Beta test programme · New Zealand · v0.1

The mechanicin your pocket.

Plug a $40 dongle into your car, open AutoAvatar, and a talking mechanic reads your fault codes out loud — in plain English, with the volts and amps to back it up. Built in Wellington for people who fix their own cars.

Get the beta APK See what it does
Android 7.0+ Works offline AI answers aloud Radio codes 6 brands No ads · no account
90-second explainer · placeholder cut▶ press play
What it does

Everything the dealer charges for

AutoAvatar speaks the same ELM327 protocol as the scan tools in the trade — then goes further, because it can talk back.

Full fault scan

Stored, pending and permanent codes, the warning-lamp state and freeze-frame context — one tap, ranked by severity.

Scan

Live data

RPM, coolant, fuel-rail pressure, O₂ sensors and 40+ PIDs as dial gauges and a scrolling trace, with min/avg/max.

Live

A mechanic that talks

Ask “what does P0237 mean?” and the avatar answers out loud with a moving mouth, while the text stays on screen.

AI

Radio unlock codes

Battery flat, radio locked? Toyota ERC, Renault, Peugeot, Fiat decode offline on the phone; Ford via your server. Dealers charge for this.

Codes

I/M readiness

The WoF-of-emissions grid: which monitors are complete, which are not, and whether a clear just wiped them.

Readiness

VIN garage

Scan or type a VIN and the app knows the car — make, model, year, engine. Keep a whole fleet and switch per job.

Garage

Hub hardware (soon)

The Auto Diagnostic Hub adds bench probes: battery voltage, current draw and continuity, reported into the same avatar.

Beta+

Yours, offline

No account, no ads, no telemetry. Scans and radio codes work with the phone in airplane mode; the AI needs a connection.

Privacy
The kit

What lands in your letterbox

Beta testers get the hub, the probe loom and the dongle on loan. Nothing to solder, nothing to configure — the phone does the thinking.

The AutoAvatar kit laid out: diagnostic hub in a clear case with coloured probe sockets, a coiled probe loom, an OBD-II Bluetooth dongle and the quick-start guide beside a phone running the app
  • Auto Diagnostic Hub — ESP32 with Bluetooth LE, eight colour-coded probe sockets and a clear case you can actually see the bus in.
  • Probe loom — banana-to-pin leads for battery, current-shunt and back-probe work.
  • Konnwei KW902 OBD-II dongle — plugs into the 16-pin port under the dash; pairs over Bluetooth LE, no Android pairing needed.
  • The app — the APK below, or sideloaded from this page.

No hub yet? The app is fully useful with just the dongle — the hub adds voltage and continuity tests as firmware lands.

AutoAvatar first-run screen: handshake log while connecting to the car
01 · Handshake — ignition on, one tap
AutoAvatar dashboard with gauges and vehicle card
02 · Dashboard — gauges and the car's card
AutoAvatar garage picker listing saved vehicles
03 · Garage — every car you look after
Load the beta

Four steps to first scan

The beta ships as a signed APK straight from this page — no Play Store, no test flight, no account. Android will ask once whether you trust installs from your browser; say yes.

AutoAvatar beta

Signed release build · arm64 + x86_64
Version
0.1 (beta channel)
Size
36.3 MB
Needs
Android 7.0 (API 24) or newer
SHA-256
78458dee7caea8cc1abe0a6d723dd56a1280da54a2cb3b9a91dad4131a3ef3a5
⬇ Download the APK
Check the checksum. After downloading, long-press the file in Files → details, or run sha256sum on a computer. It must match the SHA-256 above — that is how you know the file is ours and unmodified.

Download

Tap the button on your phone. The file lands in Downloads as autoavatar-beta.apk (36 MB — use Wi-Fi).

Allow, then install

Open the file. Android asks to allow installs from your browser or file manager — allow it once, then Install. Nothing else on the phone changes.

Meet the avatar

First run offers Demo mode: a simulated car so you can explore every screen in the driveway. With the dongle plugged in and ignition on, tap Scan on the Connect screen instead — the handshake log shows each step.

Optional: voice & Ford codes

Settings → Speech backend holds the server address and token from your welcome email. With it, the avatar talks and Ford radio codes resolve; without it everything else still works offline.

House rules for testers. Ignition on, engine off for scans. Read codes before you clear them — clearing wipes freeze-frame and readiness. The app never writes to the ECU except when you press Clear codes. If a screen confuses you, that is a bug worth reporting, not a you-problem.
Keep the programme honest

Found a fault? Report it in 60 seconds

Every report goes to one inbox with a template, so nothing gets lost and nobody's personal phone rings. Screenshots beat descriptions every time.

Send reports to
beta@aiworkflows.co.nz
  1. What you expected, and what happened instead.
  2. Phone model + Android version (Settings → About phone).
  3. App version: Settings → About in the app.
  4. Dongle or hub, and whether the car was running.
  5. A screenshot, or Settings → Share for the protocol log.
What we do with it

Reports are triaged into the build log; anything that blocks a scan gets fixed before the next beta drop. You will get one reply saying which build carries the fix — no mailing list, no newsletter, and your email is never shared.

Crashes that include the protocol log are gold: they show exactly what the car said back, which is usually the whole bug.