GeoCar to the Internet

This is just an informal post to share with the community a sort of a new project. Really is more like an improvement or extension of an old project. As part of the Smarter Life Challenge my project was the GeoCar. I like the idea of adding smarts to the car. So now the car will have a little more brains. Brains in the form of a raspberry pi (what else?).

Having more power packed into the project it is a nerd job to do as much as he can with the power given.

Kind of a challenge was given to me to make the GeoCar an internet of things application. Started reading about it and it keeps getting more interesting by the minute.

On this post here it is just a simple idea of what the project will be like.

The Plan:

1. Connect a GPS via UART to the raspberry pi, using gpsd (already available service that can be installed on the raspberry pi) to handle gps data is a breeze to read data from python or any other language.
2. Communicate to the vehicle computer to extract mileage, gas and any other goodies. Communication will be via an of the shelf device Elm327 (about $12) via Bluetooth.
3. Provide room for improvements by using a mosquito server on the raspberry pi, so any Internet of Things MQTT device can communicate with the Pi.
4. The GeoCar should interact with other devices like phone or a home central server (external places to see data from the car centralized)

The build of the project is something I am working on and will mature little by little. Right now I have the GPS working and tested sending and receiving MQTT messages by using python. Ideas are flowing and pieces will come together as days goes by. Right now I have a fresh image and will be configuring this new sdcard from scratch to document the steps to make it.

There will be a little more components than what is shown on the diagram bellow however here you may see the main components. Other components are Wifi to export/import data and a touchscreen to give it a face and user interaction. Other functionality is in the to do list for the project but I will not make all in one post, need some contents for the next post.

In a perfect world you agenda should be linked to the amount of gas you have in the car so you'll know that you better fill the tank today in order to make it on tomorrow's appointments. While this is a big challenge, big challenges are fill of small ones. Posting the data from the car is one of those small tasks. Every single task is important.

Sorry for the small post but it is just part of firing up the creative juices. This is just a small post but feel free to leave opinions there is no good or bad opinions as long as they come from the heart.

Like on the movie, "if you build it, blog about it and make it open source!" (well close enough)

Thanks to element14 for all their support and for this community for proving this space to share with others. All you guys rock!

Gracias!