Unlock Your Car’s Data: WiCAN Open Source OBD2 Scanner for Home Assistant

Integrating your vehicle’s data into your smart home system opens up a world of possibilities for automation and monitoring. With an Open Source Obd2 Scanner like WiCAN, and the powerful Home Assistant platform, you can gain unprecedented insight into your car’s performance and status. This guide will walk you through setting up WiCAN with Home Assistant, allowing you to access real-time data directly from your vehicle’s CAN bus.

WiCAN is a versatile and open source OBD2 scanner that allows you to bridge your car’s data with your smart home ecosystem. By leveraging the MQTT protocol, WiCAN can seamlessly transmit CAN bus messages to Home Assistant, making it an ideal solution for DIY car enthusiasts and smart home integrators. The beauty of open source tools like WiCAN lies in their flexibility and community support, offering a customizable and transparent approach to vehicle diagnostics and data access.

This guide focuses on utilizing Node-RED within Home Assistant to simplify the creation of automations based on the CAN messages received from WiCAN. Node-RED’s visual flow-based programming makes it an accessible tool for users of all skill levels to create sophisticated smart home routines triggered by vehicle data.

Setting up WiCAN with Home Assistant: A Step-by-Step Guide

To begin, ensure you have the necessary components and have set up your WiCAN device according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This guide assumes you have a basic Home Assistant setup running and are ready to integrate your WiCAN open source OBD2 scanner.

Prerequisites:

1. Home Assistant Mosquitto broker add-on: This MQTT broker is essential for WiCAN to communicate with Home Assistant. Install it from the Home Assistant add-on store.
2. Home Assistant user account for WiCAN: Create a dedicated user account within Home Assistant specifically for WiCAN. These credentials will be used for MQTT authentication.
3. Home Assistant Node-RED Add-on: Node-RED will be used to process and manage the CAN bus messages from WiCAN. Install this add-on from the Home Assistant add-on store.

Step-by-Step Integration:

1. Connect to WiCAN Access Point: Once WiCAN is powered on, connect to its Wi-Fi access point (typically named WiCAN_xxxxxxxxxxxx).
2. Access WiCAN Web Interface: Open a web browser and navigate to http://192.168.80.1/. This will open the WiCAN web configuration interface.
3. Configure WiCAN Mode: Set the “Mode” to Ap+Station. This allows WiCAN to act as both an access point and connect to your home Wi-Fi network.
4. Connect to Home Wi-Fi: Enter your Home Wi-Fi network’s SSID and Password in the provided fields.
5. Enable and Configure MQTT: Enable the MQTT protocol within the WiCAN web interface. Enter the Home Assistant MQTT broker details and the user credentials you created in step 2.
6. Import Node-RED Flow: Download the example Node-RED flow (wican_example_flow.json) provided by WiCAN developers (usually available on their GitHub repository). Within Node-RED in Home Assistant, import this flow. Remember to replace device_id in the flow with your specific WiCAN device ID.
7. Configure MQTT Broker in Node-RED: Double-click the “subsection” Node within the imported flow. Edit the server settings to match your Home Assistant MQTT broker IP address and the credentials created in step 2.
8. Deploy Node-RED Flow: Click the “Deploy” button in Node-RED to activate the flow.
9. Configure Home Assistant Sensors: To display specific vehicle data in Home Assistant, you need to define MQTT sensors in your configuration.yaml file. Add sensor configurations similar to the examples below, adjusting state_topic and value_template according to the CAN messages you wish to monitor.

mqtt:
  sensor:
    - name: "Amb Temp"
      state_topic: "CAR1/Amb_Temp"
      unit_of_measurement: "C"
      value_template: "{{ value_json.amb_temp }}"
    - name: "Fuel Level"
      state_topic: "CAR1/Fuel_Level"
      unit_of_measurement: "%"
      value_template: "{{ value_json.fuel_level }}"

10. Restart Home Assistant: After modifying configuration.yaml, restart Home Assistant for the changes to take effect.
11. Add Entities to Dashboard: Once Home Assistant restarts, you can add the newly created MQTT sensors as entities to your Home Assistant dashboard to visualize your vehicle’s data in real-time.

By following these steps, you’ll have successfully integrated your WiCAN open source OBD2 scanner with Home Assistant, gaining access to valuable vehicle data for monitoring and automation within your smart home environment. This setup empowers you to create custom dashboards, trigger automations based on car conditions, and gain a deeper understanding of your vehicle’s operation.