[F87source]

Credit: Protuning Freaks/Bootmod3 https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/05...g?v=1679316333



Introduction and Quick Overview:

In this product review I will be taking an indepth look at the new Bootmod3 (we will refer to Bootmod3 interchangeably as BM3 for the rest of this review) OBD2 ENET CANBUS enabled wifi adapter (in particular the V3 version)! I’ll also go through all the reasons why I think this OBD2 adapter is an absolute must have item if you are currently running Bootmod3 on your car or if you are looking for an obd2 adapter for coding apps like protool, and why I believe this may be the best adapter currently available on the market!

Now onwards with the in depth review!



Disclaimer:

Damage/Injury Disclaimer: Any technical advice, coding advice, installation instruction, or product installation demonstrated in my reviews is to be done at your own risk. I will not be responsible for personal injuries, injuries to others or any living being, or any damage to your car, or any property damage.

Monetary disclaimer: I do not make commission, or profits or any kind of monetary gain from the sale of this Bootmod3 Wifi adapter.


Image Credits:

Images and videos used in this review are all property of their rightful owners as credited below each image, I am just using them for the purpose of this review but if you (the owner of the image) would like them removed please let me know via pm. Otherwise thanks to the respective image owners (I made sure to credit your online name and link where I found the photo) of the photos, without you this review would be so much more bland.


Review Disclaimer:

First and foremost I would like to thank the Bootmod3/Protuning freaks team proTUNING Freaks for agreeing to partially sponsor me for the review. Despite this I will remain as unbiased as possible during the review. Please note, the dynamics of this relationship was that I reached out for a sponsorship review and not the other way around, this should demonstrate how I truly feel about this wifi adapter - in the sense that I truly believe it is the best option out there and I would absolutely use it on my own car (in fact I am using it on my car to code, flash and data log with Bootmod3, and I will potentially even move ISTA over to wireless connectivity via the BM3 adapter)


Now let's first move on to the basic terms that we commonly see when talking about the BMW OBD2 system.


What is “OBD2”:


Credit: confusion https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...07&postcount=2

Lets begin with the term “OBD2”, you may ask what is OBD2? Well OBD2 stands for On-board Diagnostics 2, and this is typically associated with the little trapezoidal ports you see on every car made after 1996 (this was when the port became a mandated requirement in the USA for all automakers) and this port allows access to your car’s ECU’s (electronic control unit(s) - plural because there are often more than one “ECU” on a car: engine control unit (DME on bmw’s), differential control unit (GHAS), Front electronics module etc) and lets you read fault codes on these individual ECU’s. The standard codes that all cars have are defined in SAE J1979 and here is wikipedia’s explanation: “The SAE J1979 standard defines a method for requesting various diagnostic data and a list of standard parameters that might be available from the ECU. The various parameters that are available are addressed by "parameter identification numbers" or PIDs” (Credit wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-boa...om%20the%20ECU.)

Now what this means is that ever car has a bunch of basic diagnostic information that you can get directly from the OBD2 port (for example what you would get from those cheapo OBD2 scanners from amazon), however most of the time these generic codes are absolutely useless for BMW diagnostics and more useful for emissions test. The reason why is because BMW uses proprietary error code information on top of the OBD2 standard, and to access these error codes (that are actually useful) you require a BMW code reading software (ISTA or something like Protool’s diagnostic license) and you also require a means to communicate with BMW’s ECU’s and these pieces of software via the ENET protocol (and no a generic OBD2 adapter will not work). To do so you must get an adapter like the BM3 WIFI adapter or a generic ENET cable.

The OBD2 port is also not limited to just diagnostics, it can be used for things like: updating the software on BMW’s (ISTEP version), coding the car, and even tuning the car for more performance via software like Bootmod3. To do any of these aforementioned things you require an OBD2 adapter that is capable of communicating with BMW’s ENET communication protocol, and once again the BM3 wifi adapter would perfectly suit this requirement and provide some extremely convenient and must-have features that will soon be discussed.



