New Integration Request: Bouncie - OBD2 vehicle tracking

One thing I struggled with when I looked at this initially was that the authorization process to get access to the devices must hit an external web interface. You hit a web interface with some parameters including the external URL, log in with your bouncie creds, and authorize access to your devices, which then sends the auth code to the URL you provide. I did this in testing to my Node Red instance. Perhaps part of the process for this could be to a web hook on HA??

Sounds like OAUTH2.

It is. I have no knowledge of how an integration might handle that initial auth code. I had it hit a web instance on node red to get it on redirect. I decided to try my hand at hitting the REST api with Node Red, and have done that now, just have to parse the data and assign it to helpers. Obviously, a real integration would be much cleaner.

Got as far as getting fuel levels for 4 vehicles, and handling the token expiration in Node Red. The way I’m doing this in Node Red isn’t really scalable for multiple people as an integration, and it’s far from simple, and requires a web instance set up to provide the initial auth code

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As I understand WebHook doesn’t go very well with Home Assistant. Fortunately, Bouncie has REST API available. With the REST we can get pretty much same data but there might be some limitations how many requests we can make, in that case it wouldn’t be as instantaneous as webhook. But I’d still be happily to have an integration. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: @mandarons has started working on this project and he’s using REST.

Yea, I’m curious on the limitations in the REST calls… sending them every 10s now… throughput wise it’s very little traffic… imagine the Bouncie app is as bad probably??

On data, I think there are some things you can do with webhooks that you won’t be able to do with REST, or as easily and in real time, but I’ll have to look at the data I’m pulling… Webhook sends events, so you get TripStart and TripEnd, which I don’t think you will probably get with REST?? So far I have fuel gauge, speedometer, and odemeter pulling via REST. Will see how the stability is. webhooks requires an inbound connection obviously, which is a challenge for a number of reasons.

I’m curious what other peoples use cases for Bouncie in HA are… mine was initially for fuel gauge, but started doing trip summaries with webhooks and sending alerts that way, which with kids driving is kind of nice… would have to check JSON data to see if trip start and end is available via REST.

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That’s awesome!

There are many use cases I can think of…

  1. For presence detection - with coordinates we can track vehicle’s location and automate things based of off that.

  2. Mileage tracker - can track mileage based on Odometer readings.

  3. Cost tracking - Since Bounie doesn’t have built in trip by trip cost (Automatic had this feature), we can track how much we’re spending on gas mileage. No need another app for fuel tracking.

  4. Getting rid of Bouncie app - One less app on my phone.

https://childof69.co.uk/ha-car-telemetry/

Yea not sure all that’s going to be possible with an integration. I think it would need a cloud server to collect data perhaps, but will see what happens, could just be I don’t understand the API well enough… I’m not a developer, just threw some stuff together in node red to handle basic stuff. As for gas cost, you’d have to have an input for what you actually pay when you fill I would think to measure actual cost, and I’m not sure you’d ever replace all the functionality of the bouncie app.

Geofencing is my usecase.

Yea, playing around with GeoCode with REST calls from Node Red right now… something I didn’t expect was that while HA reboots, the location for the object is “Not Home”. So automations that rely on transition from Not Home to Home may be a problem?? The native app doesn’t report it that way, and neither does Life 360, so I’m not sure why a device tracker I create and update via Node Red acts that way.

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Not a super big deal. Battery backup means I’m the one that does all the rebooting. There’s also a way to block automation until fully rebooted I used to have scripted. Could probably pull that back out if y’all need.

Yea, I have a “Maintenance Mode” boolean helper that I use for some of that, and enable it while doing work including rebooting. For automating it, I’d have to check the timing on the update, guessing in my case it’s after Node Red is up… it actually surprised me that the location was set to away while rebooting, I thought it would store the last value.

I’m pretty disappointed in these devices. They really don’t have a whole lot of detail that I’m pretty sure is available over the OBD2. Pretty much could just keep using Life360 for the most part.

What information were you looking for? They provide vehicle specific information like odometer, fuel level, battery health, check engine code information, and disconnection notification

MPG per trip would be nice. Oil change % etc. everything my truck provided via the OBD2 should be there.

MPG would nice, oil change too. Turbo boost PSI? LOL I haven’t even looked at what the different vehicles provide via OBD2… I think we’d have to open a ticket with Bouncie and request they provide more OBD2 information via the API

They don’t even provide that data in their own app. I work with a company called Mojio we’re integrating into our software, unfortunately it’s B2B, but their dongle provides so much more detail on maintenance and stats of the vehicle. Bouncie, comparitively, is just very basic.

Isn’t T-Mobile’s SyncUP Drive backed by Mojio? I have used SyncUP before and I think they both are very similar in terms of data they provide except SUP has hotspot facility. What data you can get from Mojio directly?

Could be. It’s up to the third party to implement the available data.

We can get to all kinds of stuff. Including the things I mentioned here in this thread.

Quick update on integration - I have it working on my system now. Will be pushing to HA repo soon. :slight_smile:

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