Vendor Dashboard for Tesla - the better app for your Tesla

[ABC2D]

Three months ago? You asked on January 4th. That's exactly a month and a half ago, not three months ago.

LMFAO

Thank you, @Andyw2100 for a quick demonstration of time continuum

 

[CuriousG]

I hope @AllenWong didn't get pestered this much about an Android version of his program.

 

[supratachophobia]

Switching to Android might be a quicker and more successful path than repeatedly pestering with

I got a nexus 5 you could use.....

 

[scottf200]

<snip>Disable your existing location and add another location. Dedicate this new location for when charging at your different charge rate. Perhaps name the 2 locations distinctly say "Home 40 AMP" and "Home 72 AMP". Disable and enable the appropriate locations depending on your amperage setting. (do not have both enabled at the same time or only the top-most one will be used)<snip>

I am doing something similar to this (two same locations but with different characteristics.) Mine is not based on amperage but my final SOC. I was sort of testing.
I have a daily one called "HomeBy5am" and I typically charge to 80%. I figured my charging rate would be higher up to 80%. App set it to 19.0
I have a travel one called "TravelBy8am" and I typically charge to 100% right before I leave. I figured my charging rate would slow down after 90%. App set it to 18.7. I thought it would see more difference but perhaps because I'm slow (trickle) charging at 30 amps.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

@SG57,

I'm getting that error about Tesla servers are busy again, and my TeslaLog.com account also stopped logging data at the same time.

Perhaps you're polling Tesla's servers too often in your app? I know Telsa shuts down access to their API if it's polled too often. The programmer of VisibleTesla had some similar problems with one of his versions of that program that he had to modify to prevent that from happening.

With both Dashboard for Tesla and TeslaLog querying my car, access with both seems to work for 24-36 hours, then Tesla appears to block it. After I shut down Dashboard for Tesla on the phone, TeslaLog begins gathering data again about 12 hours later. I've seen this pattern twice now.

Does the use of your widgets increase the amount of polling? If so, you may want to have a master polling background service that gathers the data from Tesla's servers only once, and then your app and the widgets each can display cached data obtained from the background service.

 

[supratachophobia]

@SG57,

I'm getting that error about Tesla servers are busy again, and my TeslaLog.com account also stopped logging data at the same time.

Perhaps you're polling Tesla's servers too often in your app? I know Telsa shuts down access to their API if it's polled too often. The programmer of VisibleTesla had some similar problems with one of his versions of that program that he had to modify to prevent that from happening.

With both Dashboard for Tesla and TeslaLog querying my car, access with both seems to work for 24-36 hours, then Tesla appears to block it. After I shut down Dashboard for Tesla on the phone, TeslaLog begins gathering data again about 12 hours later. I've seen this pattern twice now.

Does the use of your widgets increase the amount of polling? If so, you may want to have a master polling background service that gathers the data from Tesla's servers only once, and then your app and the widgets each can display cached data obtained from the background service.

We ran into this occasionally during beta testing. The best I could figure was that the stock app was running in the background and making requests at the exact same time. There really isn't anything that can be done, except shutdown the stock app if you arent using it. To be quite honest, it's been 3 months since I opened mine, and I haven't shed a tear. In fact, I didn't even download this latest update from Tesla for the app because it didn't have anything that DFT didn't already have. No offense to Tesla, I'm sure once 8.1 hits, they will really have something to show. But for now, thanks, but no thanks.

 

[SG57]

@SomeJoe7777 , it is true that if you send too many requests in too short of time you may be blocked for 5 minutes. And if you are blocked, then you will know because the error explicitly states this.

If you didn't get an error stating you have been blocked, then you weren't blocked and the issues were on Tesla's end.

The problem you likely saw was actually something I experienced myself for about 2-3 hours the other day and it resolved itself on its own. Tesla's servers were simply down/not functioning properly. I verified this by attempting to use the official app and saw the same failures. This explains why TeslaLog also had an issue.

It's highly improbable that shutting down Dashboard only fixed the issue 12 hours later. What's more likely - that you were banned for over 24 hours, or their servers were down for maintenance right after an app update (flood of new users/traffic).

