It works with vehicles that meet the OBD-II or EOBD standard. In practice that covers almost every petrol car sold in the US from 1996, in the European Union from 2001 (2004 for diesel) and most modern vehicles in other markets. You pick your car from an extensive catalog of makes and models, and non-standard protocols are handled as well as they can be.
An ELM327 adapter, which is the market standard and the one the app speaks. It can be Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or USB. Two warnings that save a lot of trouble: adapters with a proprietary or encrypted link, which only work with their own brand's app, are not usable; and very cheap clones are a lottery, because they copy the name but not the behaviour. We wrote a whole guide about it in OBD Adapters.
Yes, but only while you drive. The data path is always car → adapter → phone → destination: the phone is what talks to the adapter, interprets the ECU's answers and records the trip. It can stay in your pocket or on a mount, with the screen off, but it has to be in the vehicle during the drive. Once the trip is over, take the phone with you: nothing requires leaving it in the car.
It is also worth knowing that a good part of the app does not depend on the adapter. Logging fill-ups, expenses, services, maintenance, income and reminders, browsing the trip and cost history, seeing where you parked and entering a trip by hand all work with no connection to the car at all. And even without an adapter the app can record trips using GPS.
It is also worth knowing that a good part of the app does not depend on the adapter. Logging fill-ups, expenses, services, maintenance, income and reminders, browsing the trip and cost history, seeing where you parked and entering a trip by hand all work with no connection to the car at all. And even without an adapter the app can record trips using GPS.
It depends on what "off" means in your car, and that changes a lot between combustion and electric.
In combustion cars, generally no: the ECU goes to sleep along with the ignition and there is nothing to read, although some models stay awake for a few minutes after you switch off.
In hybrids and EVs the line sits elsewhere. A hybrid can be ready to drive with the combustion engine stopped, and in that state the ECU answers normally, with the engine speed at zero. An EV has no idle: the equivalent of running is the ready state, and several modules stay active outside it, especially while charging, when they usually do answer OBD.
In either case, if you connect the phone before the car wakes up, the app keeps trying in the background and resumes on its own as soon as the ECU answers. And none of this is the same as factory-fitted telematics (the OnStar family), which uses the manufacturer's own modem and never goes through the OBD port.
In combustion cars, generally no: the ECU goes to sleep along with the ignition and there is nothing to read, although some models stay awake for a few minutes after you switch off.
In hybrids and EVs the line sits elsewhere. A hybrid can be ready to drive with the combustion engine stopped, and in that state the ECU answers normally, with the engine speed at zero. An EV has no idle: the equivalent of running is the ready state, and several modules stay active outside it, especially while charging, when they usually do answer OBD.
In either case, if you connect the phone before the car wakes up, the app keeps trying in the background and resumes on its own as soon as the ECU answers. And none of this is the same as factory-fitted telematics (the OnStar family), which uses the manufacturer's own modem and never goes through the OBD port.
Yes. Car 2 Home is offline-first: reading sensors, recording trips, logging fill-ups and looking up fault codes all happen entirely on the phone, with no connection needed. The internet only comes in when you want to sync between devices or export to your connected home.
English, Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Turkish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Japanese, Greek, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Croatian. You switch the language inside the app, independently of the system language. If you find an odd or wrong translation, tell us through Settings > Report a bug: language corrections are welcome and go into the following updates.
Yes. Each measure has its own unit, and the whole app follows: history, charts, exports and what is published to your home automation.
You choose distance and speed, fuel volume, consumption, temperature, pressure, air flow, torque, engine power and weight separately, so mixed conventions work: miles with liters in the United Kingdom, kilometers with psi in Brazil. A new install starts from the usual units of the phone's region.
Choosing an adapter has enough detail to change a buying decision, so we gave the subject a page of its own. In OBD Adapters you will find what works on each system, the difference between the connection types, the most common buying mistakes and the models we recommend.
That is expected and not a problem. Bluetooth LE adapters are not paired through the system settings: they are discovered and connected inside Car 2 Home itself, on the Connection screen. Open the app, pick the BLE tab and select the adapter from the list.
Yes, on Android. You connect the adapter to the phone with an OTG cable and grant access when the system asks. The device needs USB host support, which is common but not universal. On iPhone and iPad there is no wired path, so on those platforms the choice is between BLE and Wi-Fi. You can find more detail on the OBD Adapters page.
