Professional mechanics, automotive technicians, and serious automobile enthusiasts as well as those that like to tackle their own DIY maintenance and repairs thinking about getting new diagnostic tools are going to want to take a serious look at bidirectional solutions.

OBD scanners are a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to figuring out exactly what is wrong “under the hood”. These scanners plugged directly into your onboard automotive computer and provide you with a host of core details about the health and wellness of your vehicle, especially as modern technology has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few decades.

At the same time, technology has advanced so far – and so rapidly – that even the most traditional OBD scanners feel a little bit outdated in comparison to bidirectional scan tools.

These relatively new pieces of diagnostic tech give you in-depth information and others about the health and wellness of your vehicle, feature incredibly advanced user interfaces with simplified workflows, and (obviously) have a bidirectional nature that gives you the core functionality that one directional OBD tools cannot.

Let’s take a little bit deeper into everything that you will be able to take advantage of with these cutting-edge diagnostic solutions.

Lightning Fast Diagnostics

Because the top-rated bidirectional scan tools available on the market today are still relatively new and are being improved upon on an almost daily basis it’s easy to understand why these tools would be so much more powerful than older OBD options.

New hardware sets specifically designed to improve your diagnostic results not only from an accuracy standpoint but from a speed standpoint are a huge reason that a lot of technicians, mechanics, and hobbyists are moving to bidirectional options rather than continuing to use OBD tools.

The delay on OBD solutions isn’t exactly agonizing (unless you’re using much older technology), but when compared to bidirectional solutions that feel like they give almost instant feedback about your vehicle – and far more in-depth feedback, too – the choice between these two options isn’t really hard to make.

Ease to Use Interfaces

Amazingly, even though bidirectional options are a lot more advanced and feature a lot more capabilities you can take advantage of compared to OBD options they are usually quite a bit easier to use at the same time.

Anyone that has used and older OBD scan tool knows that it is very simple, very straightforward, and very utilitarian – pumping out codes that need to be interpreted, translated, and then worked around with a pretty complex (at least in comparison) workflow.

Modern bidirectional scan tools aren’t going to settle you with all that headache or hassle.

User-friendly enough for even brand-new automotive technicians, mechanics, and hobbyists to take advantage of (including those that don’t have a lot of experience with diagnostic tools in the first place) many of the top options also include impeccably designed user interfaces that guarantee you can make the most of your tools – including advanced features – without having to go through a lot of training or constantly referring to your user’s manual. Lastly

Can Send Commands to the Vehicle

The last (and certainly the biggest) benefit you get when you take advantage of bidirectional scan tools is the ability to not only get diagnostic information from your vehicle but you also send specific commands to your vehicle.

With OBD scanning solutions you are sort of at the mercy of what your scanner tells you is wrong under the hood, restricted to having to physically test different components and different parts to see what the root cause issue of the problem may be.

These tools are amazing (and used to be cutting-edge), but they really only address the symptoms that your vehicle is dealing with as opposed to the actual underlying problem itself.

With bidirectional scan tools, however, you’re able to give individual commands to your vehicle through the onboard computer that simulate or run through key processes to find the issues that are plaguing your vehicle.

Especially useful for people that are regularly working on vehicles along and aren’t interested in having to run around to the driver side, and turning the car, turn the car off, or pushing different buttons and hitting different signals (and that just scratches the surface of what you have to do with OBD tools).

The best bidirectional tools take all that extra effort out of the equation completely and allow you to run all of those processes directly through the tool itself or the computer that it can be hooked up to.

Bidirectional scan tools definitely give you a lot more bang for your buck, a lot more value, and are as “future proof” a tool as it gets in the world of automotive diagnostics.