EV Car/My Tesla - An Alexa skill for Amazon Echo / Tesla integration

Just got an Echo and found this skill, really slick - thanks! One problem I noticed is that if I ask it to unlock my car it instead tells me where it is ;-(

 

I had this skill on my Amazon Dot when connected to my usa amazon account.
Now in Canada but it is not available on my Canadian Amazon DOT account. Any way to get this in Canada with a Canadian Amazon account?

 

Cannot get this skill to work while the car is sleeping. Every time I use it I have to go to the app, wake up my car, wait a couple minutes, then the skill works. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Very cool! You just made me love my Tesla and Alexa even more!

 

Try disabling energy conservation mode. It will consume more battery ~13 miles a night believe.

 

You need to set always connected to on. It will use a bit more power at idle to keep cell connection always ready but will allow quicker access from the app and tools like Alexa to work.

 

Anyone seen the Garmin Speak? Its on Amazon for $150. Cool toy. I have one. Used a 12V to USB 5V connector/transformer to bump the 12V of the car down to run the Speak. The Speak is connected to the same 12V in my speaker grille that my Blackvue is.

The Garmin Speak us a Alexa supported device. It makes a bluetooth connection to your smartphone. Then you open the Garmin app and it talks to the Garmin and makes the Internet connection without a hotspot. I can run this EV Car and My Tesla skill now from my Model S while driving around. And when I get home, I get out of the car and talk to the Dot in my garage.

The Speak is new. So there's some things they are working out. Most of the time, I have to manually reconnect the BT to the phone and the Speak. I've had it about a month. Its received a couple of OTAs to the Speak. So its getting better. Fun toy.

 

What commands would you issue to EV Car / My Tesla whilst in the car?

 

Showing off to friends. Its for fun, - a toy. Right now, I don't think it has a practical application to solve a problem.

 

Thanks @Akikiki I'm curious to know what commands might be useful (e.g. in future) as I (and I guess others ...) are at the start of that journey and my imagination is having a hard time figuring out how this will pan out (as a toy, yeah I get that ... but beyond that?)

I've heard of people using Echo in Tesla because its voice recognition is better than Tesla (my MS voice recognition works for me less than 10% of the time, and I have a clear British accent with no regional accent). OTOH the Echo in the Kitchen understands commands from any speaker in the room, even if around-the-corner, including regional accents, probably better than 90% of the time ...

... but I'm still not finding significant real-world use for it (suggestions welcome ). Purchased Echo because its a) dirt cheap and b) I'm curious as to where the Tech is, and where it might go.

I see plenty of stuff about Home Automation, but I am struggling with the concept of buying plug-in bluetooth light bulb fittings - that's going to be a Consumer Electronics Vendor's wet-dream ... change everything for Version-2 in a couple of years time, and spend the money all over again ... we already have a HA house, we hardwired everything (yeah, expensive, but we had to rewire anyway, and we only have to do it the once). I can get Echo-interface for that, but I don't see why I would (again, suggestions welcome ) We have switches for a number of scenes etc. in each room, and we don't sit in the middle of the room and suddenly go "You know what, the scene I set when I came in is just SO WRONG!" that I need a voice-command to change it ... and that said, I doubt Voice Command would do what I want - other than change to another pre-set scene. If I actually want to do something I can get my phone out and twiddle with dimmer-sliders for all the circuits in the room - and then I'd probably want to save that as one of the pre-set scenes - seems like a nightmare using Voice commands ...

 

Mine will work even with the car set to sleep and the Always Connected box unticked... it just takes longer.

I do find on the Google Home it keeps losing it's authentication (about once a month) and I have to go in to the Google Assistant app and uninstall/reinstall.

 

Does it always work or only sometimes? According to Teslafi, the car only sleeps about 75% of the time even when Always Connected Box is unchecked. If I happen to catch it when it is awake, it will work. Otherwise, it won't for me.

 

Any Canadians get this going yet? Can’t find it in the store.

 

Anyone seen this? Looks like it uses the BT connection on the smartphone to connect to the Internet. If so, it uses your data plan but does not need its own hotspot. I just ordered one. We will see. The heads up on this came from a friend on this forum,

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/muse-alexa-voice-assistant-for-cars-car-bluetooth?utm_campaign=contribution_receipt&utm_content=receipt-campaign_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=lifecycle#/

 

Good question. Honestly, I usually leave Energy Saving Off and Always Connected On. I have only tried it a couple of times with those settings reversed, so maybe I was just hitting that 25% of the time it was sleeping. However, it seemed to me the "delay" was similar to the type of delay you get from the mobile app when the car is sleeping, so I just assumed it was waiting to wake up before responding.

 

Yes, on Google Home / Google Assistant for some time now.

 

I had it working on my amazon alexa when connected to a USA amazon account. Once I switched to my Canadian amazon account it doesn't work or show in the Amazon Skills store

 

Installed Alex at Christmas, and downloaded MyTesla shortly after that. Its been fun (and it is something that will be handy, I'm more likely to remember to just Ask Alexa to turn climate on, than find my phone and open the APP and start climate ...) but I also had a negative experience:

Temperature in car went up from 5.3C to 25C from 28-Dec-2017 5:25 PM. It has stayed at that temperature continuously since then (car was plugged in) until I next drove it evening of 01-Jan.

First request that I can find in Amazon Echo history matches that time:

Alexa heard: "Alexa, open My Car" MyTesla Action: "Welcome" (gave "How can I help you")

Alexa heard: "Alexa Ask My Car how far can I drive" MyTesla Action: "Charge-Request" (gave "Battery level is ... Estimated range is ..." etc)

Several further commands were picked up from subsequent conversation

Alexa heard: "no" (misheard from conversation [without Alexa command word]) MyTesla Action: "Drive-Request" (gave location of car)

Alexa heard: "get car state" (misheard command [without Alexa command word]) MyTesla Action: "State-Request" (gave mileage, firmware version, etc.)

Alexa heard: "stop cooling" (misheard from conversation "that's cool" [without Alexa command word]) MyTesla Action: "ClimateStop-Request"

Alexa heard: "Alexa, where's my car" MyTesla Action: "Drive-Request" (gave location of car)

Alexa heard: "on" (misheard from conversation [without Alexa command word] repeating the location to someone who had not heard it) MyTesla Action: "ClimateStart-Request" and "OK Anything else?"

Alexa heard: "Alexa turn the heating up" (misheard from "Alexa turn the heating off") MyTesla Action: "ClimateStart-Request"and "OK Anything else?"

Alexa heard: "okay more" (misheard from "OK WHAT?, she hasn't said what she did") MyTesla Action: "ClimateStart-Request"and "OK Anything else?"

So looks like that turned the climate on and left it on. All other APPs I have turn on climate for a limited time (30 minutes)

I haven't repeated the actions, so may be wrong, but looks like the "What else can I do for you" is then allowing a command to be "heard" from following conversation without the "Alexa" start-word.

 

Not sure if it's the same on Amazon as it is on Google, but 2 observations from a Google user:

1. You have to "hang up" on the EV Car app by saying "Quit" after you are done issuing commands to the car;
2. Recent Tesla firmware now leaves HVAC on indefinitely (or until battery SOC reaches 20%) regardless of whether it is activated by the Tesla app, VisibleTesla, EV Car etc.