Yes, on both platforms. A Wi-Fi adapter creates a network of its own: you connect the phone to that network before opening the app and then enter the IP and port on the Connection screen. Keep in mind that while it is attached to the adapter the phone normally has no internet over Wi-Fi, because that network has no way out. You can find more detail on the OBD Adapters page.
It does, as long as the head unit has the Play Store and Google Play Services, which rules out a good share of generic units. Worth knowing: the app's screens are designed in portrait: they work in landscape, but the visual use of the space is better on a phone. The app does not force an orientation, so the head unit decides.
Yes, while the trip is happening. It records with the screen off using a foreground service, the one that keeps the persistent notification, and connects on its own when you get in the car.
Two things depend on you for that to work. The first is granting every permission the app asks for, especially background location, choosing the option that grants access all the time, not only while the app is open: without it the system suspends location as soon as you leave the app, which is exactly the situation of a phone in your pocket while you drive. The second is turning off battery optimisation for Car 2 Home, otherwise the system kills the app mid-trip. Brands such as Samsung and Xiaomi are especially aggressive about this.
And it is worth being clear that this applies only during the trip. When it ends and the adapter connection closes, the app shuts the service down, the notification disappears and it goes back to sleep, without draining battery in the background. It is woken again by whichever start method you choose: automatic reconnection when you get in the car, Driving detection under Settings > Navigation, which works even without an adapter, or a system routine that opens the app when the phone connects to the car.
Two things depend on you for that to work. The first is granting every permission the app asks for, especially background location, choosing the option that grants access all the time, not only while the app is open: without it the system suspends location as soon as you leave the app, which is exactly the situation of a phone in your pocket while you drive. The second is turning off battery optimisation for Car 2 Home, otherwise the system kills the app mid-trip. Brands such as Samsung and Xiaomi are especially aggressive about this.
And it is worth being clear that this applies only during the trip. When it ends and the adapter connection closes, the app shuts the service down, the notification disappears and it goes back to sleep, without draining battery in the background. It is woken again by whichever start method you choose: automatic reconnection when you get in the car, Driving detection under Settings > Navigation, which works even without an adapter, or a system routine that opens the app when the phone connects to the car.
It does. The app has two ways of waking up: Bluetooth LE state restoration, which reacts when the adapter reappears, and iOS location updates, which react to movement.
Just like on Android, this depends on you granting the permissions the app asks for, especially background location and Bluetooth. Under Settings > Navigation there is also Background reconnect, iPhone-only, where you set for how long and how often the app insists on reconnecting each time it wakes.
There is one iOS detail well worth knowing: if you force-quit the app, swiping it up in the app switcher, Apple stops relaunching it when the adapter reappears. The app needs to fall asleep on its own, not be killed. The trip is not entirely lost in that case, because the second way of waking, the one driven by movement, still works after a force-quit. But it only fires after around 500 metres of driving, so the start of the trip is left out. Letting the app close by itself is what guarantees the whole trip.
And as on Android, all of this applies only during the trip: when it ends, the app goes back to sleep. You can also create a Shortcuts automation along the lines of "when connected to the car's Bluetooth, open Car 2 Home", which gives you a third way to start.
Just like on Android, this depends on you granting the permissions the app asks for, especially background location and Bluetooth. Under Settings > Navigation there is also Background reconnect, iPhone-only, where you set for how long and how often the app insists on reconnecting each time it wakes.
There is one iOS detail well worth knowing: if you force-quit the app, swiping it up in the app switcher, Apple stops relaunching it when the adapter reappears. The app needs to fall asleep on its own, not be killed. The trip is not entirely lost in that case, because the second way of waking, the one driven by movement, still works after a force-quit. But it only fires after around 500 metres of driving, so the start of the trip is left out. Letting the app close by itself is what guarantees the whole trip.
And as on Android, all of this applies only during the trip: when it ends, the app goes back to sleep. You can also create a Shortcuts automation along the lines of "when connected to the car's Bluetooth, open Car 2 Home", which gives you a third way to start.
On Android, yes. Under Start the app when the car turns on, on the Connection screen, you pick your car's Bluetooth from the list and the system launches the app when that device appears. The car has to be paired in the Android Bluetooth settings first.
On iPhone the system does not allow it, and the way round is an automation you create once in the Shortcuts app: when Bluetooth connects to your car, open Car 2 Home.
Either way, recording does not depend on the app being on screen. What the automatic start buys you is the app reconnecting sooner.
The catalog covers hundreds of makes and thousands of models, but not every version of every year ever built. If yours is not there, use Enter manually: in the vehicle setup, tap + and type the make and model.
