LambdaOBD
Know what your car is telling you.
Visit the siteA Bluetooth adapter plugged under the dashboard can tell you exactly what is wrong with a car. The apps that read it mostly show you a code and leave you to search for it. LambdaOBD says it in words instead, ranks the likely causes, and does the whole thing without an account, without advertising and without touching the internet.
I designed the whole product: the identity, the interface, the design system underneath it and every screen in the app. The hard part was never the data — an ELM327 adapter hands you plenty of it. The hard part was deciding what a person standing beside an open bonnet actually needs to see first, and then refusing to put anything else on that screen.
The screens
What it does
Codes in plain words
Stored, pending and permanent faults, each with what it means and its likely causes ranked. 850 common codes, from the open OBDex database.
A half-minute verdict
The health check folds the codes, the readiness monitors, how recently codes were cleared and how the engine idles into one answer. Built for the moment before you buy a used car.
Nothing leaves the phone
No account, no advertising, no network access at all. The VIN decoder works offline too.
Readable at arm’s length
Dark by default and sized for a phone held at the end of an outstretched arm, over an engine, in daylight.
- Platform
- Android
- Needs
- A Bluetooth ELM327 adapter
- Price
- Free, optional one-time Pro
- Role
- Design and build, solo