Launcher and telemetry • closed testing beta

ShoddyDrive Updates

ShoddyDrive is currently being shared through closed testing on beta builds. These notes track the documented move from earlier alpha telemetry foundations into current beta work around dashboards, release-readiness, App Bridge validation and resilience, telemetry polish, maps and media metadata polish, and safer in-vehicle UX.

Latest documented update: April 9, 2026.

Closed testing access requests are open for ShoddyDrive

Back to Dev Hub Public Project View

Release history

This timeline reflects the documented milestones currently present in the workspace-backed site copy.

April 9, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.13 (153)

Beta Build 153 Telemetry resilience and diagnostics

Torque App Bridge support is broader and more tolerant of partial bridge inventory or stale timestamps.
Estimated LL8 Oil Pressure behaves more naturally on cold and heat-soaked startups.
Debug exports now package clearer issue, metric, and recent-event detail for faster troubleshooting.
This build strengthens telemetry resilience and diagnostics without changing the broader release flow.

April 8, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.13 (152)

Beta Build 152 Release experience polish

Startup now progresses more clearly through hardware and app readiness with a safer fallback path if telemetry is still loading.
Validation-only telemetry gallery surfaces now stay out of normal release builds.
Settings now use clearer release-friendly section labels.
Compact dashboard layouts fit smaller landscape screens better.
Recent App Bridge cache and polling cleanup improves telemetry resilience behind the scenes.

April 8, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.13 (150)

Beta Build 150 Telemetry and dashboard polish

Torque App Bridge validation now does a better job separating healthy mixed-rate telemetry from real stalls.
Partial starvation now stays on softer recovery paths before escalating to a full rebind.
Debug snapshots now call out requested, decoded, brokered, and stale PID state more clearly.
Estimated LL8 Oil Pressure is retuned around a more realistic 5W-30 warm-up curve with smoothing between updates, so cold-start and hot-idle behavior read more naturally.
On the custom Telemetry Dash, empty grid cells can now create a new widget in place for faster layout building.

April 7, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.13 (149)

Beta Build 149 App Bridge responsiveness

App-side bridge snapshots now refresh roughly every 650 ms instead of once per second.
Fast dashboard metrics like throttle, load, RPM, and timing should react more quickly in the in-car view.
The recent App Bridge stability and warning-tuning work stays intact under the faster snapshot cadence.
This build is about making App Bridge-backed dashboard feedback feel more immediate without reopening the recent stability work.

April 6, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.13 (147)

Beta Build 147 Dashboard editor polish

Widget metric and style controls now use the same compact selector pattern as the visualization picker.
Wide landscape route cards separate instruction text from turn imagery more clearly.
Media cards make better use of the lower-right space for metadata instead of leaving empty chrome behind.
This build focuses on refining the in-car dashboard editing and presentation experience rather than changing the broader launcher workflow.

April 6, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.13 (146)

Beta Build 146 Maps and music polish

The dashboard now shows stronger turn-direction cues on navigation cards.
Direct maneuver imagery is now shown when the navigation source supports it.
Media artwork fallback is more reliable for players like YouTube Music that sometimes expose cover art through notifications instead of the media session.
This release focuses on metadata polish across the maps and music surfaces instead of changing the broader launcher flow.

April 3, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.13 (145)

Beta Build 145 Decoder discovery

Added a diagnostics and decoder-discovery update for Torque App Bridge telemetry.
Unknown active AIDL PIDs now carry sampled values into the debug export.
Known mapped dashboard PIDs are summarized more clearly in App Bridge scan diagnostics.
The backend now has a cleaner path for expanding support as new bridge signals are identified.

April 3, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.11 (143)

Beta Build 143 Debug export

Added a new Settings-based Debug export flow for support snapshots and troubleshooting.
Support snapshots now capture the current app state, telemetry freshness, recent diagnostics events, connection details, and hardware context in a copy/share-friendly format.
Carried forward the latest App Bridge freshness and stale-handling hardening for safer live telemetry diagnostics.
Continued the GM enhanced telemetry groundwork without disturbing Bluetooth, USB, or App Bridge troubleshooting flows.

April 3, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.11 (142)

Beta Build 142 Telemetry stability

Improved App Bridge freshness handling for live OBD data.
Hardened stale-value recovery when bridge PID inventories are incomplete.
Expanded safe GM enhanced groundwork for P10, P12, and E67.
Improved E67 AIDL translation and one-shot support scaffolding.
Added native release debug symbol packaging for the app's JNI library to improve production crash analysis.