Avoid picking a similar model. Similar names are usually different cars, such as Corolla and Corolla Cross, and it is from the model that the app suggests the manufacturer's advanced profile. A namesake can bring in the wrong profile, which gets in the way more than having no profile at all.
Entering manually does not limit the readings: standard OBD-II sensors depend on the car's ECU, not on the registered name. The model matters for the advanced profile suggestion and for the calculations that use engine and tank.
Avoid picking a similar model. Similar names are usually different cars, such as Corolla and Corolla Cross, and it is from the model that the app suggests the manufacturer's advanced profile. A namesake can bring in the wrong profile, which gets in the way more than having no profile at all.
Entering manually does not limit the readings: standard OBD-II sensors depend on the car's ECU, not on the registered name. The model matters for the advanced profile suggestion and for the calculations that use engine and tank.
Beyond the standard OBD-II sensors, which every car provides, each manufacturer exposes sensors of its own with private codes. Car 2 Home ships a catalog of those, with thousands of sensors mapped into per-model profiles, covering dozens of makes. Under Settings > Sensor Profiles you will see three tabs: Standard (the built-in ones), Advanced (the manufacturer catalog) and User (yours). The app suggests the advanced profile for your vehicle; there is one per vehicle, and installing another replaces the previous one.
It does. On the cost side, a charge is logged as a fill-up, with its own consumption in km/kWh, and a plug-in hybrid keeps fuel and electricity separate, each with its own average.
For live readings, the reach comes from the advanced profiles: the catalog covers EVs and hybrids from dozens of makes (European, Asian and American) with sensors that only exist in those cars, such as high-voltage battery state of charge, pack current and temperature, cell voltage and battery cooling.
What varies is how much each manufacturer decides to expose through the diagnostic port, and that changes from model to model. It is worth installing the advanced profile suggested for your vehicle and checking under Supported Sensors what it delivers.
For live readings, the reach comes from the advanced profiles: the catalog covers EVs and hybrids from dozens of makes (European, Asian and American) with sensors that only exist in those cars, such as high-voltage battery state of charge, pack current and temperature, cell voltage and battery cooling.
What varies is how much each manufacturer decides to expose through the diagnostic port, and that changes from model to model. It is worth installing the advanced profile suggested for your vehicle and checking under Supported Sensors what it delivers.
It depends. Some pre-OBD-II vehicles have a 16-pin connector that fits the adapter physically but speak a proprietary OBD-I protocol, which cannot be read. Check the vehicle's specifications to see whether it is explicitly OBD-II or EOBD compliant.
Partly. There are motorcycle profiles in the catalog, but the barrier is usually physical: most motorcycles do not use the 16-pin OBD-II connector, but a manufacturer's own 4- or 6-pin plug. In that case you need a brand-specific adapter cable before anything else. With the connector sorted and the bike speaking OBD-II, the app reads normally.
Partly, and it is worth understanding where the limit is. Teslas do not come with an OBD-II connector from the factory, but there are harnesses on the market that convert the car's proprietary connector to the 16-pin standard, and with one of those an ordinary adapter fits physically.
The problem is what comes next. Being electric, Teslas barely implement the standard OBD-II commands, and the data that matters travels on a proprietary bus. Tesla owners report that apps which query the car command by command, which is how ours works, get no answer, and that is why the apps built for the brand had to decode that bus themselves. We have not tested the app on a Tesla yet, so there is no guarantee of live readings even with the harness installed.
What does work is everything that does not depend on the adapter: Tesla is in the catalog, so you register the vehicle and use charges with consumption in km/kWh, expenses, services, maintenance and reminders, plus trips recorded by GPS.
The problem is what comes next. Being electric, Teslas barely implement the standard OBD-II commands, and the data that matters travels on a proprietary bus. Tesla owners report that apps which query the car command by command, which is how ours works, get no answer, and that is why the apps built for the brand had to decode that bus themselves. We have not tested the app on a Tesla yet, so there is no guarantee of live readings even with the harness installed.
What does work is everything that does not depend on the adapter: Tesla is in the catalog, so you register the vehicle and use charges with consumption in km/kWh, expenses, services, maintenance and reminders, plus trips recorded by GPS.
You can. Each vehicle has its own history of trips, fill-ups, expenses, maintenance and sensor profile, and nothing mixes between them. You switch the active car with the selector on the vehicle card on the home screen, which appears when more than one is registered, or under Settings > My Garage. During a trip in progress the selector is locked, so data from two cars never ends up in the same trip. If a vehicle has left your life but you want to keep the history, you can archive it: it leaves the quick switcher and stays available to consult, with nothing deleted.