To answer your question on bandwidth, the main app has a system in place to prevent duplicate requests, but the widgets and background services do not so they are making their own requests possibly at the same time as a similar request is being sent elsewhere. This is still a minor inefficiency considering background services fire very infrequently and widgets can only auto-update every 30 minutes. This translates to barely any server load even if you tried to manually refresh as much stuff and have as many services running as possible.

To put it in perspective, the official app still shotguns data requests 1 to 5 per second when active. Having a single instance of the official app active for 10 seconds puts more stress on your battery and Tesla's servers than every background service and widget active and concurrently updating combined. If you have the official app open concurrently with Dashboard for Tesla, you may experience issues.

I assure you, I've taken great steps to avoid battery drain, API blocking and duplicate requests. You may sniff the traffic for yourself if you'd like!

 

[SomeJoe7777]

If you have the official app open concurrently with Dashboard for Tesla, you may experience issues.

Hmmm. Well, the official Tesla app runs background services as well, this is how it syncs calendar and contacts to the car. This prohibits me from shutting down the official Tesla app, because then I don't get calendar updates to the car.

My access is now restored, I'll start things back up again and see what happens.

 

[supratachophobia]

Hmmm. Well, the official Tesla app runs background services as well, this is how it syncs calendar and contacts to the car. This prohibits me from shutting down the official Tesla app, because then I don't get calendar updates to the car.

My access is now restored, I'll start things back up again and see what happens.

Terrible trade-off, I know. Just do what I do and use two phones!

 

[SG57]

@SomeJoe7777 , if you can reliably reproduce an API blocking error every time Dashboard is active with the official app then that may be worth looking into. Perhaps there's more at work here with the new update. I know the official app provides some services I don't/can't provide, such as push notifications, so it's worth looking into if there is an issue preventing the 2 from playing nice together.

I don't think the app is what syncs contacts with your car, but Bluetooth? Correct me if I'm wrong. I know calendar events are sync'd through the app, and honestly there are these calendar APIs available that I could make use of to duplicate this behavior in Dashboard so you don't need the official app. Same with APIs to change the notifications you're subscribed to receive, I could duplicate this behavior in Dashboard rather simply.

 

[BigTonyTones]

@BigTonyTones , I certainly could, what did you have in mind when you say "only notify to charge if below a certain percentage"? Is this for the plug-in reminder? If so that's a simple option to add I can get it done and release in no time.


@Andyw2100 , good question on the charge rates and good point bringing up changing your amperage as that inherently changes your charge rate.

If you know your expected charge rate at a location has changed for whatever reason, then you have 3 options:

• Do nothing and after 1-2 nights the manual charge rate setting will adjust on its own (warning: these nights will likely be turbulent and inaccurate while the rate averages itself out)
  
  
• Change the manual charge rate setting yourself to match what you are now expecting
  
  
• Disable your existing location and add another location. Dedicate this new location for when charging at your different charge rate. Perhaps name the 2 locations distinctly say "Home 40 AMP" and "Home 72 AMP". Disable and enable the appropriate locations depending on your amperage setting. (do not have both enabled at the same time or only the top-most one will be used)

As for the logic behind the manual charge rate averaging and calculations and the like, there are really 2 scenarios in total - charging and not charging.

When NOT charging, I use the manual charge rate setting to calculate the necessary charge start time needed with a 15 minute buffer to achieve your desired charge completion time all while respecting your time restrictions if enabled.

When charging, I use the actual charge rate reading as reported by the vehicle to make that same calculation.

In addition while charging, I take this actual charge rate reading and average it into the existing manual charge rate setting with some conditions. So no, there is no history of your charge rates stored. I only perform this averaging if the completion time is in the future by 45 minutes or more to avoid wildly inaccurate charge rates near completion time. Also, I only adjust the manual charge rate setting at most +/- 5 mi/h towards the calculated average to protect against random, wildly inaccurate readings botching an otherwise perfectly good average.

ideal_charge_rate = (charge_rate_setting + current_charge_rate) / 2.0
charge_rate_setting = charge_rate_setting + max( -5.0, min( 5.0, ideal_charge_rate - charge_rate_setting ) )

Does that help? Sorry to get technical, but that's the actual formula expanded out and pseudo-codified. The ideal charge rate is the averaged charge rate.

