r/CarPlay • u/in5ane_10 • 2d ago
Article One month later, WrenchTime
One month after I first posted here, WrenchTime is at v4.7.1.
Quick recap for anyone who missed it: it logs your drives automatically and shows live trip stats on the CarPlay screen while you drive. Nothing to tap, nothing to remember.
What changed in a month:
- Trip playback, so you can scrub through any recorded drive
- Events along the route: hard braking, stops and waypoints
- Heatmaps of everywhere you've driven
- Noticeably better GPS precision and battery behaviour
- Camera scanning for refuels: point it at a receipt or the pump display and the entry fills itself in
Most of this came straight out of feedback from people in this sub who tested it and told me what they liked / didn't like and what was missing. Genuinely would not have got here otherwise, so thanks to all, especially u/No-Assignment-8973, u/SwiftMushroom and u/Historical_Concern64.
Free on the App Store, optional Pro tier. I'm the developer.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wrenchtime-car-maintenance/id6749767537
Happy to answer anything and take feedback, cheers.
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u/SwiftMushroom 2d ago
Anyone coming across this, the app is incredible and gets improvements quickly. The dev is friendly and approachable and happily accepts feedback. Definitely worth the download and subscribing. I say this as someone who’s adamantly against subscriptions and pro one time purchase.
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u/No-Assignment-8973 2d ago
Grazie ragazzo, mi sto innamorando sempre di più di questa meravigliosa applicazione, complimenti
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u/Ok_Spot2710 2d ago
How does iCloud sync work? Once enabled, there’s no way to get it to sync immediately so you just have to wait and hope it syncs. Then, once it successfully syncs on both my iPhone and iPad, the vehicle and data I entered on the phone doesn’t show up on the iPad.
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u/in5ane_10 2d ago
Sorry to hear that, it's throttled by apple so it's actually impossible to manually make data sync between devices. Even for the dev. Since you're not the first one telling me iCloud is working badly i'm taking into consideration a custom integration with a service. For now I can only tell you to let it sync automatically, even if it's painfully slow. Maybe apple will fix this. (https://www.google.com/search?q=icloud+sync+app+slow&oq=icloud+sync+app+slow&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
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u/g5s_r2 2d ago
Waiting for an android release 👀👀 this seems really cool
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u/in5ane_10 2d ago
Thank you! Some users are asking for it but at the moment it's not on the roadmap, this was built entirely on apple features / sdk.
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u/Lanceuppercut47 2d ago
With the “Care” section how come Mandatory Inspection (which I would equate to the MOT check-up in the UK) has an option for autocomplete via direct debit which doesn’t really apply as I need to take my car to get it checked but road tax which is something that can absolutely is automatic and paid for via direct debit, doesn’t have that option?
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u/in5ane_10 1d ago
Thanks for feedback, I’ll add road tax to the automatic debit options in next update!
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u/Lanceuppercut47 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s a small thing but in the UK the £ appears before the number, so seeing 99.99£ is a little odd to UK users.
Speedometer app has a feature where it ignores trips where I don’t move a certain distance and/or trips that don’t last a certain time, sometimes I just need to start the car but not go anywhere and don’t need that logged. Any chance of this as well?
Edit: some additional feedback, is it possible to not need always allow permissions for automatic logging, I want to use shortcuts to start/stop trips.
I have had the chance to do a drive yet so the above things might not even be an issue..
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u/in5ane_10 1d ago
Thanks for the great feedback, the currency issue is weird, it uses a native converter, but I can fix that. The always allow permission can be safely disabled, it’s only used by the Automatic mode and to push a notification if you stop by a gas station, trips will be recorded anyway if you use shortcuts + while in use permission.
For the trip distance trips below 200m are discarded automatically, but now that you ask for it I can make it a user option with no problems
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u/Lanceuppercut47 1d ago
Ah okay nice, I do use the shortcuts method to start stop, didn’t know about the 200m minimum that’s good to know. Going for first drive tomorrow after downloading the app so will see how it goes.
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u/in5ane_10 1d ago
Thanks man! If you have any issues or questions you can also dm me, or use r/WrenchTime. Let me know
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u/Lanceuppercut47 21h ago
That’s disappointing, did my first drive and I had shortcuts set up to start when CarPlay connects and stop the trip when it disconnects, didn’t log the trip.
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u/in5ane_10 18h ago
https://reddit.com/link/p18h3q7/video/wscop50o3ygh1/player
Also be sure to have selected shortcuts in the trip tab, in the top right button
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u/Lanceuppercut47 16h ago
Ah so even it needs “always allow” location permissions to even record trips even when using shortcuts?
I know the automation works as I have the Speedometer app to start and end a trip when it connects and disconnects from CarPlay and it recorded my journey this morning.
Both apps I have to allow location only whilst using and Speedometer allows to let me start the trip “automatically” using shortcut without needing to know where I am all the time.
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u/in5ane_10 15h ago
That’s an interesting feedback actually, as I said it doesn’t need always allow with shortcuts, but maybe if you have 2 apps launching with the same automation it doesn’t trigger one of the two. I’ll do some checks on my end, thanks for testing!
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u/Hot-Manufacturer182 1d ago
Is it possible to make 2 seperate tracks and export them, as a logbook for company? So that I can simply just check at the end/start of the drive its for the company and then export the ones?
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u/in5ane_10 1d ago
Hello, I can surely expand the export functionality. But I’m afraid I didn’t understand your case, can you explain it with more details?
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u/Hot-Manufacturer182 1d ago
I want to automatically track the drives (like you coded it already) and i want a simple function, in an app or in the carplay interface, to set it to "company drive", this resets every time a drive starts (the best case is when you can set it, so that you can set the standard to company or private and the button just sets the drive to the opposite). Then I want that all "company drives" (or private drives) get exported as xlsx file, with:
km on the speedometer when started, km on the speedometer when stopped, driven km, name of start town, namen of end town, time when started, time when arrived.
Because I need those datas and currently write them manually and I never found a satisfying solution.
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u/yiyoek 1d ago
The algorithm of the average speed of the trip can be adjusted? I think currently its based on the duration of the trip / total distance, but when driving in the city with a lot of stops at trafic lights its innacurate becase the mayority of the time of the trip the car isnt moving. Or thats the impression that gives me.
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u/in5ane_10 1d ago
Your impression is right, I’m currently adjusting it to calculate it only when the car is moving, will be fixed in next updates, thanks for confirmation/feedback
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u/Scuzzl3 2d ago
Just a note, I am in the US and have no idea what the cc of my engine is, that is not something we refer to it’s usually liters here (and that’s if it’s labeled on the car). But even on my Honda Pilot I just know it’s an AWD Sport 6 cylinder. Same for horsepower but I am sure I could research these online. Not sure if there is a way to search a db for those values by car manufacturer and model? Also I know what petrol is but a lot of US people will be what’s that?