What is “CANBUS” and “FLEXRAY”:


Credit: Autodata training

, https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cbwvXO3Y9kI/maxresdefault.jpg

Lets now quickly talk about what “CANBUS” and “FLEXRAY” is. Well “CANBUS” is short for Controller Area Network (CAN) BUS (pretty much a communication system in the car allowing the interconnection of computers). We can think about the CANBUS as a computer network or “highway” that connects all of the electronics and computers in the car together and allows intercommunication between these devices.

FlexRay is similar to CANBUS in that it is a network that interconnects all of the devices in the car, except it is a significantly faster protocol that allows even more reliable data transfer compared to CANBUS. BMW F series and newer also utilize the flexray communication method, so they are able to take advantage of the faster data transfer speeds.

*Note: for flexray and canbus there may be some devices not connected directly to the canbus/flexray network, these devices may be connected to a module that is connected directly to the canbus/flexray network. So the notion that everything is directly connected to the canbus/flexray network might not be completely accurate.


**Note: All modules connected to the flexray/canbus network will have access to all of the data transported on the network. This means everything can potentially see everything, and makes adding modules (flexfuel) into the network very “easy”.


Now you may ask why are these communication protocols so important? Well the answer to that question - is that if you make a high quality and fast OBD2 adapter that supports these CANBUS and Flexray protocols (like the BM3 adapter), you can utilize these faster flex ray data transfer speeds to push massive amounts of data through the OBD2 port each and every second. This leads to extremely fast data logging capabilities (allows you to monitor many channels at once and at a very high sampling rate meaning a much clearer idea of what is going on with your car - i.e. you are less likely to miss any timing pulls, knock events or boost spikes compared to slower logging devices which may only be able to sample a few times every second and therefore have a higher chance in missing these events. A faster adapter also means extremely fast flashing times so when you tune your car for the first time or flash BM3’s flex fuel custom rom (which are the longest flashing events you will encounter) you will be able to flash quick enough that you won’t need to worry about using a battery charger (given your battery is healthy to start off with). A faster OBD2 adapter will also benefit you greatly during coding sessions, because it will allow you to load pages on things like bimmercode and protool faster, and apply those coding changes faster as well. For instance on bimmercode with my cheapo vgate icar pro bluetooth adapter, it would take me about 1 minute to load an ECU page for coding and then approximately another minute to apply those coding change. With my BM3 adapter it takes me ~1 second to load the same ECU page and approximately another second to code these changes. So these are some of the reasons why you would want a faster OBD2 adapter.


But that is not all, if you have a CANBUS/FlexRay enabled adapter (like the BM3 adapter), you will be able to access all the ECU’s on these modern day BMW’s via the CANBUS/FlexRay network - and this is something you cannot do with generic OBD2 adapters. This means you will be able to flash and code every single ECU on these F and G series BMW’s (in particular the transmission on these Gen 2 B58’s and Toyota Supra) without requiring any additional DCAN cables or wireless adapters.



”What is ENET”:


Credit:https://www.amazon.ca/OHP-Ethernet-D.../dp/B07V3C47YD


To keep this explanation nice, short, and simple - ENET is the communication protocol that BMW uses to facilitate external communication to the car’s ECU’s. This is pretty much an ethernet cable on one end and an OBD2 connector on the other end, and allows communication to the car via standard “internet protocol” (more accurately - we have an application layer protocol say ISTA, a transport layer protocol which is typically TCP on ENET, a network layer protocol which is IPV4, and a link layer protocol which is ethernet). The important thing to note about this particular protocol is that it enables very fast data transfer speeds with extremely high fidelity, and that you require this protocol if you want to communicate with the BMW flexray network to its full extent.

If you want to read more about ENET and BMW you can read about it via the link below, but just note the BM3 adapter also supports this ENET protocol allowing it to perfectly communicate with the F series and newer generations of BMW (including the Toyota Supra - which technically is a BMW).

https://standards.ieee.org/wp-conten...hitectures.pdf


With these generic terms out of the way let begin to talk more specifically about the BM3 adapter and my experience with the adapter.




