I have Carly, it's currently working for free but no doubt will stop working soon. I had a lifetime license in the past when I used the app via a K-line cable (universal with switches), thein in 2021 bought the official Carly universal dongle from them as I could leave it plugged in all the time and it was on offer... Little realising that when you do so, and connect to your account, that you automatically are put on a subscription service where they annually take £100 or whatever with no notice whatsoever.
So colour me confused a year later.
I opened up a refund request, they declined stating that German retail laws don't say they have to notify you before taking payment and that by buying the adapter, you automatically accept the subscription (at the time this was not marketed well or made obvious, basically some small print somewhere at the bottom which is easy to miss).
Anyway I opened up a chargeback through Curve because Carly's support people were inept and patronising/passive aggressive in responses and basically said "good luck getting your money back.
Well yes, good luck indeed because as of yesterday, Curve have rejected their reason for declining a refund as Curve found no reasonable evidence to support their rejection. I'll have my money back thanks.
The app itself is good. If you have a wired OBD adapter (about £30), then the app itself works without a subscription and is a one time purchase (or was) - It allows you to do coding via toggles on various modules on the car allowing tweaking of various cool features. The diagnostics side of things isn't bad either and has helped me pinpoint various ECU codes over the years to specific sensors and whatnot.
The company however are shady and will not deliver satisfactory customer support when they're found to be in the wrong. Once Curve complete the chargeback process I will reply to Carly's last email where they said good luck with a meme of a dickbutt or something just because it will be highly amusing to me.
I will likely revert back to my old wired OBD cable but you can use a number of other apps with the Amazon dongles costing £30 or so which are Bluetooth LE/WiFi and allow full support for diag/coding combo apps like bimmer-code and bimmer-tool - I assume there are versions of these for VAG group cars too. DeeoOBD gets mentioned often too.
I just liked the wireless dongles because they can be left plugged in and less faff, but it's simple enough to plug in a wired cable when you need to run a diagnostic anyway too and the wired cable works with any app generally.
Edit* I think I will get this dongle, Veepeak's higher end model for under 330:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Veepeak-OBDCheck-Bluetooth-Diagnostic-Supports/dp/B073XKQQQW/ref=sr_1_29?crid=UAP02FT3DYAR&keywords=elm+327&qid=1690244205&sprefix=elm+327,aps,99&sr=8-29
Got Car Scanner app set up, it does some coding too so that satisfies my uses really.
www.mycarly.com
