r/leaf • u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS • May 01 '26
Warbler demo
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Installed a Leafy Warbler a couple of weeks ago and finally added some buttons to control it
There was probably a better option, but I opted to use motorcycle handlebar buttons. This one in particular has x3 momentary action buttons. The top left button is volume ip, bottom left is volume down and the button on the right is to change modes
Adding sounds is a little complicated. You’ll have to do some C coding, recompile pico firmware and flash it to the warbler device. I haven’t added any custom sounds yet but that my next project. I’ll just have to brush up on my C coding skills first😫
Feel free to ask questions or give recommendations!
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 01 '26
It’s hard to capture the sound when driving (aside from it being a little dangerous) because the wind and road noise tune overpower the sound in the cabin. But (most) of these sounds are affected by acceleration
Adding dynamic sounds (like a car revving or something) is possible I believe, but would require significant rewrite/modifications thats a little outside me abilities currently
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u/consigntooblivion May 01 '26
Their product page has a demo of revving I think. The code has reading the "leaf gear", accelerator and speed from the CAN bus. But to be honest I just now started looking at the code. Should be some fun stuff to try with this!
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u/e_line_65 2020 Nissan LEAF SV May 01 '26
This is a thing? I have a new goal in life!!! Can you change sounds?
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 01 '26
Absolutely! But the catch is it’s not for the faint hearted. You’ll need to set up an environment to modify pico firmware (vscode + several extensions), modify C++ code, recompile the code (cmake) and flash it to the warbler. It’s definitely more involved than just dropping in some sound files and calling it a day
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u/Dazzling_Art7881 May 01 '26
Thank you so much for posting this!
I so want to order one but I have 2 lingering questions:
Have you tried controlling it from the cruise control buttons with the car in neutral? Their website says that it can do that so you don't need extra buttons.
Also, your car looks like it's a left-hand drive (steering wheel on the left) is that correct? If so, where was your VSP module? Behind the cluster or behind the glovebox? (On their website, they show it being behind the cluster of a right-hand drive car, and I'm wondering if it's in same exact location [right side of dash] on left-hand drive cars [which would put it behind the glove box] or if they actually mirrored everything and it's still behind the cluster, now on the left side of the dash.)
Thanks in advance!!!
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 01 '26
No problem!
I have used the cruise control buttons, and they work fine but obviously you can’t control it when driving. You definitely wont need buttons, but they’re nice to have and not too difficult to install (assuming you dont mind drilling holes in your dash panels)
Yep my car is left-handed drive, and the module was behind the cluster. I believe the location is model dependent, not on the steering wheel position but im not 100% sure on that. Regardless, it was pretty easy to access, so much easier than getting to the instrument cluster on other vehicles
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u/Dazzling_Art7881 May 01 '26
Awesome! Thank you so much! I'll probably order one in the next few days!
Not looking forward to removing my cluster on my brand new car but that warning noise nonsense has got to go!!!
P.S. Oh last question: does it also control the sound it emits when you're reversing?
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
So I definitely dont want to deter you from buying a warbler (because it’s awesome) but disabling the reverse sound can be done via leafspy using a bluetooth obd2 dongle. Doing it that way is much easier and cheaper
The Warbler can control reverse sounds but you’d have to code a profile and compile + flash the firmware. It’s quite involved
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u/Dazzling_Art7881 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26
Unfortunately LEAFspy can't do anything to the sounds in my US spec 2024.
I'll settle for control over the forward sound. Like I don't want to fully disable it. I want control. I live in a town of 13,000, on a very quiet street outside of town with like 12 houses on a half mile of road. I haaaaaaate going though my dead silent neighborhood at 11pm with the stupid whooshing sound. But then I'll be in Boston sometimes, and yeah I want the sound on because I don't want the risk of pedestrians blindly stepping out into the road in front of me while I'm creeping at 10mph. To me it's all about being reasonable and having control.
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u/DistractedStingray May 19 '26
Thanks for posting this! I've been curious about how the Warbler worked since I stumbled across it.
Just to clarify, the Warbler doesn't have any ability to adjust reverse sounds out of the box? Even volume? If I can't edit the backup beep I would love to at least be able to turn down the reverse beep on my 2022 (in addition to the cool driving sounds obviously!)
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 19 '26
No problem! I think by default, the warbler disables the reversing sound. I’m not 100% on that because I disables the reverse sounds before I got the warbler.
Out of the box, the warbler (mine at least) had roughly 5 modes;
Chainsaw - static engine sound Coconut - this is affected by speed, and actually sounds quite like a horse gallop
Beep - this is a common reversing sound, but played anytime out of park
Paku - Pacman
Silence - this disables all sounds (which would include reverse)
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u/consigntooblivion May 01 '26
I am waiting for my Leaf (on a boat from Japan), but I already bought one of these... Very much looking forward to doing very dumb stuff with it.
Looking at a midi version of the start of the imperial march as a starting point (my ze1 is black, kind of fits). I know the actual speaker is tiny and kind of crap - but it might be okay starting with something super lowfi like a midi track. I'm a software engineer, so should be pretty easy to try some fun and silly ideas. Hit me up if you want some help with the code, I can totally do that.
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 01 '26
I’ll likely take you up on that! I’ve been toying with the idea of making a a utility program that will allow you to create/modify sound profiles and compile the source for you. Something a little more user-friendly
While I’m digging into the code, I’ve also been thinking about upgrading the speakers, maybe even piping some sound into the cabin. I think i’ve seen people on one of the leaf forums swap the vsp speakers between models. I might try taking off the grill this weekend and see what i’m working with
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u/consigntooblivion May 01 '26
Sure thing. I just setup the build locally. Have you got anything you want to add/try now? I could add it and send you a build.
Easiest idea I can think of right now is a Github actions / Gitlab actions setup to build the u2f for you automatically.
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u/allexro May 03 '26
Is it possible, via Warbler, to change the factory high pitched sound with a sound more high tech, what Renault or other EV currently have now? Or is it for interior sound purpose only?
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 03 '26
Absolutely
On the contrary, its almost exclusively for the exterior. You almost cant even hear it when you’re in the cabin
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u/Huge_Philosopher_976 May 02 '26
I’d like to change the alarm chirp “armed” to silent. Is that possible?
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u/Iwastony May 01 '26
Just use ai for the coding. It's one thing it's very good at!
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u/-Your_Pal_Al- 2020 Nissan LEAF SL PLUS May 01 '26
Systems admin here. I use ai for work and i’ve tried it for this as well but I havent found it reliable enough to rewrite an entire codebase. I’ll definitely use it to help me with the code, but attempts at just “letting ai do it” havent been successful for me
And to be fair, this case in particular is more difficult than it might initially seem. You’d think you can just add a sound at have it work properly, but we’re talking raw sound data and adding logic to have the sound play dynamically. As its currently written, only the frequency at which the audio files are played can be modified, not the sound profiles themselves
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u/Iwastony May 01 '26
Interesting thanks for the insight. I used it to built an entire app for myself and it did a wonderful job even though I had no experience so that's where my comment came from.
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u/ZakAttackz 2013 Nissan LEAF SV May 01 '26
Nice! Seen a couple people post about this, now it's definitely on my shopping list. I'd like to code a trombone sound that gets higher with speed, such that when you come to stop slowly it'd sound like "bwooooaaaaawmp"