swedge
Member
I looked up the device Omar appears to use. It is an electronic do-dad that plugs into the car's computer network. What it does is tells the computer that every few seconds the volume control scroll wheel is adjusted up or down a click. The car interprets this the same as a bit of steering wheel torque. Pretty clever, really. This probably changes the audio volume too, but not perceptibly.Since Tesla allows hands free now does that mean the steering wheel weights and whatever Omar used was ok to use this whole time?
Is it OK to use? Tesla tells us to keep a hand on the wheel, and requires us to pay attention. I don't watch Omars videos, but if he pays attention, he may be doing what Tesla requires, but not what they say to do. The problem would be folks who use a device and don't pay attention. By surreptitiously using a device, Omar is demonstrating and perhaps promoting inattentive AutoPilot use. Not good. I would guess that Elon would prefer that Omar not do that. But now Elon has released a sort of "hands free" version, he may actually be OK with it, who knows.
Omar appears to be the author of the site at Whole Mars Catalog. He tells some interesting stories about the cottage industry of short sellers / Tesla disinformation mongers. I had nothing better to do while waiting for 12.4.x, so why not go for a dive into the Elon fan space? Suffice it to say that Omar is prolific content creator. I was sorry to see him vilified here, but I think that happened largely because, like me, folks had little else to do while waiting for 12.4.x.