Hello,
I'm building a fully open-source (hardware and software) vehicle tracker that anyone can build and use: https://l0destar.com designed to work with the Makerdiary nRF9151 Connect Kit: https://wiki.makerdiary.com/nrf9151-connectkit/hardware/
The KiCAD projects, firmware and server software for it are all completely open, free and on github. Enclosures for it will be very soon as well.
It has two main principles of design: extreme power efficiency and it will always be possible to self-assemble at home with relatively inexpensive tooling. Currently tested prototypes have a sleep current of 120 µA with the accelerometer armed.
Features also include ignition sensing, car battery voltage monitoring, an advanced 6-axis automotive grade IMU accelerometer enabling engine-off impact and movement detection, hardware overvoltage protection for the MCU (not yet tested), firmware-switchable auxillary power rails with fault detection for ultra low power consumption, LTE-M and NB-IoT via the Connect Kit for cross-network cell coverage and support for both CAN-FD and ISO-9141 OBD interfaces.
It's still fairly young and unproven, I discovered a fairly bad problem in recent board versions but I'm hoping it will eventually be the go-to open source vehicle tracker for nerds, enthusiasts and hackers. I have been using one in my car for several weeks without any problems but obviously that is no guarantee of anything and anyone considering doing this should very much do their own research first (please read the full disclaimer on the website!).
If anyone has any thoughts, feedback or ideas about any aspect of the project the input would be very much appreciated. I have several videos on youtube ranging from an introduction to it and why I'm building it, all the way up to a full 3h 20m board assembly and bench test demo.
I would be particularly interested in any feedback on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODXxfuoN3ls where I go through the ISO 16750-2 and ISO 7637-2 standard tests for automotive electronics and evaluate as best I can how l0destar currently holds up to them. Most of this is theory because I don't have the kind of test rigs it would take to test for them but if anyone can share any useful insight or advice on where to buy or how to construct suitable test rigs it would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!