HouseBot

Hi Everyone,

I use housebot in my campervan. Why?! - Sonos control ( but its expanding). Osler has a plugin which gives you all of the Sonos uPNP information - it's up to you how you display it.

Requirement
OK. On a similar theme, I also have VCDS VW Audi diagnostics. It connects with a usb interface to the can-bus. One of its features is a plugin called "VC Scope" formally VAG-Scope (wonder why they changed the name..)

Essentially this plugin will extract 12 measuring blocks (defined within the main program). The measuring blocks are basic in they are numeric values (text). I would like to link this plugin to Housebot. Housebot would then display some vehicle based data - such as tyre pressures, engine, climate & comfort data. Note this is display only, and no control of a car in motion!

Plugin Dev
'm not a software engineer - Just hardware from old. I have seen plugin development of VCDS VC-Scope into car specific "front-ends" (which I don't want to use as they are not that relevent to what else I'm doing, and it's another program) example: http://www.centrafuse.com/AppDetail.aspx?appid=67 This example is essentially what I'm after, but for housebot.

The source-code
http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-scope/downloads.html

Feasibility
So - what level of programming is required? How much beer-money would it take for someone to develop? I'm good for a few beers, and would really like this working.

Any steer / evaluation /offer much appreciated!

Hi Tony,
Based on my current experience of writing a plug-in, it would be a lot of beers. Maybe a months worth. The good thing is the source code is available, which is a plugin for the VCDS. I didn't take a look to see if the API was published or if there was a SDK/Software Development Kit for VCDS, but it would help more than trying to reverse engineer the source-code.

The other alternative is to see if VCDS or VC Scope make their value available to VB script. If so, that is least painful way to go. The other option would be if VCDS writes to log file.... Ask HB to pickup that log file fairly quickly and process it.

Tim

Hi Tim,

Many thanks for your reply - what you're explaining makes sense, and I shall focus on the latter options to start with.