Raven has long serviced light, and medium-duty vehicles on the J1979 standard (often referred to as OBDII), providing live video feeds along with pertinent vehicle information in real-time for fleet managers to have visibility over their remote field operations. Communicating with the vehicle’s CAN Bus (Controller Area Network) with J1979 Engine Control Modules (ECM), Raven can pull key data directly from the vehicle, incorporated into our existing monitoring and reporting framework to empower end users with actionable vehicle insights. Previous support for heavy-duty vehicles was limited, but with new J1939 compatibility, Raven devices can now be used in light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles, expanding our solution’s availability to most vehicles on the road today.

As Raven supports a number of customers with a mix of vehicles, including some light-to-medium duty and some heavy-duty vehicles, it was important that we be able to support them all. For that reason, we are happy to announce that we now offer complete J1939 support to our customers. 

The Connected Video Telematics system requires no setup or configuration to run in heavy-duty vehicles. Just like our original solution for J1979 (light and medium duty vehicles), the solution is entirely plug-and-play. For interested parties with J1939 vehicles, all that is required is a different power connector. We offer a Raven-compatible J1939 connector, also known as a 9-pin Deutsch connector, in our online store. The complete suite of Raven features are available for existing and new customers with J1939 vehicles, including vehicle diagnostic trouble codes and live vehicle information. 

What is J1979?

J1979 is a SAE International (formerly Society of Automotive Engineers) standard defining On-Board Diagnostic Parameter IDs (OBD-II PIDs), a set of defined codes used to request data from a vehicle. All regular passenger vehicles sold in the US are required to support a subset of these codes. By standardizing these codes, manufacturer-agnostic tools can connect to vehicles, check and decode diagnostic trouble codes, and access live data such as fuel level or odometer readings. 

One example of these tools are the code readers that mechanics use at your local automotive repair shop for an easy way to identify an issue with your vehicle and get it back up and running quicker. 

What is J1939?

Similarly to J1979, J1939 is a set of SAE International standards that outline how ECMs communicate through the CAN bus for heavy-duty vehicles. If you think of the CAN as a method of communication, like a telephone, both J1939 and J1979 use the same process but speak a different language. This protocol is the industry-accepted standard leveraged by most heavy-duty vehicles today.