Purchasing + Shipping Experience:

Next I would like to discuss the overall purchasing experience I had when buying the BM3 wifi adapter directly from Protuning Freaks/BM3 themselves, and this purchasing experience will truly be a testament to how good of a customer service system they have in place.



Crest: PCMag https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/shopify
Let's begin by outlining my purchasing experience. Purchasing from BM3’s website directly was effortless and painless. Their website design was modern, fast, and extremely well designed overall. The payment system was done through Shopify, which is an extremely popular payment system that is used by a lot of major companies nowadays. As a result payment was hassle free and painless (no issues using paypal, credit cards, etc and no issues using a PO BOX either), so it is really nice to see BM3 using the best of the best software for everything (a trend we will be seeing shortly). So overall the purchasing experience from BM3’s website is absolutely fantastic, and there were no issues from my end.





Credit: TheAmazingBrentWood https://theamazingbrentwood.com/wp-c...0424463738.png



Next let's talk about my shipping experience, I live in an area with quite a few “Porch Pirates” (package thieves) so I requested that my BM3 wifi adapter be shipped to my PO Box via Canada post standard shipping - which should take approximately 8-9 days to be shipped from BM3 HQ to me (FYI both BM3 and myself are located in Canada). I placed my order on Wednesday April 19th at 4:12 AM, and approximately 4 minutes later I realized I entered my shipping address incorrectly. So I sent an Email to the BM3 support team with “URGENT” in the message hoping the customer support team (props to Serge and Dzenan you gentlemen are absolute legends) would get the message in time and correct my shipping address before the shipping team mailed out the order. To my surprise at 8:55 AM I received another email from the BM3 team that my order had been processed and the shipping address was correctly changed. So in ~4 hours from me placing my order, the adapter was packaged, my address was corrected, a shipping label was created, and the order was ready for pickup by Canada post. This is absolutely an incredible level of responsiveness from the customer service team and incredibly fast shipping speed from the shipping team. The only company that comes remotely close in regards to shipping speed (and is a close second compared to the BM3 team) is VTT.

I credit this incredible response rate from the customer service team and the incredible shipping speed from the shipping team, to BM3’s relentless dedication to improving and getting better. This has led BM3 to use cutting edge software in order to optimize their work flow and ensure communication is never lost and the right person always sees it ASAP. For instance, instead of just using standard emailing and then forwarding emails around to the correct people. The BM3 team utilizes Atlassian’s JIRA software in order to facilitate their development work and customer service - and this is the same software giant billion dollar companies (Twitter, Lyft, Reddit, and Pinterest) use for their own work flow.



Credit: Atlassian https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira



Now what is so good about Jira? Jira allows customers to create tickets for help, and these tickets can be seen by anyone on the support team from the general tech support, all the way to the big boss Dzenan himself. So the correct people will always be able to access your query for help - without the requirement for the message to be forwarded around (unlike an email). The tickets are also kept open until the problem is marked resolved, so you will NEVER (or at the very least it will be very unlikely), run into a situation where the support team “misses” your message. This architecture also allows for handling of large amounts of requests even easier than other traditional methods, so future expansion of the team will be easier and answers to questions will be sent back faster. But that isn’t all, Jira also can also enable inter team cooperation, and this allows the development team to plan new features, create work plans, and collaborate with each other or with other teams in the company in order to develop new features. This allows for a strong amount of collaboration and teamwork leading to a better written code and resulting in a better and faster developed final product.

Like I said before, there is a reason why large billion dollar companies don’t just use plain email services (one email account, or just emailing with multiple accounts alone - large companies always use something on top of the email infrastructure) for customer support and internal collaboration; and the fact that BM3 is willing to go this extra mile to improve their internal infrastructure and use the best of the best tools (despite these tools being expensive) shows how serious they are when it comes to striving to be the best. I will discuss these details further in my main BM3 review, but I really can’t stop ranting and raving about how impressive BM3 is behind the scenes and how these are the things that will make BM3 the best platform for BMW tuning in the very near future (proof of this is the fact BM3 has launched the GEN 2 B58 race rom features before MHD and even ECUTEK - which currently at the time of writing this cannot even tune 2020 build date ecu cars).


