How to build your own RSS feed for a LEAF

[Danal]

I need a bit of help. I searched for an example of an RSS feed for the LEAF, but did not find anything.

Assume that I have the technical knowledge to build web sites, code HTML by hand in a text editor (and/or with tools), install and configure Apache or other web servers, etc, etc, etc. PC and UNIX and Linux and more, literate at the command line, PERL, and more. In other words, be technical in your answer. XML creation and parsing, and yada yada yada.

Further assume that I know absolutely nothing about RSS.

How do I set up an RSS feed for the car? I saw a post somewhere (can't find it now) wherein a guy had his home webcam displaying on the car screen. How would one do that? Again, assume that I already know how to get the image off the camera, put it in a directory, serve it out via HTTP, etc, etc. I could put it in a web page in a heartbeat. I just have no idea what the RSS stuff itself looks like...


Can anyone who's done this post a couple of examples?

 

[GPowers]

Carwings will read any standard RSS feed. Even the one for the MYNissanLeaf.com website over there in the right corner of this page.

 

[aqn]

Further assume that I know absolutely nothing about RSS.

Oh, you too?

How do I set up an RSS feed for the car? I saw a post somewhere (can't find it now) wherein a guy had his home webcam displaying on the car screen. How would one do that?

Are you sure you remember correctly? I don't know much about the LEAF's display and the software behind it, about RSS, or about videos, but I am a software professional and do know lots about many related things, and I don't see how it's possible to play random videos on the LEAF's display. In order to do that via RSS, all of the following probably need to be true:

1. CARWINGS' RSS software needs to understand RSS enclosures or Media RSS.
2. CARWINGS' software needs to include codec's for various video formats.
3. CARWINGS' software needs to be able to render videos.

And after all that, I think CARWINGS' link is 3G? I would think that would make for some painful video viewing experience.

On a slightly unrelated note, I point CARWINGS at the RSS feed of my blog, and it seems quite pointless: it donwloads the RSS contents (XML, basically) and the female voice reads out the <title> and <description> (my blog's articles) elements in the page. One of the articles is kinda long so it ends with a "[...]" which the female dutifully reads out: "... square bracket dot dot dot square bracket."

Again, assume that I already know how to get the image off the camera, put it in a directory, serve it out via HTTP, etc, etc. I could put it in a web page in a heartbeat. I just have no idea what the RSS stuff itself looks like...

Google for "apache httpd rss" for info on building a RSS server. Specifically, this link seems to have what you need. Google for "RSS" and "Media RSS" for info on including pointers to media (pics, audio, video) in RSS contents.

 

[Danal]

Thanks guys!!

And, I was unclear about the home webcam display. I believe it was a near-real-time still image... not a video.

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

The whole promise of "Carwings" and all this awesome connectivity just seems lost on Nissan.

Can you imagine the possibilities if that screen and connectivity to the car & AT&T were running something like Android or Windows Phone 7 or, well, anything? Or if you could download Leaf Apps?

The car would greet you with stock quotes and weather on startup, read incoming email and text messages, announce passing Groupon deals.. Google voice search, track your SOC and graph your range.. there are so many things this car could do, but just.. doesn't.

Even RSS feeds are totally brain-dead, getting stuck on repeat, robo-voice, the whole deal.

The whole "model year" mentality of car manufacturers needs to be stomped by someone who does it right. 2011.. we have Updates available.

 

[GPowers]

The whole "model year" mentality of car manufacturers needs to be stomped by someone who does it right. 2011.. we have Updates available.

I home update are more forthcoming with the Leaf then that were with my wife's Cadillac. She has a 2006 SRX and has not received ONE update for the nav or the display in 5 years.

 

[lpickup]

Technical questions about RSS and web servers, etc. aside (I have a very good handle on creating general RSS feeds on my web server), I am looking for a technical specification (or just a few examples) of RSS feeds created for the LEAF.

In particular I am wondering how to create a feed for the car that contains geographical information, a la the Google Send to Car function so that my feed will display a map for a particular item and allow the driver to navigate to it. What tags/keywords need to be present for this?

I thought I remembered seeing an example somewhere, but I've searched the threads I thought I saw this in and didn't turn anything up.

 

[garygid]

Doesn't the car JUST "read", as best it can, the ASCII text (or, Unicode, for various languages?) that arrives "from an RSS feed" from Carwings?

 

[lpickup]

Doesn't the car JUST "read", as best it can, the ASCII text (or, Unicode, for various languages?) that arrives "from an RSS feed" from Carwings?

