led light up?

4- The documentation how to use MQTT to query CAN seems very incomplete. Again, a very straight forward starting point if there are a set of steps that made sense in the documentation.

Not sure what you mean by "query CAN"? all you need to do is subscribe to this topic "wican/xxxxxxxxxxxx/can/rx" (xxxxxxxxxxxx = device id ) and you will receive the CAN messages. I don't know how to make this more straight forward...