On the first connection the app asks the ECU which sensors it supports and stores the answer, so the list is your car's, not a generic one. You see the result under Supported Sensors, in the Mechanic area. If you install an advanced profile, there is also the option to test support sensor by sensor, useful because the manufacturer catalog is usually broader than the specific version of your vehicle accepts.
Yes. Every sensor carries an Expression field, which computes a value from other sensors, so you can derive things the car does not report directly, such as power at the wheels from engine speed and torque.
On top of that there is an Accumulator, which keeps a rolling window over another sensor. You pick what closes the window, time, distance or a number of samples, and what it returns: sum, average, delta, slope or the last value. That is how you build a sensor like average consumption over the last 50 km.
Built-in and catalog profiles are read only, so you start by exporting the sensor to your own profile and editing the copy.
It depends on whether you have an adapter registered. With an adapter, recording is automatic: the app understands the trip has started when the car goes past 5 km/h and confirms it by cross-checking speed against engine speed, which is the recommended mode in that case. Without an adapter, it works from speed alone and never starts anything on its own: when it notices you appear to be driving, it asks whether you want to record the trip and you decide.
You can also start a trip whenever you want, without waiting for detection. On Android, from the app, the widgets, Android Auto or a system routine. On iPhone, from the app, the widgets, Live Activities, CarPlay, Shortcuts or by asking Siri. And if you forgot to record one, you can enter the whole trip by hand afterwards.
You can also start a trip whenever you want, without waiting for detection. On Android, from the app, the widgets, Android Auto or a system routine. On iPhone, from the app, the widgets, Live Activities, CarPlay, Shortcuts or by asking Siri. And if you forgot to record one, you can enter the whole trip by hand afterwards.
It does. At the end of the trip it records the spot automatically, with the address. From there you can add a photo, a note, set an alarm for the parking meter and ask for navigation back to the spot. There is also a parking widget for the home screen.
They are two scores per trip, on different axes. The Safe Score looks at driving risk: hard acceleration and braking, aggressive cornering, time at high speed, phone use at the wheel and other events that can mean a risk to safety. Driving at night also weighs a little, being a lower-visibility condition. The Eco Score looks at efficiency: how much time the engine spends at high revs (which penalises), how long you stay stopped with the engine running (which also penalises), how much you make use of fuel cut-off by lifting off before stopping (which helps), the smoothness of your speed and the average consumption compared with the car's reference, among other events. One important detail: the Eco Score depends on fuel data, so on very short trips or in vehicles that do not report consumption it simply is not calculated.
In vehicles that expose those sensors through the OBD port and are covered by our catalog, yes, with a discovery step that identifies each wheel separately so you know which is which.
The Panel builds gauges from the sensors you choose. The HUD (Head-up Display) mirrors the information so it reflects on the windscreen. The dashcam lets you record the drive through the phone's camera, with a few sensors overlaid in real time, and the video stays attached to the matching trip, reachable from its detail screen. And the Acceleration screen brings together four tests: Acceleration Time, over the speed range you define, 1/4 mile, Brake Time and Brake Distance. Each run goes into a history with a chart and the longitudinal and lateral acceleration peaks, so you can compare attempts.
Because Android Auto restricts what third-party apps may draw on the car screen, for road safety, and requires Google's standard components. What you find there is Connection, Panel, Trip Data and Maintenance. The full panel stays on the phone screen. CarPlay is supported too, with the same menu and the same restrictions, which there come from Apple.
There are, on both platforms. There are home-screen widgets for the driving score, the last trip, parking, sensors and quick actions. On Android, long-pressing the icon opens shortcuts for the most used actions, such as starting and ending a trip. On iPhone, those same actions are available to Shortcuts and automations, most of them with ready-made phrases for Siri, and Live Activities show the trip in progress on the lock screen.
The Eco Score is the only score that needs a fuel consumption reading, and that reading comes from the adapter: the app derives it from the air flow sensor, with the intake pressure sensor as a fallback. On a trip recorded by GPS alone, with no adapter connected, there is nothing to compute it from and the score is left out rather than shown wrong.
Two other cases leave it out even with the adapter connected: trips under a minute, and trips too short to burn a measurable amount of fuel. The Safe Score is unaffected, because it is built from movement, which the phone measures on its own.
