LEAFSpy Newbie Questions

My clever daughter bought me LEAFSpy Pro and the (KW902) hardware for father's day.

At this point I'm not that interested battery cell states, etc, but I'm looking into other things that I can use it for.

For example, the miles remaining should be much more useful for me since it's based on my overall usage (most of the trips are the same).

Also, LSP let me set the car such that one door button press unlocks all doors. Nice.

What are some other features that are useful?

Short term: battery temp, tire pressure (correct imbalance), verify charging status
Long term: trip log = trends in AHR, SOC% - determine battery degradation and alter charging/usage behavior.

In no particular order

1. realtime PSI of all 4 tires, never have to get out of my car in the rain or cold to check PSI on a "monthly" basis because I know to the second. I'm not getting my hands dirty on valve stem caps, I'm not letting out a small puff of air every time I check. I don't have to watch any closer than I want. Just set an alarm and have Leafspy tell me when a tire is low that I need to add air without me having to check and without risking forgetting.

2. Battery pack temp in real time during driving or charging. Can make decisions about charging or range remaining (don't want the pack too hot, and if the pack is too cold then range is reduced). You'd be surprised to know how much warmer the pack can be vs ambient if you don't have leafspy. The battery temp bars on the dash have huge overlaps and are worthless.

3. Raw SOC % (charge level aka State of Charge) even on a 2011 or 2012 that doesn't have dash SOC %. Dash SOC is on a curved scale that hides the top and bottom of the pack. Internal computer knows real SOC % and leafspy shows the internal data instead of the dash data. Can see this as you drive or charge which is key for charging and range remaining situations. Some prefer to see this in Gids or

4. miles per kWh on a per trip basis and range remaining to LBW, VLBW, and reserve. Leafspy constantly shows you your efficiency for the trip without you having to manually reset the efficiency data on the dash or MFD. Leafspy knows what level low battery, very low battery, and turtle occur and can accurately tell you miles remaining at a fixed miles per kWh rate that you can adjust. A couple of taps and it'll tell you how far you can go. Reserve can be set to be right at Turtle or set to a specific SOC% or kWh remaining giving you whatever calculated buffer you'd like.

5. SOH% / AHr / Hx aka how much the battery has degraded since new. Everything about range and the health of the battery is relative to the heat/time it has been exposed to. The miles remaining and bars of charge are relative to the health of the pack no matter which number you use to pay attention to.

6. balance of cells. If the lowest cell vs the highest cell is 4mv its outstanding, if its 40mv its bad. A really out of balance cell sticks out like a sore thumb and is a sign you may have a pack failure in your near future. Nice to know if you don't like sitting on the side of the road.

7. charging rate. It's always nice on EVSEs that don't have a display to be able to look at leafspy to

* confirm charge started
* confirm rate of charge

some EVSEs are finicky and sometimes you pull a stupid move and have a timer set preventing the charge from starting. Either way positive or negative confirmation is better than assuming and finding out later when you don't have time to deal with a missed or slow charge.

8. Heater coming on when you don't want it. The Leaf does stupid things like turn the resistant heater on full blast (6000W) when you just want outside air or blend heater at 500W to 1000W with the Air Conditioning at 2000W to hit an exact set point. If you don't have leafspy you wouldn't know the heat came on and is robbing you range and costing you money. Once you do you can

* turn the requested temp down (if it isn't already on 60F, and you don't want the heat)
* turn the climate control off
* use the heater override switch (factory on 2013 or newer, or aftermarket on the 2011 and 2012)
* leave the heat on but adjust your trip to charge as needed without being surprised by low range warnings

I think that covers most of what I care about it. I use it daily.

Thanks, D.

Can I assume it knows which tire is which, or do I need to experiment (lower pressure in one) to figure that out?

I like 4 and 7 best.

PianoAl said:

Thanks, D.

Can I assume it knows which tire is which, or do I need to experiment (lower pressure in one) to figure that out?

