Which OBD dongle is the most popular to use with the torque app for my 2010 XF?

 

Elm327 as long as it's a decent quality one and not a Chinese cheapie.

 

If you get the ELM, don't leave it plugged - it will drain your battery eventually.
Remove it once you are done with it.

 

I basically want it to keep track of my engine temperature. Is there one that doesn't drain your battery?

 

It will only drain the battery when the ignition is off and you leave the adapter plugged in. There is an option in Torque to remind you to remove the adapter when you close the app'.

 

I'm really surprised there isn't an adapter that senses when the engine is off and goes into sleep mode - disabling bluetooth, LEDs, just taking enough power to see when the car wakes up and then turn everything back on again.

It's certainly possible, I think it's just that a lot of these ELM327 dongles were designed for OBDII code reading and diagnosis, not to run as a permanent information source for gauges.

Another option would be to replace the permanent positive feed in the OBDII port with an ignition switched one, although I wouldn't recommend it as there are some things that the service routines that the SDD software does that require the ignition to be off, so that's why it has a permanent +ve feed. Better to see if there's a more suitable adapter.

Note that ELM added a sleep mode from "v1.4" of their adapter design. There may be ELM327 adapters that specifically advertise they offer this functionality.

 

You have hit the nail right on the head there Dave, that was their original purpose.

 

E.g. This advertises "Auto sleep mode helps save car battery power." The Engrish contained in the description might be enough to put you off buying that particular one, but there are definitely adapters out there that claim to have a sleep mode. Check reviews before purchase.

 

strange but I bought a OBDLink bluetooth which was around $80 and it would not play nice with the nitrous controller since I am grabbing rpm for the controller through a direct connection and also using the dongle to get temp readings. The expensive dongle wouldn't work when the signal is split, so another forum member who built my OBDII CANBUS converter suggested I get a cheap Chinese version, $8 and works great with the Torque App.

Now...the Torque app on the other hand will give you problems as it cause the XF to throw gearbox faults every so often. I didn't have this problem at all when I was running dash command. But dash command also didn't like to share the signal..... So on a hot day when you get in the car and see a gearbox fault and have to wait for Torque to clear it...it will make you curse...but with either dongles, I have never had any battery drain issues.