Yes, but if it's just text it will just read it. If it has "geographical information" it will pop up a map and give you the option to set the geographical point as a destination and start route guidance to it. I'm basically looking for the magic RSS incantation to specify the "geographical information" in the feed. I suspect that maybe it's <LAT> and <LONG> or <ADDRESS> tags or something similar. Maybe (although I really doubt it) CARWINGS is smart enough to just realize there is an address in that raw text and pull it out and use that as the destination.

I found something called GeoRSS but that's mainly a standard way of specifying lat/long and I actually suspect the format is address-based and not lat/long based.

 

[garygid]

The Carwings Server (CWS, in Japan?) can "get" the RSS feed when you have set up the feed there as one of your RSS-choices, right?

The RSS-Feed program IN the LEAF can request a list of these RSS-choices from the Carwings Server, and allow you to "activate" (choose) one, and it then (if it can) tells the CW Server about your choice.

Then, the CWS requests the selected RSS feed to start sending to the CW Server, possibly filters out some (most?) non-text content types, and sends the possibly-modified RSS info to your LEAF via the "phone-data" service.

Finally, the RSS "Rendering" program in the LEAF tries to "read" (or show, if it actually has such a capability) the "RSS content" that the CWS sends to it.

So, the resulting "RSS capability" has four parts that are significant:
1. What the RSS "feed" is programmed to send.
2. How much the CW Server will pass on to the LEAF.
3. How much the LEAF's RSS "rendering" program can/will speak or show.
4. What, if anything the LEAF's other programs (Nav, etc.) can do with any of the received RSS information.

 

[lpickup]

Right. I think you've summarized the situation.

So, the resulting "RSS capability" has four parts that are significant:
1. What the RSS "feed" is programmed to send.
2. How much the CW Server will pass on to the LEAF.
3. How much the LEAF's RSS "rendering" program can/will speak or show.
4. What, if anything the LEAF's other programs (Nav, etc.) can do with any of the received RSS information.

So what I'm asking is how to get the "rendering" to recognize geographical data (as it's referred to in the NAV system owners manual) in the feed and know to pop up a map and the associated menu to allow you to set the point as a destination.

I know it's possible because the Google Send to Car function most likely works via an RSS feed:

Instead of just reading to you some text, it reads you the text of what you put in the "Name" field on Google Maps, and presumably encodes and sends the information it shows in the "Info" section (including the phone number if I remember correctly). I suspect it tags the various data in some way to make it easier for the renderer to pull out the address and phone number. Perhaps it even includes the information you type in the "Notes" section but I haven't tried that.

So what I'm looking for is what XML tags to use to tell CARWINGS (or the renderer) that I have an address in my payload and it should give the driver a map and menu items to "Set as new destination" or "Call".

 

[garygid]

The Google Send-Address (Destination Location) could easily be different from RSS.

The CWS saves the last 5 Google-Locations, and "sends" them (usually when requested) to the car. As the car "speaks" the info, you must press PAUSE to get a menu of options, like Go There, Save Address, etc. Manual interaction is required to see a point (address) on the map.

There is no EASY way to tell what is going on, how CWS formats the address, or if the RSS functions could be used to do similar functions.

Possibly, the special USB connection between the TCU and ... ?? ... could be "tapped" to log the incoming data?

 

[lpickup]

The Google Send-Address (Destination Location) could easily be different from RSS.

The CWS saves the last 5 Google-Locations, and "sends" them (usually when requested) to the car. As the car "speaks" the info, you must press PAUSE to get a menu of options, like Go There, Save Address, etc. Manual interaction is required to see a point (address) on the map.

Yes. And if the feed does NOT have geographical information, then it doesn't give you those menu options.

There is no EASY way to tell what is going on, how CWS formats the address, or if the RSS functions could be used to do similar functions.

Yep. That's why I asked here in case someone has already cracked that or has a pointer to someplace that describes how.

Your point about the Google Maps function possibly not being RSS is valid. I don't REALLY know the transport method Google Maps uses, however, I strongly suspect that ALL CARWINGS feeds to the car (including the ECO trees, etc.) are all RSS-based. Plus, the NAV system owners manual pg 5-8 (2012 MY) implies that "feeds" can contain many different types of data and will be "rendered" (using your terminology) by the NAV system as appropriate:

- [Show Map]:
If a feed received includes information about
shops etc., it may also include map data.
Touch to display the map on the screen.
- [New Dest.]:
If a feed received includes map data, the
location can be set as a destination.
- [Add to Route]:
If a route is already set, the location of the
feed received can be added to the route as
a destination or a waypoint.
- [Call]:
If a feed received includes a telephone
number, it will be displayed on the screen.
Touch to make a phone call. A cellular phone
must be connected to the vehicle before
making a phone call.
- [Show Pic.]:
If a feed received includes image data, it will
be displayed on the screen. Touch to display
the image on the screen.

