Using Raspberry Pi for Remote Start

Hey Guys!

This is a project I did years ago on my 1st Gen Tacoma but I thought it would be cool to share with you all here.

Living in Laramie Wyoming at the time, I was tired of going out in the subzero windy mornings to warm up the truck for work and school. I was then living in an apartment building and had no garage. I thought, why cant I put in a remote start? Better yet, why cant I build a remote start that will provide two way communication and work on a manual transmission for a lot cheaper? I have a lot of fun with electronics and wiring so I came up with the idea for the "ToyotoPi" remote start system.



Here is the Youtube video of the project.

Here is the site with the full write up and better description and pictures.

Let me know what you guys think. It was a fun project and I now have a 2nd gen Tacoma with even better ideas. I will post my concept soon.

 

what kind of security are you using for your connection(ap)? What kind of current draw does the ap and raspi draw? for a 3rd gen would have to figure out how to bypass the disabler. a pushbutton start should be fairly simple to do, hold the relay on for 250ms or so then release.

 

I had mounted a router into the truck. It was setup to not broadcast its Id and I had a good long password setup with a mac filter applied so only my phone should've been allowed to authenticate with the router. The current draw I never measured but the power supply to router was listed at 500 milliamps while the RaspberryPi sips the power at around 200 milliamps.

 

Not a bad project. A few comments however;
1) Sainsmart relays (I have a couple of 8x blocks of them, so I know them well) are major overkill. Those things will handle 20 AMPS. You can run power tools through them. You should be using solid state devices like FETs or optocouplers.
2) Rather than an AP in the car, I'd suggest using either BLUETOOTH or a more conventional wifi dongle set to connect up with your home network. This will save you on power and provide a greater versatility. Especially the bluetooth option.
3) You are suggesting a maximum current draw of 700 mA. Your battery is probably around 80-100 Ah, or 80,000-100,000 mAh. That gives you under 143 hours (6 days) before it completely drains your battery. I suggest an actual measurement of the power consumption to calculate more accurately the time involved, and to consider my point (2) from the perspective of power consumption. Dropping 500 mA off the power draw will bump that time to drain up to nearly 21 days.