Also, the next big feature @agw alluded to will let you schedule automatic behaviors to happen given certain conditions, such as turning the HVAC on at 9 am and 5 pm every weekday, or closing the sun roof if the weather has precipitation. This could replace the need for Visible Tesla, but I am not familiar with its capabilities so I can't comment further. More good things are coming though, just wait!


@Mattzilla , I'm glad it has lived up to your standards! Let me know if you run into any problems or complaints. I've made some small improvements to the widget I plan to get out in the next release.


@ardart99 , I saw your review on the Play store and I actually was moved by it so much I showed it to my girlfriend who found it equally as heartening. I appreciate your support and I'm glad I could make your life easier! I definitely can add a stand-alone widget for camper mode, I'll add that to the list and it'll be done shortly.


@robz , unfortunately I can't access the errors the car is experiencing, and I don't have access to the firmware update available status either. I do currently poll a public Tesla firmware tracker developed by @HankLloydRight and you can view this information in the app by clicking the "Information" icon at the top of the Home screen next to the refresh button.


@SomeJoe7777 , glad to hear it! By the looks of that brief spike early in the morning, you have a scheduled charge in the car at about 1 AM? Also if you check your charge rate setting for that Smart Charging location, you'll see that it has changed slightly closer to the average actual charge rate it experienced all night, every night.

Yes exactly. Id rather not be notified if my car is say at least 50% charged. It seems like a rather simple but very helpful addon

 

[StefanSarzio]

I don't think the app is what syncs contacts with your car, but Bluetooth?

As far as I could find out Bluetooth is only used for authentication in order to provide an additional layer of security before syncing.

 

[David99]

I just tested the camper mode over the last three nights. It simply doesn't work. It keeps running on my phone, it's showing as being active. I also went into the phone's settings and disabled the battery saving feature to make sure the app keeps running.

I'm aware they camper mode isn't a setting in the car that will stay on. I'm aware camper mode is the app restarting the HVAC over and over to keep it runnng constantly. Fact is, it doesn't work, though. When starting camper mode it will start the HVAC but then eventually the HVAC will time out and the app does not reactive it. Sometimes it does restart the HVAC, but it does it about 5 to 10 min too late. Sometimes it does not activate it at all. I know the car does not give you feedback when it's about to turn the HVAC off.

Is it a fixed interval that a signal it sent out at?

I wasn't sitting in the car all night with timers and a notebook, so I don't have a complete log of what happened and when. One possible problem could have been that my phone battery getting too low at which point it might force the app to quit. But that would still not explain the other situations where the battery level on my phone was high. The car's battery was also always 60% or higher.

A different issue is the charging display. The power in Kw is not correct. It is always too low. I'm looking at the battery voltage and amps (at the CAN bus) and the app doesn't match that.

 

[St Charles]

I have a feature request for an advanced charging function:

When I get home from work I normally plug in my Model S and set the threshold to 60% and begin charging immediately. Later in the evening after I know I am in for the night I reset my normal schedule to charge to 80% at my normal scheduled time. I currently do almost all of this manually, which is really only to set the charge limit to 60% and trigger charging to begin and then later set charging to 80% and allow normal charge time to happen.

It would be awesome if smart charging would allow for immediate charging up to a certain SoC and then whatever the scheduled plan is beyond that.

 

[Andyw2100]

It would be awesome if smart charging would allow for immediate charging up to a certain SoC and then whatever the scheduled plan is beyond that.

If we're making requests for Smart Charging features, I have one.

It would be great if we could incorporate pre-conditioning (pre-heating or pre-cooling) into our Smart Charging.

Currently I am using Dashboard For Tesla to set the time I want the battery charged, and I'm using Visible Tesla to start pre-conditioning 15 minutes earlier than that. Combining the two functions into Smart Charging would be really useful.

Thanks!

 

[SG57]

@David99 , sorry you're experiencing issues. What Android device do you have? What version of Android is it running? The HVAC system automatically turns off when you exit the vehicle, or 30 minutes has passed, or some other possibilities.

