yaris-obd 🚗📡

A Raspberry Pi 3-based OBD-II, GPS, and dashcam system for my 2013 Toyota Yaris. It reads live vehicle data over USB, tracks position with a SIM868 GNSS/GSM HAT, logs everything locally, and serves a web UI over the car's own WiFi hotspot. The dashboard and pre-cached map work fully offline, while trip data and dashcam footage sync to a self-hosted remote server whenever an internet uplink is available.

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Screenshots

Dashboard — mobile (390 px) and desktop (1280 px):

Features

• 📊 Live OBD-II data over a cheap USB ELM327-compatible adapter: speed, RPM, coolant temperature, fuel level, throttle position, MIL status, stored DTCs, and odometer when the ECU supports it. Includes automatic background reconnects, serialized queries, and clear adapter/ELM327/ECU diagnostics
• 🛰️ Real GPS tracking via a Waveshare SIM868 GNSS/GSM/Bluetooth HAT, plotted live on an offline Leaflet map (pre-cached map tiles — no internet needed in the car). The module powers itself on through the HAT's GPIO PWRKEY wiring after a Pi power cycle
• 📶 Self-hosted WiFi hotspot so you can load the web UI on your phone from inside the car, with automatic switching back to home WiFi when it is available (http://yaris.local — no port number)
• 🎥 Dashcam file retrieval — detects a USB dashcam automatically (any brand/folder layout, no hardcoded device path), mounts it read-only, and safely copies footage locally. Verified against a real 28GB/87-file import. The web UI can also browse, sort, and delete individual or all videos directly from the connected dashcam with confirmed, temporary read-write operations, plus import one file or any checkbox selection instead of always importing the whole card
• ▶️ Local video library — browse imported clips with cached thumbnails and upload status, play H.264 footage inline with seeking, and delete only the local Pi copy. Optional retention can automatically remove older local copies after their exact content is confirmed uploaded
• ☁️ Remote upload — a self-hosted server (Flask + Postgres, server/) receives trip/GPS logs and dashcam footage over the internet (via Cloudflare Tunnel or a plain port-forward). Dashcam videos upload in resumable 40MB chunks (works around tunnel body-size limits and keeps the Pi's memory footprint flat regardless of file size); a UI toggle can pause dashcam uploads independently while trip logs keep syncing
• 📡 Optional cellular fallback through the SIM868 for small trip-log uploads when normal WiFi/Ethernet is unavailable (dashcam video stays off cellular)
• 🗄️ Motion-aware local-first SQLite logging — five-second motion checks without five-second parked writes, plus retry-safe remote sync and automatic backoff
• 🌡️ Pi health monitoring — dashboard temperature, RAM, disk space, uptime, and explicit undervoltage/throttling warnings from the Raspberry Pi firmware
• 🔔 Offline-first alerts — a notification bell on every page reports check-engine state, storage pressure, upload backlog, temperature/power faults, and GPS loss while moving. Optional ntfy delivery is available but remains disabled until configured
• 🛣️ Trip history and route replay — detects motion from OBD wheel speed with sustained GPS displacement as a fallback, summarizes distance and speed in metric units (km / km/h), and replays each route as a line on the offline map with a timestamped play/pause timeline, moving marker, and live reverse-geocoded location name during scrubbing. Tap any trip row on mobile to load the route
• 🗺️ Offline reverse geocoding — a /api/geocode route on the Pi uses the reverse_geocoder library (20 MB world dataset, no internet needed) for city/region, and upgrades to Nominatim street-level when an internet uplink is available. Results are LRU-cached in-process. The browser never calls any external geocoding service
• 🖥️ Offline web UI built with Flask, Jinja, Bootstrap 5, Socket.IO, Chart.js, and Leaflet, all served locally with a shared responsive page shell
• 🔌 Headless Pi deployment as a self-restarting systemd service with a 10-second BCM2835 hardware watchdog, verified across a real reboot

Hardware

Part	Notes
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2	Web UI host, logger, uploader, and WiFi hotspot
Waveshare SIM868 HAT	GNSS (GPS) + optional GSM/GPRS uplink, unused Bluetooth
USB OBD-II adapter	PL2303-based, ELM327-compatible (originally Bluetooth, switched to USB)
TP-Link Archer T3U (RTL8812BU)	USB WiFi dongle — AC1300 dual-band, replaces onboard wlan0 for hotspot + uplink
USB dashcam	Any brand — detected as generic USB mass storage
2013 Toyota Yaris	The patient

See PLAN.md for full hardware bring-up notes (SIM868 jumper/UART setup, antenna gotchas, etc.) and the detailed project history.

Getting started

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 app.py

The app serves on http://<host>:5000. On the Pi it runs as a systemd service and is reachable with no port number at http://yaris.local after installing the mDNS and port-redirect setup. Deployment helpers for the app service, hotspot watcher, port redirect, and hardware watchdog are in deploy/; see PLAN.md for the complete Pi setup and hardware notes.

For the remote server (receives trip logs + dashcam uploads), see server/README.md.

Project status

Phases 1–13, 15–23, and 23.5 are complete. The full responsive web UI redesign (Phase 23) is done, followed by a major polish and hardware upgrade pass (Phase 23.5):

• Async dashcam import with progress polling — no more mobile timeouts
• Per-file Convert button with real ffmpeg progress (reads out_time_ms via -progress pipe:1)
• Odometer tracking from OBD in every trip row and the overview dashboard
• Separate upload toggles for trips/logs vs dashcam videos
• Download button on Pi video files
• Offline reverse geocoding — /api/geocode route on the Pi uses reverse_geocoder (20 MB, no internet needed); falls back to Nominatim for street-level accuracy when online. Browser never calls any external service
• Live location name on dashboard GPS card (updates every ~50 m) and trip scrubber timeline
• Recenter button on dashboard and history maps
• Imperial units removed — metric only (km / km/h)
• Mobile trip replay — tap any trip row to load the route; Replay button kept on desktop only
• TP-Link Archer T3U WiFi dongle — RTL8812BU DKMS driver installed; all WiFi traffic moved to wlan1 (AC1300, dual-band). wlan0 onboard stays silent as automatic fallback if dongle is absent. Consistent phone-hotspot IP via dhcp-client-id

Phase 14 is partially complete: the Pi's hardware watchdog is deployed and reboot-verified. Read-only-root storage hardening is deferred until persistent storage is moved off the SD root partition, and clean shutdown still needs delayed-power or ignition-sense hardware.

The browser-based phone relay was removed after real-world testing confirmed that mobile browsers cannot reliably use the Pi's WiFi and cellular data simultaneously. A native Android companion is planned later instead.

The local Web UI includes a Settings page for safe runtime configuration: dashcam uploads, uploaded-video retention, cellular APN fallback, optional ntfy delivery, and alert thresholds. Notification secrets are write-only in the browser API, and network credentials that could lock the Pi out remain SSH/file-managed. When cellular is configured, small ntfy notifications use the SIM868 first and WiFi/Ethernet only as fallback; that modem path is implemented and mock-tested but still needs real-SIM/carrier verification.

The Pi can also join a configured phone hotspot for outbound internet when no SIM is available, including trip synchronization and WiFi dashcam uploads, with automatic recovery to home WiFi or the Pi-hosted local hotspot.

A temporary, removable real-vehicle compatibility test in the 2013 Yaris (Phase 25) precedes the final low-priority Android phase (Phase 26). Permanent installation is owner-handled and is not a roadmap phase. Full phase history, verification notes, and current scope live in PLAN.md.