I like 4 and 7 best.

Click to expand...

The leaf registers LF, RF, RR, LR when the TPMS is setup by the dealer or tire shop. If you move the tires around the car doesn't know that you did.

So Leaf Spy shows you what the car thinks the tires are but that may or may not match reality.

Still if you have a pump or a tire gauge it's more important to know you don't or do have a low pressure than it is to be able to spot which tire from the drivers seat.

I recommend Viair (00077) 77P Portable Compressor Kit https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00CDW2MCM because it handles pumping at a fast enough rate to reasonably hit max PSI yet doesn't draw enough power to blow a fuse on most cars. It's right on the edge though so if you want to use a lower power pump and wait longer for it to pump up you can. Or you can get the https://smile.amazon.com/BESTEK-Battery-Cigarette-Lighter-Extension/dp/B00JOY6U7U and hook up to the 12v battery and avoid the fuse issue. I haven't blown a fuse yet but if I did I'd probably grab one of these.

dhanson865 said:

In no particular order


7. charging rate. It's always nice on EVSEs that don't have a display to be able to look at leafspy to

* confirm charge started
* confirm rate of charge

Click to expand...

Where on the leaf spy does it show charging rate? I have checked with the wiki and I don't see it? None of the public EVSE's I use show charging rate.

Parts007 said:

dhanson865 said:

In no particular order


7. charging rate. It's always nice on EVSEs that don't have a display to be able to look at leafspy to

* confirm charge started
* confirm rate of charge

Click to expand...

Where on the leaf spy does it show charging rate? I have checked with the wiki and I don't see it? None of the public EVSE's I use show charging rate.

Click to expand...

I prefer to leave leaf spy on screen 4 most of the time. With the 2nd section set to show Batt:Aux:Hetr:A/C instead of SOC:GIDsTE. If you are seeing the wrong type there tap the right side of that gauge near the 100. If you have it set that way you'll see the Battery power graph as an orange bar that builds from the left if you are using power from the battery and the bar builds from the right if you are putting power back into the battery.

That can be regen while driving or charging while the car is parked.

If you like you can also go to screen 2 - 3 to see charging graphed. Tap bottom left until the 2nd dot is a dark center then tap the center of the screen until is says 3 of 4).

You could also see charging power from screen 3, I assume but I never use that screen.

I find it easier to just leave it on screen 4 all the time and use the trip logging to see SOH/HX/AHR instead of switching to screen 1.

Depending on which version of Leaf Spy you are using (IOS lite, IOS Pro, Android Lite, Android regular, Android Pro, IOS Pro test, Android test, Android Pro test) you might see different units / labels for the power. But no matter the style or version you'll be able to figure out the charge rate easily enough once you find it.

dhanson865 said:

Parts007 said:

dhanson865 said:

In no particular order


7. charging rate. It's always nice on EVSEs that don't have a display to be able to look at leafspy to

* confirm charge started
* confirm rate of charge

Click to expand...

Where on the leaf spy does it show charging rate? I have checked with the wiki and I don't see it? None of the public EVSE's I use show charging rate.

Click to expand...

I prefer to leave leaf spy on screen 4 most of the time. With the 2nd section set to show Batt:Aux:Hetr:A/C instead of SOC:GIDsTE. If you are seeing the wrong type there tap the right side of that gauge near the 100. If you have it set that way you'll see the Battery power graph as an orange bar that builds from the left if you are using power from the battery and the bar builds from the right if you are putting power back into the battery.

That can be regen while driving or charging while the car is parked.

I find it easier to just leave it on screen 4 all the time and use the trip logging to see SOH/HX/AHR instead of switching to screen 1.

Click to expand...

First of all thank you for your answer. I finally am sitting down reading your answer while looking at my leaf pro screens.

I have the leaf spy pro for android.

