Conrod - Kickstarter

[The_Hawk]

James from round these parts has a kickstarter project going on at the moment which looks bloody amazing. It not only does some very cool things by itself, it also has integration into the new Apple Watch so you can do stuff to your car from outside.

Lots and lots of potential going on here. Jump on it early and support a local VAG nut like you!

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/conrod/conrod-apps-for-your-car

[jamesatfish]

Thanks Aaron - we very much appreciate your support both here and in backing us on Kickstarter!

We had a great turnout to our launch BBQ here in Canberra today, but if anyone in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane is interested in seeing Conrod first hand please let me know as we're hoping to organise a few demo days over the next few weeks if there's sufficient interest.

[asa572]

Really like the look of the Conrod Display James.
I thought you must have been making a screen that retro fitted to the cluster to update the look.

[The_Hawk]

Really like the look of the Conrod Display James.
I thought you must have been making a screen that retro fitted to the cluster to update the look.

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James can clarify, but it says there is a fascia available if you want to hard mount it... which I probably will

[AdamD]

This looks like a fantastic product James! I'd definitely consider one to replace the crufty old half-height MFD in my '05 Mk5 Comfortline.

[toaster]

Jump on it early and support a local VAG nut like you!

I will.

A couple of questions, does Conrod support the mk3 Octavia?

Also I know it's not sold as a VAGCOM replacement, but with the right programming could a developer program the CAN bus? e.g. turn on traffic alerts?

[jamesatfish]

Really like the look of the Conrod Display James.
I thought you must have been making a screen that retro fitted to the cluster to update the look.

James can clarify, but it says there is a fascia available if you want to hard mount it... which I probably will

Thanks! As Aaron mentioned, the add-on Display comes in 2 mounting options depending on your vehicle. We've got custom fascias for Mk5 and MK6 Golf, which allow you to mount the display between the dash cluster and its fascia. You don't actually need to remove the old display, and you don't modify or swap the cluster itself so no recoding is required; the Conrod display sits in front of the existing display and you can take it out to revert to stock at any time.

If you don't have a Mk5 or Mk6 Golf then the Display comes in a stand-alone case with the GoPro mounts, so you can use velcro, suction-cup, double-sided tape or any other GoPro mount to fix the display in your car.

This looks like a fantastic product James! I'd definitely consider one to replace the crufty old half-height MFD in my '05 Mk5 Comfortline.

Thanks Adam! Our demo car (in the pic posted above) is a '07 Mk5 TDI Comfortline with the same half-height MFD, so we know that upgrade will work very nicely in your car. You'll notice from our pic that we've used a GTI/R32 front dash fascia rather than the standard Comfortline fascia - both are compatible but if you can find an R32 fascia with the separate glass over the analogue dials it'll look much nicer.

I will.

A couple of questions, does Conrod support the mk3 Octavia?

Also I know it's not sold as a VAGCOM replacement, but with the right programming could a developer program the CAN bus? e.g. turn on traffic alerts?

The Mk3 Octavia runs the same platform (CAN wise) as the Mk7 Golf, so yes Conrod will support your car. We don't have a custom dash fascia for the display to suit the Octavia.

Conrod's hardware can certainly be programmed to perform actions that we don't currently support (to provide functionality akin to VCDS for example), but I'd suggest that a dedicated diagnostics app like VCDS is still a good way to go. There's a heap of work involved in just figuring out how to listen to the modules, let alone reprogram them, so you'd really want to be interested in learning how to do it yourself before embarking on that project. You also wouldn't be able to use our Plug & Play harness as that harness doesn't connect Conrod to the Diagnostics bus that VCDS / VAGCOM cables use for programming.