It does, up to a point. After 3 seconds with no GPS fix the app starts estimating position from the phone's own motion sensors, gyroscope and orientation, adding a point per second so the route stays continuous instead of jumping across the gap.
The estimate drifts, so it is capped at 2 minutes. Beyond that the app waits for a real fix. It covers a tunnel or a spiral car park ramp well; it will not carry you through a long underground stretch.
Through more than one route, and they complement each other.
Live, during the trip. This route requires a connected OBD adapter, because that is how the app reads the car's sensors. When the car reports fuel flow, the app uses that value; when it does not, it estimates from other sensors, such as air flow, engine load, engine speed and mixture ratio. What comes out of it is instant consumption, the trip's accumulated consumption and rolling averages over distance driven, useful for ignoring the noise of a hill or a traffic light. How much of this your car delivers depends on the sensors it exposes.
From fill-ups, tank to tank. This is the figure the pump proves: you mark the fill-up as a full tank and the app closes the interval at the next one, dividing the distance driven by the total filled in between. Partial fill-ups count. If you forgot to log one, tick the matching option and the app breaks the interval instead of spoiling the average.
Comparing the two. On every tank the app shows side by side what the car reported and what the pump proved, so you get to know your vehicle's deviation.
The electric side is measured separately, in kWh, with its own consumption, so a plug-in hybrid never mixes the two.
Live, during the trip. This route requires a connected OBD adapter, because that is how the app reads the car's sensors. When the car reports fuel flow, the app uses that value; when it does not, it estimates from other sensors, such as air flow, engine load, engine speed and mixture ratio. What comes out of it is instant consumption, the trip's accumulated consumption and rolling averages over distance driven, useful for ignoring the noise of a hill or a traffic light. How much of this your car delivers depends on the sensors it exposes.
From fill-ups, tank to tank. This is the figure the pump proves: you mark the fill-up as a full tank and the app closes the interval at the next one, dividing the distance driven by the total filled in between. Partial fill-ups count. If you forgot to log one, tick the matching option and the app breaks the interval instead of spoiling the average.
Comparing the two. On every tank the app shows side by side what the car reported and what the pump proved, so you get to know your vehicle's deviation.
The electric side is measured separately, in kWh, with its own consumption, so a plug-in hybrid never mixes the two.
For two reasons, and the second is the less obvious one.
The sources are different. The car's display calculates from the flow estimated by the ECU; tank-to-tank consumption measures what the pump actually delivered.
The calculation windows are different too. Even when the app uses the flow reported by the car itself, the figure may not match the dashboard: each manufacturer averages over its own window of time or distance, with an algorithm that is not published and that hardly ever matches the windows the app offers, be it the instant one, the trip one or the rolling averages over distance. Two correct measurements can diverge simply because they cover different stretches.
That is why the app calculates both and shows them side by side on every tank, so you get to know your car's deviation instead of guessing which one is right. The ECU column only appears when the recorded trips cover a sufficient share of the interval's distance, otherwise the comparison would rest on too small a sample.
The sources are different. The car's display calculates from the flow estimated by the ECU; tank-to-tank consumption measures what the pump actually delivered.
The calculation windows are different too. Even when the app uses the flow reported by the car itself, the figure may not match the dashboard: each manufacturer averages over its own window of time or distance, with an algorithm that is not published and that hardly ever matches the windows the app offers, be it the instant one, the trip one or the rolling averages over distance. Two correct measurements can diverge simply because they cover different stretches.
That is why the app calculates both and shows them side by side on every tank, so you get to know your car's deviation instead of guessing which one is right. The ECU column only appears when the recorded trips cover a sufficient share of the interval's distance, otherwise the comparison would rest on too small a sample.
The app treats each type of energy as its own thing, on both sides.
In the live calculation. The fuel declared in the vehicle setup defines the basis of the calculation, because each one has a different density and air-fuel mixture. On a flex-fuel car the app goes further: when the car reports the ethanol percentage in the tank, it identifies the blend (from E0 to E100) and readjusts the calculation in real time, without you having to say what you filled with. If the car stops reporting it, the app carries on with the last reliable value instead of getting the maths wrong.
In cost tracking. Liquids, LPG, CNG and electric have their own consumption figures that never mix. A plug-in hybrid shows fuel consumption and electric consumption in km/kWh at the same time, each with its own average, and a gas-converted car keeps gas consumption separate from petrol. In a single fill-up you can log more than one fuel, which covers topping up with two types at the same stop.
