Independent companion app for the BYD Sealion 7
Sealion 7 Pilot runs on the car's own head unit and adds a live vehicle dashboard, battery and energy insights, EV trip planning with charging stops, and turn-by-turn navigation that keeps working when the signal does not.
Why Sealion 7 Pilot
Speed, gear, state of charge, range, consumption, tyre pressures and drivetrain data — read live from the vehicle and presented on one glanceable screen.
State of charge, remaining energy and charging power shown plainly, with invalid sensor readings filtered out instead of displayed as fake numbers.
Routes are planned with your consumption and battery in mind, including charging stops with arrival state of charge for each leg.
Charging stations along the route and around you, with connector power ratings and estimated charge times on planned stops.
A fast vector map with turn-by-turn guidance, off-route recovery and a speed-adaptive camera — designed for a landscape automotive display.
Not a generic OBD viewer: every screen is designed for the Sealion 7's data, display and driving experience.
Features
Every feature below is implemented and working in the current application. Capabilities still in development are listed separately — and clearly marked.
Telemetry read directly from the vehicle: state of charge, range, speed, gear, drivetrain voltage and current, motor data and tyre pressures — refreshed continuously while you drive.
Download your country's roads and map, and the head unit does its own routing. Plans, alternatives, reroutes and the repair after a missed turn are all computed in the car — nothing waits for a signal, and a tunnel or a dead zone changes nothing. Add up to four more countries and routes cross the borders between them. When there is a signal, live traffic adjusts the speeds it routes on; when there is not, it routes without.
Plan a journey and get an energy-aware route: per-leg distance, duration and energy, plus suggested charging stops with arrival state of charge and estimated charge time.
A vector map tuned for the in-car display: smooth car tracking, a speed-adaptive 3D camera, live guidance instructions and automatic return-to-route when you leave the planned path.
The route does not stay on the centre screen. It projects onto the driver's cluster display behind the wheel, so the next turn is in front of you rather than across the cabin — and one control swaps the two views, putting the overview on the dials and the close-in map on the big screen.
Journeys and charging sessions are recorded automatically in the background — distance, energy, consumption and charging power over time, stored on the device.
Scan the code on the head unit and the car belongs to your account. It reports its battery, range and history there, so your car's numbers are not stranded on a screen you have to be sitting in front of.
Browse charging stations near the car or along the route, with DC/AC connector information and power ratings so you can pick the right stop before you commit.
These capabilities exist in the project but are not ready for daily use yet. They ship only when they are reliable in the car.
App preview
The main areas of the app, captured on the car. The head unit rotates; these were taken with it in portrait.
Captured on the car over adb (app 0.9.0, head unit in portrait), driving the app's own route simulator — the car itself was parked. The cluster shot is the second display, captured live while it projected the same route. Charging and Trip history are August captures of screens that have not changed.
How it works
Sealion 7 Pilot runs on the car's DiLink head unit. There is no app store on the car, so the phone app puts it there over the car's Wi-Fi.
On the Sealion 7 the app reads vehicle signals through the head unit's own interfaces. No extra hardware, no OBD dongle.
The dashboard, trip recorder and navigation run on the car's display and keep working across ignition off/on cycles.
Prepare EV trips with charging stops, follow turn-by-turn guidance, and review recorded trips and charging sessions afterwards.
Install
The car has no app store, so the app goes on from your phone: the Sealion 7 Pilot phone app finds the car on your Wi-Fi and installs it when you say yes. No computer, no cable. After that the app updates itself.
Three months free, from the day you sign in.
Creating an account issues a licence for Sealion 7 Pilot straight away — nothing to enter, nothing to pay. It covers the app and every update for three months.
On an Android phone, signed in with the same account as above. The installer is in the Android app only.
The phone app is in a Google Play test, not a public listing yet. Open the link with the Google account on your phone, become a tester, then install it from Google Play.
This is what lets the phone install anything, and the Sealion 7 does not put it where Android normally does — getting there involves a settings screen you would not want to mistype. BYD Lab has the procedure written up and tested on the car, with the risk warning it deserves. The phone app shows the same steps.
Sealion 7: turn on adb over Wi-Fi and install an appThe switch is not where Android usually puts it, and the procedure carries a medium risk warning. Tested on head-unit build 51.1.4.2606220.1. Follow it up to turning adb on — the phone app does the installing.
Your home network, or the phone's own hotspot with the car joined to it.
Tap Find the car. The phone looks for the head unit on port 5555 and lists what answers; pick the car. The first time, the car asks whether to allow debugging from this phone — allow it, and it will not ask again.
Nothing is downloaded until you have seen the summary — which version, how big, onto which device at which address, and what is on it now — and tapped install. Keep both on the Wi-Fi until it finishes.
The app starts on a code. Scan it with the phone, and the car is linked to your account.
dev.pilotlab.sealion7pilot — the only one it can installUpdates arrive the same way, over the car's Wi-Fi, and keep the car linked. Once the app is on the car it can also update itself, so the phone is not needed every time.