Continuing back to my shipping experience, after my mistakes were corrected the package arrived to my PO Box on April 25 at 1:22 PM which is 6 days (including 2 days for the weekend). So shipping speeds even with the cheapest shipping option selected was still quite fast. The overall packaging was OK, the OBD2 adapter came in a small cardboard box and filled with some packing peanuts and the adapter was wrapped in some bubble wrap. My one complaint would be that the adapter did move around inside of the box a bit too much for my liking, I would have liked for the box to either be smaller, or to be completely stuffed full with paper or packing peanuts so there is no movement at all. Otherwise the packaging was good, and everything arrived in flawless condition.



Next we will begin discussing the features of the BM3 WIFI adapter itself.



Overview:

Let's begin by taking a look at the BM3 adapter itself:



Credit: F87source




Credit: F87source




Credit: F87source




Credit: F87Source



From these images you can get a better idea of what the BM3 adapter looks like, since images of it are actually quite scarce at the time of this review. But lets analyze these images further:

From the first image we can see the backside of the adapter with the BM3 logo as a raised impression in the plastic, you can also see the bottom area where the BM3 logo is located is lower than the rest of the case. This is because the adapter tapers down in that spot, as we will see in the second image. Also the plastic of the entire case is actually transparent if you bring it up to the light.

From the second image we see a side profile of the BM3 adapter, from this angle you can see that the adapter tapers near the end, this is going to be a significant benefit because it allows for more foot clearance (I will discuss this point more later on in the review).

In the third image we are looking at the front of the BM3 adapter. On this side we can see a few key things.
The first thing we notice is a small vent hole for the internal components of the adapter.
The second thing we notice is the small toggle switch on the top right corner of the adapter. This toggle switch is to turn the adapter on (toggle to the left position) and off (the toggle to right position) and is completely independent from the built in sleep mode. So with the physical switch you can “force” the adapter on or off incase you didn’t want to wait for it to go to sleep (or if you have a V2A version that doesn’t have a sleep mode, you can use this to turn off the adapter so it doesn’t cause excessive battery drain and trigger the alarm). The only complaint I have about this switch is that it is on the wrong side of the adapter, when the adapter is plugged into the car this front side of the adapter (where the switch is located) is facing the trim panels and there is no way to reach the switch without unplugging the adapter. So I think to fix this issue, the switch should be moved to the bottom of the adapter or the back side, because in this current location only the RHD cars would be able to utilize this switch as the OBD2 port on RHD cars is on the bottom right side near the door trim.
The last thing to notice on this adapter is the small rectangular indent on the bottom, this is likely just an area for a label.

The fourth image is just a picture of the OBD2 connector itself. Fitment to the car’s OBD2 port is tight and there is no issues with gripping or alignment.




Dimensions:

The next thing we will analyze are the dimensions of the BM3 adapter itself, and the reason why this is such an important thing is because these OBD2 adapters are located (on a LHD car) extremely close to the dead pedal and this makes them very susceptible to accidental kicking - especially if your car is a manual and your left leg has to move a lot. This has actually happened to me quite a lot with my old black MHD ENET wifi adapter (which was quite a long and larger adapter), where I would kick the adapter when moving my foot from the clutch to the dead pedal or vice versa. The resulting kick would nudge the adapter just enough to make it lose connection with the OBD2 port and completely power off. I would then have to fumble around at a red light trying to reseat the adapter in order to power it back on, but this would require a lot of adjustments because if you don’t get it just right the adapter will not power on (it is actually a lot easier for me to plug in the adapter from outside of the car vs. inside, because when I plug it on from inside of the car it is always more tilted towards the driver seat meaning some of the pins aren’t fully seated and the adapter won’t power on).