April 2, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.11 (141)

Beta Build 141 E67 live-data foundation

Added the first modular GM E67 live-data foundation without disturbing existing generic OBD-II, P10, P12, Bluetooth, USB, App Bridge, dashboard, or telemetry behavior.
Added safe E67 one-shot Mode 22 support.
Added Mode 2C DPID configuration and AA stream-start plumbing.
Added 0x5E8 live-stream routing and flow-control filtering.
Added bounded stale/dropout handling and reconnect-safe session reset.
Added developer diagnostics to support continued reverse-engineering and on-vehicle validation.

April 2, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.11 (140)

Beta Build 140 Telemetry reliability

Improved live OBD telemetry freshness.
Reduced stale or frozen RPM, coolant, load, throttle, timing, and intake readings.
Stabilized fuel updates.
Restored supported voltage and runtime reporting.
Made estimated oil pressure behave more predictably when source values go stale or recover.

April 1, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.11 (139)

Beta Build 139 Telemetry polish

Snap Dashboard gauge cards now look cleaner in edit mode.
Unavailable telemetry tiles read much more clearly on in-car screens.
The Telemetry screen keeps Clear Codes visible with better guidance about when it can be used.

March 30, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.11 (137)

Beta Build 137 Clarity and setup

Dashboard telemetry card layouts were cleaned up across gauge, bar, and cluster styles so labels and values stay visible on in-car screens.
The dashboard telemetry editor no longer has overlapping sections.
Quick Launch role cards now open the matching preferred-app setting in Setup directly.

March 30, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.10 (136)

Beta Build 136 Clarity and stability

Estimated LL8 Oil Pressure is now selectable anywhere dashboard telemetry metrics are configured.
Telemetry profile changes now restart cleanly so values like RPM do not get stuck in stale states.
The Snap Dashboard has been refit for EONON-style 1024x600 screens.
Cards are cleaner, readability is stronger, and gauges and bar visualizations fit the layout better.

March 29, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.9 (135)

Beta Build 135 Dashboard update

Improved dashboard customization.
Expanded snap-dashboard metric selection.
Added a live drive-safe countdown.
Improved telemetry tile scaling on larger layouts.

March 29, 2026 - v1.0.0-beta.9 (134)

Beta Build 134 Torque bridge

Upgraded the Torque App Bridge to prefer the newer batch API.
Added fallback through legacy reads when needed.
Waits 10 seconds after app start before polling.

March 18, 2026 - v1.0.0-alpha.16 (115)

Alpha Build 115 Validation-driven

Added real Clear DTC support.
Added value-driven telemetry progress.
Added Alpha and Beta build labeling in Settings.
Kept the app classified as Alpha.

Undated preserved builds

Workspace archive Earlier milestones

v1.0.0-beta.8 (131): Added an AIDL-first OBD2 bridge with automatic direct-OBD fallback.
v1.0.0-beta.7: Expanded split-launch for route, media, and telemetry panels.
v1.0.0-beta.6: Improved SmolLM2 pack resolution, startup overhead, release safety checks, and moved the privacy policy into the app.
v1.0.0-beta.5: Added USB ELM327 support, moved Ambient Mode into the dashboard picker, and added experimental split-launch for dashboard media.
v1.0.0-beta.4 (119): Fixed Setup scrolling and clarified Default home-app copy.
v1.0.0-beta.3 (118): Fixed Telemetry scrolling and added in-app latest-release-notes summaries.
v1.0.0-beta.2 (117): Fixed the Custom theme startup crash, restored Telemetry scrolling, moved Ambient Mode into Settings, and improved dashboard customization.
v1.0.0-beta.1 (116): Reclassified the app as Beta and narrowed the shipped scope to the real feature set.
v1.0.0-alpha15 (114): Improved Setup and Telemetry scrolling and simplified dashboard chrome.
v1.0.0-alpha14 (113): Added telemetry validation, diagnostics, predictive warnings, custom gauge layouts, ambient mode, and telemetry-aware assistant context.
v1.0.0-alpha06 (105): Introduced the advanced OBD2 telemetry engine, E67-focused tuning support, MAF support, DTC read and clear, and smarter polling.

Current direction

ShoddyDrive has steadily moved from foundational OBD2 telemetry and diagnostics toward a more polished driver-facing launcher experience with modular dashboards, smarter bridge behavior, better release clarity, and improved usability on larger automotive displays.

Why the beta matters

Validate layout readability across phones, tablets, and head units.
Harden telemetry behavior around real adapters and real startup timing.
Improve the app bridge, dashboard customization, and split-launch workflow.
Catch in-vehicle usability issues before wider release.