In the live calculation. The fuel declared in the vehicle setup defines the basis of the calculation, because each one has a different density and air-fuel mixture. On a flex-fuel car the app goes further: when the car reports the ethanol percentage in the tank, it identifies the blend (from E0 to E100) and readjusts the calculation in real time, without you having to say what you filled with. If the car stops reporting it, the app carries on with the last reliable value instead of getting the maths wrong.
In cost tracking. Liquids, LPG, CNG and electric have their own consumption figures that never mix. A plug-in hybrid shows fuel consumption and electric consumption in km/kWh at the same time, each with its own average, and a gas-converted car keeps gas consumption separate from petrol. In a single fill-up you can log more than one fuel, which covers topping up with two types at the same stop.
You can. A charge is logged as an ordinary fill-up, with the amount in kWh and the price paid, and produces a consumption figure in km/kWh. It works both for pure EVs and for plug-in hybrids, which keep that figure separate from fuel consumption.
The whole vehicle. Besides fill-ups, you log expenses, services done at the workshop, preventive maintenance with parts and fluids, income (useful for people who work with their car) and reminders. All of it appears together in a per-vehicle timeline, which is where the car's story becomes visible at a glance.
It does. For maintenance you set the reminder by distance, by date or by both, and the app follows the odometer to notify you at the right time. For refuelling, it uses your consumption history and average usage to estimate when the tank should run out and remind you beforehand.
It reads the ECU's fault codes, in three depths that you choose. Basic reads, through the general OBD-II address, the standard codes and the detailed codes of the modules that answer it. Advanced goes to every known module in the vehicle, one by one, with each manufacturer's addresses and sessions, and enables the sensor snapshot for each fault. And Professional lists the vehicle's modules so you choose which ones to read or clear, with the information of each module.
Codes are split into confirmed, pending and permanent, which say different things about the severity and stage of the problem.
The explanation of each code comes from an extensive catalog, with symptoms, likely causes and paths to a solution. It does not cover every code in existence, mainly the manufacturer-specific ones, so every fault also brings a search shortcut already prepared with the code, in your language.
You can also clear the codes, and the reading history is kept so you can see whether any came back. Scanning is blocked while the car is moving, on purpose.
Codes are split into confirmed, pending and permanent, which say different things about the severity and stage of the problem.
The explanation of each code comes from an extensive catalog, with symptoms, likely causes and paths to a solution. It does not cover every code in existence, mainly the manufacturer-specific ones, so every fault also brings a search shortcut already prepared with the code, in your language.
You can also clear the codes, and the reading history is kept so you can see whether any came back. Scanning is blocked while the car is moving, on purpose.
When the ECU records a fault, it takes a snapshot of the sensors at that instant, with engine speed, temperature, engine load and others. That is the freeze frame, and it often says more about the problem than the code itself, because it shows the condition in which it happened. The emission monitors are the self-tests the car runs on its own; they are what tells you whether the vehicle is ready for the mandatory inspection.
You can, and it is important to understand what that means. Clearing the code wipes the warning and the freeze frame attached to it, but fixes nothing: if the cause is still there, the light comes back as soon as the car detects the problem again. Clearing also resets the emission monitors, and the vehicle has to drive for a while to complete them again, which is why it is not a good idea to clear codes shortly before an inspection.
They are three levels of depth. Live Data shows every available sensor in a list, with a chart. The Panel lets you build gauges with only what matters, in six formats. The Terminal is for people who know what they are doing: it sends commands straight to the adapter and shows the raw answer, useful for investigating a vehicle that responds unusually or for testing commands specific to your car and discovering sensors by hand.
Because each one carries a Priority, and the adapter can only ask the car one question at a time. Spending that budget equally on everything would make the numbers that change fast unusable.
There are four levels: High, read in real time, Medium, about every 5 seconds, Low, about every 60 seconds, and Once per session for values that never change, such as the VIN. Speed and engine speed are always read continuously.
You can change the priority of any sensor, and there is a global setting for how fast the priority sensors are polled.
They are two routes and you pick one, because they do not work at the same time. The difference lies less in what each one carries and more in who each one is for.
The native integration is made for Home Assistant users. You install it through HACS, pair with a 6-digit code and it keeps a two-way connection with persistent state, so Home Assistant still knows the car's situation after a restart. It is also the simpler route to set up.
