Car Hacking with the Raspberry Pi-Based AutoPi IoT Platform

If you have a problem with your car, likely the first thing you or a mechanic will do is connect to its diagnostics port with a handheld computer, and let it tell him or her what’s wrong. These on-board diagnostic (OBD-II) ports were mandated for all cars manufactured in the U.S. in 1996, and have stayed in place until today, meaning automotive near-universality.

Though great for diagnostics, what might not be obvious is that with this standard dongle and the corresponding CAN bus protocol, you can communicate with your vehicle in ways far beyond simply having it tell you what is wrong. The AutoPi IoT platform, now of Kickstarter, aims to take advantage of this functionality with a dongle that includes a Raspberry Pi, GPS, accelerometer, and a wireless modem for cloud connectivity that plugs into the port. This gives it the cloud-based ability to track a car’s location, and produce statistic on vehicle health, location, and even show if the car has been accelerating in a hazardous manner.

As shown in the Kickstarter video, it can also control devices such as windows and your radio via voice commands, but what is really interesting is that since the Raspberry Pi at the heart of it is an open system, the potential to expand it to your own uses is limitless. For automotive hackers, this system could represent an amazing leap forward in how you can interface with your car!