DriveMotion support

DriveMotion talks to ELM327-compatible adapters over three transports:

• Bluetooth Low Energy — works on both Android and iOS.
• Classic Bluetooth — Android only.
• Wi-Fi — adapters that create their own network and expose a TCP port. The app scans for them, so you do not have to type an IP address.

On iPhone, the adapter must support Bluetooth Low Energy. iOS does not let apps talk to classic Bluetooth serial adapters, so a classic-only adapter cannot work on iOS no matter what the app does. Dual-mode adapters that advertise both are fine.

That value is not reported by your car. Which data an engine control unit exposes over OBD-II varies enormously between makes, models and years — many cars, for instance, do not report the odometer or a fuel-flow rate at all. DriveMotion probes what your car supports at connection time and shows the rest as unavailable rather than inventing numbers.

Where a value is missing but can be derived, the app derives it: distance falls back to filtered GPS, and average consumption is calculated from what the car does report.

The app watches the connection and reconnects to the last adapter automatically, retrying about every 15 seconds. If it keeps dropping, the usual causes are a loose adapter in the OBD port, a cheap clone adapter, or the adapter powering down when the ignition is off.

Android aggressively kills background work to save battery, and on some manufacturers’ devices it does so within minutes. If a trip is coming back much shorter than it should be, check all three of these:

1. Battery optimisation — allow DriveMotion to run unrestricted. The app offers this when you start a trip; it is worth accepting.
2. Location permission set to “Allow all the time” — on Android 11 and newer this cannot be granted from a dialog, only from the app’s settings page. The app will send you there.
3. Manufacturer sleep or app-hibernation lists — Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo and others keep their own list of “sleeping apps”. Remove DriveMotion from it.

None of these are required to use the app, but a background recording is not reliable without them.

Yes. Grant “Always” location access when the app asks at the start of a trip. While recording, the blue location indicator stays visible in the status bar — deliberately, so background recording is never invisible to you — and a Live Activity shows the trip on the Lock Screen.

Not for the core features. Trip recording, the dashboard, fault code descriptions and speed camera warnings all run offline, because the camera database ships inside the app.

A connection is needed to draw maps, to render trip videos on a map background, and to prepare a speed corridor route for a journey.

The dataset is a snapshot and cannot be perfect — cameras are installed, moved and removed continuously. Please tell us the location and what you saw, and we will correct it in a later update.

Treat warnings as informational only. They are never a reason to drive at a particular speed, and a missing warning is not a defence. See the terms.

A stretch of road with a camera at each end, where your average speed between the two points is what is measured — not your speed at any single moment. Inside a corridor DriveMotion tracks your running average from the point you entered, so you can see whether you are on course while there is still road left to correct it.

On Android, to your gallery under Movies/Trafic. On iOS, to your photo library — which is why the app asks for permission to add to it. From there you can share it wherever you like.

Use Settings → Data → Export on the old phone. That produces one file containing your trips, their routes, events and attached photos; save or send it somewhere you can reach from the new phone, then import it there. Importing adds to what is already on the device and never deletes anything.

That file contains your full location history, so keep it somewhere you trust.

There is no account to delete, and we hold nothing on a server. Full instructions are on the data deletion page.

In your store account, not in the app: Google Play → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions, or on iPhone Settings → your name → Subscriptions. Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription. Refunds are handled by the store you purchased from.

Where a consent form was shown to you, the same choice can be reopened from the app’s settings. On iPhone you can also change tracking permission at any time under Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. Subscribing to Pro removes ads entirely.

DriveMotion follows your device language and is translated into eleven languages. You can also pick one explicitly in Settings → Language.