MQTT is for people who already have a broker or use platforms beyond Home Assistant, such as Node-RED, openHAB, ioBroker or Grafana. It publishes in several formats, including Home Assistant auto-discovery. In exchange for that flexibility it requires the broker to be running and, to work while you are away from home, requires exposing that broker securely, which takes more setup work.
In short: if your destination is Home Assistant, start with the native one; if it is another system, go with MQTT. The details of each are in Home Assistant and MQTT.
The native integration is made for Home Assistant users. You install it through HACS, pair with a 6-digit code and it keeps a two-way connection with persistent state, so Home Assistant still knows the car's situation after a restart. It is also the simpler route to set up.
MQTT is for people who already have a broker or use platforms beyond Home Assistant, such as Node-RED, openHAB, ioBroker or Grafana. It publishes in several formats, including Home Assistant auto-discovery. In exchange for that flexibility it requires the broker to be running and, to work while you are away from home, requires exposing that broker securely, which takes more setup work.
In short: if your destination is Home Assistant, start with the native one; if it is another system, go with MQTT. The details of each are in Home Assistant and MQTT.
No. Car 2 Home works fully on its own, whether or not you use any smart home platform. Home integration is an extra for people who already have one or want to build one.
Three steps. First, install Car 2 Home through HACS and restart Home Assistant. Then, in Home Assistant, go to Settings > Devices & Services > Add Integration and choose Car 2 Home. Finally, in the app, under Settings > Home Assistant, enter your instance's address and type the 6-digit code shown on screen.
You control that. In Online mode the app transmits while you drive, which requires your server to be reachable from outside your home. In Wi-Fi only mode it records locally and only sends when the phone joins a Wi-Fi network. Worth knowing: even on Wi-Fi only, two options come enabled by default and keep transmitting over mobile data: events and the phone's location, the latter at most once a minute. Both live under Settings > Home Assistant, and you can turn them off if you prefer.
You choose. The sensors from the vehicle's active profile can go, including those from the manufacturer's advanced profile, plus the figures from your cost tracking, such as odometer, average consumption, last fill-up and parking. Sensors are announced gradually, as they appear, so the dashboard builds itself over the first few trips. The number of calculated sensors and the update rate vary by plan; see “What are the free plan's export limits?” under Plans and purchases.
Free is ad-supported and holds one vehicle. Pro removes the ads and unlocks the full feature set, with everything on the device. Pro Cloud adds cloud backup and sync across your devices, with the largest vehicle quota.
Besides removing the ads, the paid plans unlock:
Pro is yearly or a one-off lifetime purchase; Pro Cloud is monthly or yearly. One point that often causes confusion: the lifetime purchase gives you Pro, and does not include the cloud.
Besides removing the ads, the paid plans unlock:
- sensor discovery with no limit on quantity;
- calculated sensors and events with no limit when exporting to Home Assistant and MQTT;
- near-real-time transmission to Home Assistant and MQTT, instead of the free plan's long interval;
- logging income against the vehicle;
- place search when logging fill-ups, expenses, services and maintenance;
- the trip map with no restriction, on the route and on the playback;
- tyre temperature as well as pressure, on vehicles that expose that sensor and are covered by the app's catalog;
- customisable panels in Live Data;
- exporting reports and your data to a file;
- the parking widget;
- more registered vehicles.
Pro is yearly or a one-off lifetime purchase; Pro Cloud is monthly or yearly. One point that often causes confusion: the lifetime purchase gives you Pro, and does not include the cloud.
A great deal. With one vehicle registered you get live sensor readings, trip recording, parking records, fault-code reading with the explanations and the vehicle's cost tracking, with fill-ups, expenses, services, maintenance and reminders.
The free plan is supported by ads. And there is one more route: several paid-plan features can be unlocked one at a time, by watching a rewarded ad, without subscribing to anything. That is the case for installing a manufacturer's advanced profile, sensor discovery, the intermediate diagnostic scans, tyre-sensor discovery and some exports. Subscribing removes the ads and takes that step out of the way.
The free plan is supported by ads. And there is one more route: several paid-plan features can be unlocked one at a time, by watching a rewarded ad, without subscribing to anything. That is the case for installing a manufacturer's advanced profile, sensor discovery, the intermediate diagnostic scans, tyre-sensor discovery and some exports. Subscribing removes the ads and takes that step out of the way.
Free holds 1 vehicle, Pro up to 2 vehicles and Pro Cloud up to 5 vehicles.
There are two, and they are worth knowing before you build your dashboard.
