I don't know how long these have been out, but I finally got one a couple months ago and did a video on it, like a review. I'll put that down at the bottom.
I was just wondering what other people think of them and which ones you think are best. I have a cheaper one I got for about 10 bucks and the app called Torque Pro for 5 bucks.
If you have one please leave the name of it, how much it cost, if it's good or not and what apps can be used with it.

Here's my vid on the Vgate Scanner

 

You will find the big difference between adapters is the PID read speed. You can evaluate this in Torque Pro by choosing Adapter Status/Adapter PID read speed. Note that this will vary between communication protocol used as well as make, model, and year of vehicle.

I have the BAFX OBD2 Bluetooth device as sold on Amazon for about $22. It is known to be one of the fastest. I get around 30 scans/second with it on my 2001 Blazer. I also had the OBDLink MX for a while (cost $80) but returned it as speed was not much better (about 38 scans/sec) and that didn't justify the high cost in my eyes. I also had a cheapo clone (under $10) from Amazon. It worked OK but only gave 3 scans/sec and was unuseable for live monitoring more than one thing at a time. I gave the last one to a friend and he is quite happy with the price and used it with Torque Free on his 2007 Taurus to read/clear codes during recent repairs. Myself, I typically like to monitor things like all 6 misfire counters, RPM, and CMP retard. Need a decent scan speed to do this. With 8 PIDs monitored, updates for the 3 PID/second adapter would occur at about 2.5 second intervals. With 30 scans/sec, you would get about 4 updates per second across all 8 things. See what I mean?

You will find that Torque Pro is a very nice slick app, but it does not display CMP retard on your Blazer (something we need to monitor and set). Car Gauge Pro ($8.95) will do CMP retard on 1998-2004 Blazers but does not display exhanced GM PIDs on 1996 -1997 Blazers. Dash Command will display CMP retard on 1996-2004 Blazers, but is $10 + $10 more for each connected vehicle for the enhanced PIDs. They all work with the Bluetooth OBD2 adapters and I have them all. If you want to do bi-directional communication to do crank sensor relearn, etc - then you have to splurge for the Windows apps like HP Tuners VCM scanner (I have this one), EFI Live, Autoenginuity. They all have their own proprietary OBD2 adapters.

Have fun.

 

I've been using a cheap eBay generic ELM327 dongle for years now paired with the paid full version of Torque, got it to play around with when I bought by 2010 F150 brand new. With that truck it was more of just a gimmick, considering it was brand new, had no issues, and I just thought it was cool to monitor things and see more gauges :P That truck has been long gone now, and I've made more use of it since, but not so much as with the live data that it provides, but with the trouble code reading capabilities. One of these cheap Chinese dongles and Torque is WAAAAYYYY cheaper than any basic OBDII scanner and will do the EXACT same thing. It's helped me diagnose running issues with my 04 Blazer, my 01 Corolla, a friends 02 Grand Marquis, my father's 03 F150. I routinely use it to clear the dang "check engine" light from the Blazer, mostly before a longer trip (1+ hour) because I get tired of looking at the light... it's an evap issue...

I've had two dongles, one that I did pay a little more for, and yes the update speed was DEFINITELY better on it than on the cheap eBay bought $7 dongle... But I've since lost that one after 2 or 3 moves :P but for what I use it for, mostly OBDII code scanning, the cheap one works fantastically!

 

This is awesome info, thanks,

I am planning on installing a raspberry pi type system with touch screen running android to run as an entertainment system (amoung other things) and this would be an awesome addition to have this on just to have that info on screen (if for nothing else than just to look cool LOL)

 

That is a pretty cool idea. If you do it, make sure you make a How/To on it

 

It's probably not going to be till after the snow season, don't have access to a garage (and a few other jobs needing done) and will probably require some major console modding to fit a screen along side everything else, etc but I will most definitely do a how to/build post

 

That's what i would be doing. It got super cold real fast. not much of a transition, just 78 degrees one day and then 38 degrees the next lol. i love the innovation though. The console modding should be interesting. i look forward to seeing how you do it!

 

This is my first experience of a full on canadian winter so this is going to be a fun learning curve LOL

 

Yes PLEASE make a thread for the Raspberry Pi setup!

I set one up with Kodi and have been using it in my living room for a little over a year now and I LOVE it. I want to build another system out of one to run my home server (which just consist of a netbook and 2TB of external storage hooked to it shared over the network).

I've considered setting up a Raspberry Pi system or an in-dash Android setup for my 04 Blazer, and I'd rather the Raspberry Pi system. I would LOVE to see others do it as well to an S10/Blazer!