The current Camper mode implementation uses an inexact alarm to send out an automatic "Start HVAC" command every 15-30 minutes determined by the device's service maintenance schedule. This could still be delayed further or even prevented in low-battery situations or a dozing device, but this varies from device to device. I'll change all background services to not use these inexact alarms so they are more reliable like smart charging which uses an exact alarm that fires far more reliably.

On the battery current inaccuracy, that's a tricky one as I don't actually know the unit of that value reported by the car. One would assume it's in kWh, but in my testing it's always roughly 3x that. Because of that, I assume the unit is actually rated-miles-per-hour and the power rate metric I show is a calculation based on that. The power rate is shown inside the gauge/speedo as kWh, and the rated-mph rate is shown immediately to the right of it. Does the battery current rated-mph value shown to you look accurate to you?

Either I'm wrong in thinking the reported value's unit is rated-miles-per-hour, or my power rate calculation is inaccurate (I'm using 325 W per rated mile). Or if you have any ideas what that value actually could be, the raw value returned is the value as displayed by the "#.## per hour" label to the right of current power gauge, so feel free to play with it. Go for a drive and while maintaining 50 kWh power accelerating, refresh the Charge screen and you should see hopefully 50 kWh in the power gauge for example.


@St Charles , that's a very specialized scenario, once Automatic Behaviors is complete you will be able to schedule those repetitive steps of adjusting your charge limit and starting/stopping a charge so that they happen automatically at the times you'd like.


@Andyw2100 , that's a mighty fine idea and I know I'd benefit from it. It's such a specialized option, but it's likely to be used so frequently in this context I'm okay adding it. Once Automatic Behaviors is complete, this sort of custom specialization will be possible with any feature.

I'm finishing up adding the "days of the week" to plug-in reminder and smart charging, then I'll add your suggestion won't take long.

 

[MP3Mike]

Either I'm wrong in thinking the reported value's unit is rated-miles-per-hour, or my power rate calculation is inaccurate (I'm using 325 W per rated mile). Or if you have any ideas what that value actually could be, the raw value returned is the value as displayed by the "#.## per hour" label to the right of current power gauge, so feel free to play with it. Go for a drive and while maintaining 50 kWh power accelerating, refresh the Charge screen and you should see hopefully 50 kWh in the power gauge for example.

@SG57 If it is rated miles per hour your calculation needs to be smarter as the number of rated miles varies based on model. At least according to WK057: Calculate usable battery capacity based on rated miles values

• All RWD Cars (non-Performance and Performance): 295 Wh/Rated Mile
• All Pre-refresh Model S Dual Motor, non-Performance: 290 Wh/Rated Mile
• Refresh Model S Dual Motor, non-Performance under 100 kWh: 285 Wh/Rated Mile
• Model X Dual Motor, non-Performance under 100 kWh: 320 Wh/Rated Mile
• Model S Dual Motor, Performance under 100 kWh: 310 Wh/Rated Mile
• Model X Dual Motor, Performance under 100 kWh: 333 Wh/Rated Mile
• Model X Dual Motor, Performance 100 kWh: 342 Wh/Rated Mile

He doesn't have numbers for a non-performance 100kWh model yet, but they aren't in the wild just yet...

 

[David99]

@David99 , sorry you're experiencing issues. What Android device do you have? What version of Android is it running? The HVAC system automatically turns off when you exit the vehicle, or 30 minutes has passed, or some other possibilities.

I'm using a Galaxy S7. Amdrooid V 6.0.1 (AT&T flavor)

I totally understand the issue you are running into with the camper mode, but probably also the 'smart charging' feature. Both require the app to run for hours. Given the large variety of devices and software versions maybe it might be better to not let the app handle these things, but rather your server. If your phone dies at night while smart charging is supposed to run, you might end up with a non charged car in the morning.

 

[MP3Mike]

Given the large variety of devices and software versions maybe it might be better to not let the app handle these things, but rather your server.

I don't think he has a server, or at least not one that has access to your car, so the app doing it is the only option available currently.

 

[David99]

I don't think he has a server, or at least not one that has access to your car, so the app doing it is the only option available currently.

Setting up a server to do these things is not a big problem.