Quantity. On Free you export up to 5 sensors from the calculated and event family, which gathers what the app produces rather than the car: average consumption, reconstructed odometer, trip summary, parking, driving score, phone sensors and the cost-tracking figures. Sensors read straight from the car's ECU do not count towards that and are unlimited on every plan. The split is not arbitrary: on one side what the vehicle reports, on the other what the app calculates.
Frequency. On Free, live values are sent at most every 5 minutes, against 0.5 seconds on the paid plans. That interval affects only continuous telemetry, such as speed and engine speed; parking, trip summary and the rest still arrive right away.
Quantity. On Free you export up to 5 sensors from the calculated and event family, which gathers what the app produces rather than the car: average consumption, reconstructed odometer, trip summary, parking, driving score, phone sensors and the cost-tracking figures. Sensors read straight from the car's ECU do not count towards that and are unlimited on every plan. The split is not arbitrary: on one side what the vehicle reports, on the other what the app calculates.
Frequency. On Free, live values are sent at most every 5 minutes, against 0.5 seconds on the paid plans. That interval affects only continuous telemetry, such as speed and engine speed; parking, trip summary and the rest still arrive right away.
You can, and there is no device limit. The plan lives on your Car 2 Home account, not on the phone, so you just sign in with the same account on the other device. Your data only follows automatically on Pro Cloud; on Pro, the plan applies everywhere, but the history stays on each device.
You can. The plan is tied to your Car 2 Home account, not to the store where the purchase was made. Sign in with the same account on the iPhone and it is already active. Do not use Apple's “Restore purchases”, because the purchase was not made there. Only billing and cancellation stay with the original store.
Car 2 Home never processes payments directly: every transaction goes through the App Store or Google Play. In these cases the problem is almost always with the store's or the card's rules. Check whether the card accepts international purchases and whether the billing details on your store account are up to date.
Nothing is deleted. Vehicles above the limit keep existing with their full history; you choose which one or ones stay active, according to the limit of the plan you ended up on. For exports to the connected home there is a 7-day grace period, with a notice on the first and last day, during which absolutely nothing changes. After that, the app exports only the free plan's quantity, but your sensor selection is not rewritten: if you subscribe again, everything comes back on its own, with nothing to redo.
Mostly nowhere beyond your phone. Live sensor readings stay on the device and are not sent to us. Exports to Home Assistant or MQTT go straight from the phone to your home, without passing through our servers. What syncs is what you subscribe to: with Pro Cloud, your vehicles, trips, fill-ups and expenses are backed up for another device to restore, and that includes the trip's route on the map and its sensor history, which is exactly what lets you open the same trip on another device.
Data is stored encrypted with AES-256 on the device itself, travels over a TLS connection and, on our side, sits in a database on an isolated network with restricted access, behind several layers of firewall. We follow the LGPD, the GDPR and the CCPA/CPRA, and you can delete your account and data whenever you want. The details are in the Privacy Policy.
Data is stored encrypted with AES-256 on the device itself, travels over a TLS connection and, on our side, sits in a database on an isolated network with restricted access, behind several layers of firewall. We follow the LGPD, the GDPR and the CCPA/CPRA, and you can delete your account and data whenever you want. The details are in the Privacy Policy.
For most of the app, no: the vast majority of features run without signing in, with everything on the phone. A few do require an account, and buying or restoring a plan is one of them.
Once you sign in, your vehicle and the paired adapter start syncing, which already helps when changing devices. Trips, fill-ups, expenses and the rest of the history only go up with Pro Cloud. On a Pro without the cloud they never leave the phone.
Once you sign in, your vehicle and the paired adapter start syncing, which already helps when changing devices. Trips, fill-ups, expenses and the rest of the history only go up with Pro Cloud. On a Pro without the cloud they never leave the phone.
In two ways, both under Settings > Backup and export. Backup / Restore produces a single file with everything, which you keep wherever you like and restore later. Export data to file produces spreadsheets by period and by area (fill-ups, maintenance, services, expenses, income and reminders) to open in any spreadsheet editor. Exporting data to file is a PRO feature.
Under Settings > Report a bug. The option opens a message with the technical log already attached, which is what makes it possible to understand what happened without having to ask for details. Describe what you were doing and what you expected to happen; the more concrete, the faster the diagnosis.
From the Account screen in the app, or from the deletion page on the website. You get a confirmation e-mail and, once you confirm, deletion is scheduled with a 7-day grace period, during which you can still cancel from the app if you change your mind. After that, the server data is removed. If you want to keep a copy first, request the export of your data on the same screen.