Just setting up my OVMS in my Smart. Troubles with "being able to buy it" aside, the setup process was surprisingly great!
It's connected, it's reading data from the car, it's activated on Hologram, everything is in place.
And then I hit a brick wall at 100mph: Where the hell is the web interface? Now that it's all set up, where do I even access it from, when not local? The installation guide just crash-landed straight from "configuring stuff" to "here's how to play with the console", and ambled off from there, leaving a HUGE obvious burning question -- where does the user experience go from there? How does one _USE_ this thing?
I desperately hope this wasn't forgotten in development... that there's only an app, and there's only a config website, but no interface for using it normally!
You may have spotted some improvable point on the documentation.
The web interface is available on all network interfaces. Our recommendation is to keep the Wifi access point enabled, so you can always connect to that with a smart phone / tablet (fixed address http://192.168.4.1/).
In the network the Wifi client is connected to, you normally can access the module by its name in the mDNS ".local" domain, i.e. http://<modulename>.local/, and of course as well directly via the IP address assigned to the module in that network.
An alternative option to using the module AP is letting the module connect to your smart phone's AP (tethering). That way it can also use the internet connection of your smart phone (as long as it's connected). You may need to connect via the IP address though, or at least I haven't managed to get mDNS working on my phone's AP (Android 7).
Finally, if your mobile data plan includes inbound IP routing (Hologram.io option "Spacebridge"), you can connect to the IP address / forwarding port provided by that option. Be aware that's slow compared to Wifi, but totally usable. Btw, using a service like "Spacebridge" also enables you to connect to the module's SSH port via the cellular network.
It's now also an option to enable HTTPS on the module, but I'm afraid there's documentation lacking on that as well. I'll see if I can fix that.
Regards,
Michael
Oh, that's cool! Yeah, I wasn't really sure what the architecutre of OVMS was like at first - since I had to register an ID on the site, I figured that meant I would get access to a UI at openvehicles.com to view stuff without having to use the OVMS itself as a front-end.
However, it really seems like the OVMS device front-end is actually pretty competent. Lots of good info and features, well organized. Coming from an experience with Home Assistant recently as well, I see a common style between them (maybe just imagining it?), and I dig it in both places.
I'll look into how to access it through cellular as well (hope it's bandwidth-optimized, as it would be serving its front-end to me over that cell connection, not just telemetry).
The app is also pretty decent, but seems like it may be exposing some features I can't use (like charge rate setting), but that may only not work because I had CAN write disabled. Now it's enabled, so I'll try it again later.
All cool, and glad I could at least point out that hangup in the docs :) Otherwise pretty great documentation!
User guide update:
Thanks for posting the webUI docs/info! Once I get my WiFi back (I'm 100% cellular while in an apartment), I'm going to try the web interface.