In some serious cases accidental kicking of the OBD2 adapter can cause the OBD2 port itself to completely break off (like in this image below):



Credit: N52 E90 https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1364965




So it is beneficial if the adapter is as small as possible, as it will minimize the probability of it being accidentally kicked loose or in the worst possible cases kicked so hard it damages the port. This is where the BM3 wifi adapter’s form factor comes into play, right off the bat it is significantly thinner and quite a bit shorter than my old MHD black adapter, and this makes it a lot less likely to be kicked.


Here are some images of the BM3 adapter’s dimensions measured with some digital calipers:


Credit: F87source


The BM3 adapter is 44.68 mm wide




Credit F87source


The BM3 adapter is 69.51 mm tall




Credit: F87source


The BM3 adapter is 20.20 mm thick at its thickest part (which is a raised seam)



But this isn’t the only feature the BM3 adapter has to make it less likely to be kicked, the adapter itself is also tapered towards the bottom and this adds a bit more clearance near the foot area which makes it even less likely to be kicked.




Credit: F87source


The BM3 adapter is 14.64 mm thick at its taper.



So the overall size and shape of the BM3 adapter allows it to maximize clearance to the drivers foot, and minimize kicking as much as possible. In the short amount of time I had with this adapter before I had to travel overseas for work, I mimicked driving manual while the adapter was plugged in, and what I noticed was the thinner and shorter nature of the adapter allowed me to have a quite bit more ankle rotation and foot movement before I hit the adapter. This will likely either completely solve the kicking problem for me if not massively reduce the chance of me kicking the adapter, so I am very happy BM3 was able to produce a small adapter.



Now I will post some images of what the adapter looks like while plugged in on my f87 m2:



Credit: F87source



Credit: F87source




Credit: F87source




Credit: F87source




Credit: F87source



As you can see the adapter is quite thin and sits very close to the trim panel and should be less obtrusive compared to the larger adapters on the market. The adapter also has a faint orange light that shines through the shell when powered on.



WIFI Connectivity:

The next thing that we will discuss is the type of wireless connectivity the BM3 adapter uses, and the major advantages it brings over the alternative forms of wireless connectivity.

Like the name of the review suggests, the BM3 adapter utilizes WIFI for its wireless connectivity, in particular 2.4 GHz wifi - which is good for the compatibility of a wide variety of devices (older phones and laptops) that may not yet support 5 GHz wifi.


Before we begin talking about the benefits of WIFI we should talk about logging into the WIFI hotspot generated. The BM3 adapter comes preconfigured with the password set to: “bootmod3” by default, and the ssid set: to “BM3-NET” by default. These credentials are also printed on the inside of the box lid as well:



Credit:F87source






Ok now let's discuss the benefits of the BM3 adapter using WIFI rather than the alternative - which is bluetooth.


1) Speed: Bluetooth 5 offers data transfer speeds up to 2 Mbps while 2.4 GHZ WIFI can support speeds up to 300 Mbps (albeit the transmit link speeds on the settings page of the BM3 wifi adapter maxes out at 72 Mbps). So the benefits of using WIFI over bluetooth is a significantly faster data transfer rate which will allow for faster flashing speeds. This WIFI adapter completely obliterates essentially all of the competition on the market in terms of speed with the sole exception likely being the MHD universal wifi adapter, which very likely has similar speeds.

2) Latency (can be thought of as “lag”, the lower the latency the lower the “lag”): In general WIFI has a much lower latency compared to bluetooth, with the difference becoming larger and larger as the WIFI connection speed increases. This means when you are using WIFI there is a smaller delay between the data being read from the OBD2 port to the data being received by your device that is connected to the BM3 adapter via WIFI. The benefit of having lower latency is when you utilize your adapter for gauges, there will be a smaller amount of stutter or delay between what the gauge is showing and what the car is doing. The most prevalent example of this would be an RPM gauge, the lower you can get the latency the more responsive the RPM gauge will be and the more closely it will follow the actual RPM’s the engine is currently at.