Screen 4, 2nd section.....perfect...never seen it before.

dhanson865 said:

If you like you can also go to screen 2 - 3 to see charging graphed. Tap bottom left until the 2nd dot is a dark center then tap the center of the screen until is says 3 of 4).

You could also see charging power from screen 3, I assume but I never use that screen.

Click to expand...

What measurement on screen 3 is the charging rate?

I looked at screen 3 on the drive home last night and didn't see a way to see power in or out on that screen.

I think you'll have to use screen 4 or screen 2-3.

What do the white arrows show, and what is it that's at 103.6%?

I think the white triangles are the last status before charging again. To get the GIDs to read 100% instead of more, go into the advanced settings and set your max GIDs you've seen. Default is 28X while we're getting 292 max.

Something I'd like to get from the data is the efficiency of a particular trip. For example, I'd like to know that on one trip the efficiency was 3.5 miles/kWh and on another 4.2.

Is there any way to display that, or is that something I tease out of the log file?

Tried it with the last trip:

From Odometer: 26 miles
Drop in Gids: 66 = 5.28 kWh
26/5.28 = 4.92 miles/kWh

Thanks.

It is there. On the screen you posted, push under the 292 gids, where it says 395. There are a number of different calculations there, so keep pushing.

Got it, thanks, J.

But what I'd really like is something like this:


But I'm guessing that isn't available.

The manual says:

In order for LeafSpy to communicate with a Leaf an OBDII adapter must first be installed in the Leaf's OBDII socket
located under the dash above the driver's left knee and the Leaf must be turned on (not ACC mode).

However, that doesn't seem to be the case for me. All I have to do is open the door, and LEAFSpy connects. The ODB2 dongle's lights are always flashing away.

PianoAl said:

...

However, that doesn't seem to be the case for me. All I have to do is open the door, and LEAFSpy connects. The ODB2 dongle's lights are always flashing away.

Click to expand...

That is why I always unplug mine, except for when I take readings of the battery health. If you don't drive it every day, it can drain the 12v battery. I have a 2013, so I have the battery % display, and don't feel the need to have Leaf Spy running all the time.

baustin said:

That is why I always unplug mine, except for when I take readings of the battery health. If you don't drive it every day, it can drain the 12v battery. I have a 2013, so I have the battery % display, and don't feel the need to have Leaf Spy running all the time.

Click to expand...

This prompted me to take a closer look at my Konwei KW902, and I found that it has an off button. Not only that, but the manual, written in Chinese-English, says:

don't need to draw the KW902 after the car stall (but still have power supply) ,30 minutes later it will automatically come to sleep mode and stay in power saving condition.


So I guess I don't have to unplug it, which would put stress on the plug.

PianoAl said:

What do the white arrows show, and what is it that's at 103.6%?

Click to expand...

It looks like you have the old version of Leafspy Pro, the latest version fixed that error and puts the triangles at the end of the colored bar. It's just for looks and the version you are running has a bug showing them in the wrong spot.

Current Version 0.38.80, check the play store for updates.


as to the 103.6% that refers to the 291 GIDs vs the expected max. I'd suggest you tap on the 291 GIDs until that section says 97.2% SOC in the big section instead of GIDs, then % GIDs will be the small item on the right and you can ignore it (though it'll still say 103.6% in the small numbers).

At least I prefer to ignore GIDs. You can mess with them if you want but GID math gets messy when you compare to someone else's car. kWh is universal, GIDs aren't.

PianoAl said:

So I guess I don't have to unplug it, which would put stress on the plug.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't be so concerned about stress and cycles on the dongle since they're cheap to replace. I WOULD be concerned about mating cycles on the car's OBD2 connector. If you aren't already, you should have the dongle connected via an OBD2 extension cable or splitter. I do.

I'd much rather wear out a cheap extension cable or the dongle than the connector on the car, which is likely going to much more expensive to replace.

I just leave mine plugged in and put a battery buddy on the 12v weekly.