Purpose-built
Sealion 7 Pilot targets the BYD Sealion 7's DiLink infotainment environment — its Android platform, its landscape display, its vehicle data interfaces and its ignition behaviour. We have driven thousands of kilometres testing it in the car it was built for. The app also installs on regular Android devices for development and preview, with vehicle features inactive.
Sealion 7 Pilot is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by BYD. BYD, Sealion and DiLink are trademarks of their respective owners.
Roadmap
Statuses reflect the current state of the project. Nothing in "planned" is available today.
FAQ
An independent Android application that runs on the BYD Sealion 7's head unit. It adds a live vehicle dashboard, EV trip planning with charging stops, turn-by-turn navigation, and automatic trip and charging history.
The app is built specifically for the BYD Sealion 7 with the DiLink head unit. It can be installed on other Android devices for preview, but vehicle telemetry only works on the supported car.
No. Sealion 7 Pilot is an independent project with no affiliation to BYD. It is not endorsed, supported or distributed by BYD.
No. It runs as a regular app alongside the original DiLink software. The factory system, its navigation and its safety features remain untouched.
Live dashboard, battery and energy insights, EV route planning with charging stops, turn-by-turn navigation on both the centre screen and the instrument cluster, live traffic, a charging-station browser, and automatic trip and charging history. Routing and the map run on the car from a country pack you download once — your home country and up to four more, with routes across their borders and car ferries included — so they work with no network; with a signal, live traffic adjusts the route and the ETA. Cluster guidance runs in all three of the car's modes and keeps going while the app is in the background. The Android phone companion, which installs the app on the car, is in a Google Play test. The iPhone companion, a full voice assistant and camera integration are still in development.
For the map and routing, no — that is why the country pack exists. The map, planning, rerouting and guidance run on the head unit once your country's pack is downloaded, and 136 countries have one today. Destination search and live traffic do need the network; without it, routes are timed on normal road speeds. There is no routing at all in a country with no pack, and a new install cannot route until it has one.
Yes, when the head unit has a signal. Live traffic adjusts the speeds the on-car router plans with, and during guidance the road ahead is timed against live traffic, so the ETA follows the queues, slow sections show on your route, and when a faster road opens up the app says how many minutes it saves, once, and offers it on a card — drive onto it and it becomes your route. Traffic older than 30 minutes is ignored. To time your route, the app sends the road ahead of the car to a traffic service. With no signal, routing carries on from the road pack on normal road speeds, and the app still reroutes when you leave the route, miss a turn, change the destination or finish charging.
Vehicle telemetry is read locally and stored on the head unit. Once the car is linked to your account it also reports a summary — charge, range, odometer, gear — about once a minute, so the phone app can show it, and mirrors finished trips and charging sessions. Where the car is parked is a separate switch that is off until you turn it on, and turning it back off deletes the position already stored. Network access is otherwise used for destination search, live traffic and charging-station data — for traffic, the road ahead of the car is sent to a traffic service to be timed. If the app crashes, a linked car files the crash as a support report on your account, with keys, email addresses and the VIN taken out first; a switch on the Link screen in the car turns that off. Trip history stays on the head unit and can be cleared from the app.
From an Android phone. You turn on adb over Wi-Fi in the car once — that part is specific to this car, and the BYD Lab guide linked in the Install section is the tested version to follow — then the Sealion 7 Pilot phone app finds the car on the same Wi-Fi, shows you what it will install, and installs it when you confirm. The phone app is in a Google Play test rather than a public listing for now: join the test from the Install section, then install it from Google Play.
Creating an account issues a three-month licence for the app immediately — there is nothing to enter and nothing to pay. After those three months it needs a licence to keep running, and no price has been announced. The licence is checked on the car as well as at download: you link the head unit to your account by scanning a code on its screen, one account holds one car, and the app carries on for a fortnight when it cannot reach us.
See the roadmap above: the iPhone companion, head-up display support (in the app, waiting to be confirmed on a car that has one), weather in the range prediction and a full hands-free assistant are in development, with more BYD models and richer charging integrations after them.
Support
Licence holders can report a bug or send an idea from this site, attach what shows the problem, and follow our answer on the same page.
Each report keeps its own conversation. Add to it — another screenshot, the version you updated to — until it is sorted.
Drop in screenshots, a log or a short screen recording: up to five files a message, 10 MB each.
Our reply lands on the report, and your list shows which ones have one.
Reporting needs an active Sealion 7 Pilot licence — including the three months every account starts with.
Support is closed to this account: its Sealion 7 Pilot licence is no longer active. Reports you made before are kept, and come back with the licence.
No licence, or a question that is not about the app? Write to us instead:contact@bydlab.dev
The install takes your phone, the car and one Wi-Fi network — no computer. After that the app keeps itself up to date.