3) Range: WIFI will generally allow for a significantly larger connection range compared to bluetooth (up to 2x - 3x longer connection ranges vs. bluetooth). The benefit of this means you can now connect to the OBD2 adapter (and thus the car) from even further away, and therefore you can code and diagnose your car (using ISTA) from a laptop that is sitting nearby on a work bench instead of having to be inside the cabin. I have even coded my car during the winter from inside of my house and the wifi signal strength was still about 50%, and that is from ~15m away and through a few walls. So one of the benefits of having WIFI is the incredible range that you will get, and that opens up a lot of possibilities for you to work on your car - whether that be from a workbench, from inside of your house, or from a corner of a shop, you will no longer be confined to the inside of the car or being right next to the car as you would with a shorter range bluetooth adapter or an enet cable.

4) Transmission fidelity: Bluetooth is a “best effort” transmission protocol, what this means is that it will send the data and that is it. Bluetooth doesn’t have retransmission, or the ability to acknowledge if a data packet was received properly either (so technically if these features are desired, they must fall upon the app to implement). Wifi protocol on the other hand does have retransmission and packet acknowledgement, so data fidelity off the bat is much better than with bluetooth.

5) Encryption: WIFI has a significantly more secure encryption protocol vs. bluetooth which in some cases does not even have encryption and is just open for pairing with any device. Now you may ask, why is encryption even important? The answer to that is because without secure encryption, it makes it easy for skilled hackers to access the wireless connection to the OBD2 adapter, and if they are able to hijack this connection they have direct access to the car’s canbus/flexray network (this is an even bigger concern if you plan on leaving the adapter in 24/7 where the car is also unattended). This can then lead to many harmful/malicious things that the hacker can do to your car, the most common thing is key cloning through the OBD2 port. This is the process where a hacker accesses your vehicle’s OBD2 port (by first breaking into the car - whether that be breaking a window, picking a lock, key sniffing etc) and uses an electronic device to access the car’s ECU and program a new key, and then use the key to start your car and drive away. This is actually a really common means of stealing BMW’s (alongside key signal sniffing) and is a reason why you should not have an unencrypted wireless OBD2 adapter on your BMW, because it can literally be like opening the door for thieves to steal your car. Here are some news articles and videos about this very phenomenon occurring on BMW’s:

https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=688307

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriank...h=4f4f39905a3d

I wanted to wrap this encryption topic up with one more point, despite WIFI having really strong encryption protocols, none of this matters at all if the WIFI network’s password either doesn’t exist (this is what really bothers me about MHD’s new universal adapter, it has no password at the time of me writing this review) or the password is easy to guess (i.e. the password is extremely common for a brand of OBD2 adapter and can be easily Googled). So this is a major problem for a lot of WIFI OBD2 adapters, and it can be a potential problem for the BM3 adapter since the password is the same across all adapters. When I discussed this with Dzenan (owner of BM3), he acknowledged my concerns and told me that in a future update of the BM3 app and OBD2 WIFI adapter (you can update the adapter’s firmware through the app so it will always be able to be improved, more on this later) the ability to change the password of the BM3 WIFI adapter would be implemented. So with this update the BM3 adapter will have all of its potential security flaws addressed and resolved - something that current adapters on the market do not have the ability to do or the company is not willing to do. So props to Dzenan and the BM3 team for listening to concerns and taking them seriously, not many companies would be willing to set aside development time to do something as trivial as this but it is a serious testament to how BM3 always strives to be the best in every single aspect.






Updatable Firmware:

Like I hinted above in the encryption category of this OBD2 adapter, the firmware of the BM3 WIFI OBD2 adapter is updateable through the app. This means that when BM3 comes up with ideas for new features, such as giving the user the ability to change the SSID and Password of the adapter, the end user can always update the adapter to get these new features free of charge and without having to send the adapter in or buy a new one. This ability allows the BM3 adapter to remain extremely future proof, and gives the end user confidence that this adapter will likely be updated rather than be replaced by new hardware - which currently is the trend with other companies.



