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BMW i3s + OBD + Android app, losing connection via OBD

Bug Reports

🚧 THIS IS A TICKET MIGRATED FROM UPVOTY. The original ticket and comments will be available for a limited time over at:
https://abrp.upvoty.com/b/report-a-bug/long-trip-nightmare/
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Hi there,

first of all, I do love ABRP for what it can do for me, but just as much as I hate it for what it actually does to me.
Once in a while I do long trips in my BMW i3s. Thats what I do need ABRP for in the first place. Today was one of them. My Setup: ABRP on Android 13, BMW i3s with OBDLink CX, Wireless Android Auto. When everything is working, ABRP is just close to perfect for Live-SoC based routing. But for me on long trips it keeps losing ODB connectivity some time between "some minutes after start" and "after a couple of charging stops". And as soon as OBD connection is lost, the whole point of using ABRP for EV-routing is lost IMHO. So having a stable and reliable OBD connection is the only thing I NEED to be able to use ABRP reliably. I kindly ask you to give this some priorized investigation as it completely breaks the deal for me. If there is anything I can help you with in terms of debugging or testing, don't hesitate to get in contact.

FYI today I was taking extra care to keep the phone in the car while doing charge stops, to not interrupt OBD bluetooth connection while charging. Furthermore I ensured that phone will stay on all the time and that car ECUs won't go to sleep (all kinds of things I thought might be causing the OBD connection to break). Yet I still lost OBD on both directions of the trip. I once had the impression that this happens motly during charging sessions. But today gave me the impression that it also happens randomly while driving. Once OBD conection is broken, the only way to get it back is to reboot phone and sleep-cycle car-ECUs. Only then OBD live data will correctly connect again.

Then, once OBD live data is broken, there are further issues that drive me crazy when trying to deal with that situation on a trip:

  • ABRP Android Auto still (sometimes) claims to have OBD connection (green bluetooth symbol close to SoC value) while actually it has not, making SoC display value untrustable. I determined the best way to tell if OBD is actually working is to look at the companion display on the phone screen. When there is the battery info bar (including battery temperature) this is a strong hint that OBD live data is valid a.t.m.
  • the +/- buttons to manually adjust SoC to compensate for missing live data are too tiny and way to close to the "stop-routing" 'x' button in order to properly operate them while driving
  • whenever it replans the route, SoC will jump back to a fantasy value so manually adjusting SoC in that state is close to pointless

I'm sure I missed some feedback I was thinking of while I was on my trip today as it was plenty. But I think these are the most important things I had in mind.

Sorry for that negative feedback, but as I said I do love ABRP when its working, and I want to encourage you to get it working in that perfect shape, reliably.

Thank you so much!

BR, Tobi

Posted by Tobi ·
Status: Rejected1 comment

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Comments1

  • Tobi

    •

    Sep 10, 2025

    I would like to give an update to this my ticket.

    Back then the issue was really making ABRP useless to me. I never got an update on this ticket, maybe due to the change of bug tracking tool in between, but some months ago something changed the situation to the better. Still the OBD connection is somewhat fragile and regularly gets interrupted. But as opposed to back then, now when getting into the “broken” state, after a couple of minutes it manages to update data at least once every couple of minutes. As SoC does not change that fast (not even on the dated i3) this makes ABRP usable for me, again.

    On the other hand I want to state that I do not agree with this ticket having been rejected. The issue is still not fixed, its just in a state where I can handle it for the most basic task, yet important features (like learning vehicle consumption) are broken in that state as for this to work updates in the “broken” state come way to intermittent, I assume.

    For everyone interrested, you would have to read the full comments conversation of this ticket on upvoty (see link above it ticket description) where I put a lot of effort into to help sort this out.