Of course it doesn't elaborate on exactly how the feed specifies those types of data, nor would I expect it to, but was wondering if someone has blazed this trail already and discovered how it's done. And I suppose it's possible that this is all simply referring to Nissan "proprietary" feeds that are not RSS-based and therefore not accessible to developers like myself, but given that it doesn't appear to me that Nissan is really pushing the IT envelope with their CARWINGS technology, I think the more likely scenario is that it's all just RSS-based and implemented using special tags.

This http://lab.nissan-carwings.com/CWL/ could be a promising lead. Thanks to Google translate I was able to create an account and I think I possibly have a possible spec. I'll let you know!

 

[richard]

I know it's possible because the Google Send to Car function most likely works via an RSS feed:

I'm curious as to why you think this. I just tried the feature for the first time, and almost immediately got a confirmation message. This doesn't seem possible with a "pull" type system like RSS. I doubt the LEAF is always connected, waiting to see if a Google RSS feed is updated.

 

[lpickup]

I know it's possible because the Google Send to Car function most likely works via an RSS feed:

I'm curious as to why you think this. I just tried the feature for the first time, and almost immediately got a confirmation message. This doesn't seem possible with a "pull" type system like RSS. I doubt the LEAF is always connected, waiting to see if a Google RSS feed is updated.

Well, let me clarify that I think the information transport is via RSS. Now it does appear that the Google Send to Car feed enjoys "special" status in CARWINGS since it has its own menu item in the CARWINGS menu. So perhaps the car polls it all by itself occasionally (I definitely would not say ALWAYS because when I used the feature last Friday I had to "pull" the data--it did not just pop up for me in the car). I still believe it uses RSS as the transport mechanism though--and now that I've seen the CARWINGS spec with its special tags, I'm even more convinced.

BTW, the special tags are along the lines of:

<carwings:readtext>Text to read out loud</carwings:readtext>
<carwings:tel>123-555-6789</carwings:tel>
<carwings:lat> xx.yyyy </carwings:lat>
<carwings:lon> aa.bbbb </carwings:lon>
<carwings:address>123 Main St, Anytown, ST</carwings::address>

There are also ways to specify images, links, HTML markup, etc. I haven't experimented with whether "address" or "lat/lon" make a difference (that's next on my list), but this definitely seems to be how the magic is done.

 

[lpickup]

<carwings:lat> xx.yyyy </carwings:lat>
<carwings:lon> aa.bbbb </carwings:lon>

There are also ways to specify images, links, HTML markup, etc. I haven't experimented with whether "address" or "lat/lon" make a difference (that's next on my list), but this definitely seems to be how the magic is done.

Seems that <carwings:lat> and <carwings:lon> tags are what cause the special menu item to "Set as a destination" to appear (plus a little "flag" appears in the display on the right indicating which item in the feed is being viewed).

The tags I saw are a little more limiting than I had hoped. For example, specifying a <carwings:link> tag generates and displays a QR code you are apparently meant to scan with your smartphone that directs the smartphone to a web site, presumably for the purpose of displaying a coupon. It's not an arbitary link to another RSS feed. I guess that's not surprising, but I think I can probably do what I need to do with this implementation.

<carwings:itemimage> seems to work well. <carwings:data> which allows HTML to be displayed seems very limited, but I'll continue to play with it.

 

[richard]

About how long does it take to get a new feed to appear in the car?

I added a test feed using the web Owner's Portal, and went to the car about 15 minutes later. I tried everything I could find in the menu (CARWINGS | CARWINGS Settings | Information Feed Setting Edit Feed List | Update Feed List | Yes, then even a CARWINGS Nearby Station update..), but the new feed isn't showing up.

Is there a trick, or do I need to be more patient?

 

[lpickup]

About how long does it take to get a new feed to appear in the car?

I added a test feed using the web Owner's Portal, and went to the car about 15 minutes later. I tried everything I could find in the menu (CARWINGS | CARWINGS Settings | Information Feed Setting Edit Feed List | Update Feed List | Yes, then even a CARWINGS Nearby Station update..), but the new feed isn't showing up.

Is there a trick, or do I need to be more patient?

In my case my new feed I added was hiding in CARWINGS->Favorites

It did NOT appear in CARWINGS->All Information Feeds (well, I didn't search through any of the folders contained in there--maybe I should check that). I will say that I added the feed while my wife was at work with the car so it was a few hours before I was able to look in the car, but it was there.