Additional Features:

In this last section I would like to discuss some of the additional features that the BM3 OBD2 wifi adapter has:

1) On/Off switch: this switch was shown in the overview section, and allows the end user to turn on and off the adapter. This can be helpful for RHD users (who can access this switch) or V2A adapter owners (the version without the sleep mode) to turn off the adapter when it is not in use.

2) Sleep mode + low power consumption: the BM3 V3 WIFI OBD2 adapter has a built in sleep mode, where the adapter will switch to a low power mode that draws ~20mA, when the ignition is switched off on G series vehicles (this feature will not work on F series cars because they do not transmit ignition state via the OBD2 port). The adapter will also be able to wake itself up again when the ignition is switched back on. This sleep mode will allow you to leave the adapter plugged in 24/7 without causing excessive battery drain - which will throw codes, and trigger alarms upon the door being locked on the G series BMW’s and the Toyota Supra (because these cars trigger alarms when there is enet data activity from the OBD2 port when the door is locked).

The BM3 WIFI adapter also has an extremely low power consumption of 80 ma while running, this is an incredibly low amount of power draw and should not cause any healthy battery to deplete even if left plugged in.


But another major benefit of being able to leave the OBD2 adapter in permanently is that it will reduce wear and tear on the OBD2 port itself (reduces wear on the plastic OBD2 connector, and the pins). For instance here are images and reports from BMW owners reporting that their OBD2 port has been worn out, or their pins have been bent, due to the over use of their OBD2 ports:



Credit: Comacchio https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/...?h=0&t=1947105



If you look at this image of an OBD2 port from a BMW F30, you will notice that on the right side of the connector and the 2nd gold pin from the top, this particular pin is quite badly damaged where it is even missing half of the pin itself. Looking at the other pins in this particular OBD2 connector you will also notice that each of the plastic pin holes are quite badly worn, and this OBD2 port is in quite bad shape.


These following threads also report the same thing about the pins being damaged on the OBD2 connector after repeated use:
https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1470306
https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1617787


So once more, having a sleep mode on an OBD2 adapter would be extremely beneficial for preventing wear and tear on the OBD2 port, as you can permanently leave the adapter plugged in, and thereby reduce the wear and tear on the OBD2 port from constantly plugging and unplugging the adapter.


Warranty:

Another thing I would like to talk about is warranty - with the BM3 adapter you have 30 days to return a product (if purchased from BM3) and this is also the length of the warranty period - however Dzenan has told me that outside of these 30 days (no restriction on how many days outside of the initial 30) warranty claims will be dealt on a case by case basis. This means that if your hardware was faulty (which is highly unlikely because the circuit board and components on it are extremely durable and reliable) and was not caused by the user (water damage, dropping it etc) then BM3 will likely cover it without charge. If the user caused damage to the adapter (broke the case for example) then there would be a minimum cost replacement - i.e. they would fix the part at cost price. Warranty claims are also done directly through BM3 and not through any 3rd party vendors whom you may have purchased a product from. This means that if there is an issue you would deal directly with BM3 and not a 3rd party vendor like XPH for example. Now this is a huge plus in my eyes, because you will be dealing with the OEM with capabilities of offering hardware replacement or repair and this always results in a higher level of customer service than dealing with a 3rd party who may not be willing to replace a part for you. This is what really bothered me with my MHD wifi adapter, because I had a slight issue with it and they told me to talk to the vendor who sold me the adapter rather than dealing with it themselves.



Summary:

Now I will quickly summarize everything in this review and conclude why I think the BM3 adapter is the best adapter on the market today.

So what makes the BM3 OBD2 adapter the best adapter on the market?

1) It supports the: ENET communication protocol allowing it to communicate with all F series and newer BMW’s (including the Supra), and it also supports CANBUS/Flexray communication allowing communication (and thereby flashing and coding) to all of the ECU’s within the car. Pair this with the WIFI communication protocol this adapter utilizes and you get one of the fastest (if not the fastest) and lowest latency OBD2 adapters on the market that will be able to communicate with every single ECU in the car.

2) The BM3 adapter will support user configurable Passwords, making it extremely secure and safe to use in the car 24/7 without worrying of OBD2 exploits allowing thieves to steal your car.

3) The BM3 adapter has a built in sleep mode preventing excessive battery drain and stops the alarm from being triggered on the G series and Toyota supra. This enables the user to keep the adapter plugged in 24/7 and prevents wear and tear on the OBD2 port.

4) The BM3 adapter has an extremely compact form factor with tapers in its shell allowing for maximum foot well clearance, this minimizes the adapter from accidentally being kicked and again prevents the OBD2 port from being damaged.

5) The BM3 adapter has updateable software via the BM3 app, this allows new features to be added over time instead of having to replace the adapter with a brand new one (which is what current companies have already done), meaning the user will not have to worry about their adapter becoming obsolete anytime soon.

6) Customer service/Warranty: BM3 has absolutely excellent customer service and support, combined with a fairly decent 30 warranty coverage where they themselves will take care of the customer (even outside of the warranty period).

So these are the 6 reasons why I think the BM3 adapter is the best option on the market today.

[F87source]

Reserved for future posts.

[mike@x-ph.com]

[Dynamic_m235]

Is bm3 compatible with the m2 yet? Only see on the website everything else but the s58 m2

[F87source]

Originally Posted by Dynamic_m235

Is bm3 compatible with the m2 yet? Only see on the website everything else but the s58 m2

I'm not sure, you should ask bm3 directly about this.

[F87source]

Ok guys huge software update for the BM3 wifi adapter just launched on the apple app store and google play store and I just wanted to make a brief post about it:

1) The WIFI Adapters now have user customizable passwords. This is an absolute game changer when comparing to the prior predefined generic password or even worse wifi adapters without passwords. This means you can now leave your adapter in 24/7 without having to worry about someone connecting to your wifi adapter and doing something malicious to your car. For example you're sitting at a red light or in a parking lot and someone connects to your wifi adapter and just codes random things to your car - or even worse uses ESYS to "code default" every module in your car turning it into a brick. And this is exacerbated because wifi adapters have crazy long ranges. So having a user defineable password with a strong encryption algorithm is a very very nice thing to have - so good job BM3!

2) A unique SSID is generated upon first boot up, again this is a super nice feature because if you're at a car meet and there are a bunch of other people with the same adapter generating the same generic SSID you will might have issues connecting to your own adapter. A unique SSID eliminates this issue, and again not many wifi adapters out there have this.

3) Sleep mode: man this is a huge one, but sleep mode is now available for the F series too, whereas it was only available for the G series before. The BM3 team have put in a massive amount of effort and have found a way to trigger the sleep and wake mode on the wifi adapter via a trigger on the obd2 port just like it was done on the G series. This means you can leave your adapter in 24/7 without having to worry about battery drain or weird error codes. You also don't have to worry about bending over to unplug and replug the adapters all the time and wear out the obd2 socket anymore. Sleep mode is also coming to the V2 adapters as well - but the V2 adapters will not have the proper hardware inside to prevent the alarm from triggering on the G series when the door is locked. So G series owners should still buy the V3 version - also note, the V2 is being discontinued and when it is sold out it will not be restocked.

Now let me briefly go over some of the features of the sleep mode:

- When the car's ignition is off, and there are NO connected devices to the adapter's wifi network. The wifi adapter will go into sleep mode after 30 mins.

- In sleep mode the adapter draws 20 mA, which is absolutely nothing and should eliminate all battery drain concerns.

- When the ignition is back on it will rewake the adapter.

- V2 and V3 adapters will get this feature via a software update in the Bm3 app.




So overall these are really nice updates from the Bm3 team and I am extremely excited for them!