Gauging interest in a free tesla stats desktop dashboard

[jyim89]

Background

Hi All! First a quick background. I used to work as a data scientist and I have a lot of interest in data and stats. So when I recently took delivery of my first Tesla in September, I tried looking for a comprehensive stats app I could use to look up interesting data around my car. However, I am also a cheapskate and didn't want to pay for mobile apps and although I did find a couple useful desktop apps that were free, they didn't contain all the stats I was looking for. Therefore I decided to create my own!

I am mainly creating this dashboard for my benefit but if there are interest from others, I thought why not share it as well. Although I just recently started development, I thought I'd gauge public interest early on as It's easier to develop with the audience in mind early in the development process. For example, if there is no public interest there is no reason for me to make the dashboard user friendly.

Also, if there is a comprehensive and free stats app out there please let me know so I'm not duplicating work.

Dashboard
Although it's only been 2 days, here's what the dashboard looks like so far.

Current and planned stats
So far I have the following:
- Trends of Range and Battery % Level
- Trends of Range and Driving efficiency
- Phantom Battery loss per day stats
- Miles per day stats
- Charging stats per charging sessions (i.e. time spent charging, charge added, charging rate, etc.)
- Battery availability (apparently you're not always able to use 100% of your battery)

Planned stats:
- Battery and Range efficiency based on climate
- Climate vs Power usage stats
- Driving patterns (highway vs city) and battery efficiency
- Efficiency stats around based on Car software version
- Charging history based on Location
- Trip data
- I'm also open to any other suggestions that might be useful as well

Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Completely Free
- Data is locally stored so no privacy issues
- Uses publicly available API so no need for Raspberry Pi

Cons:
- Limited to Windows for now but can branch out in the future if there is interest
- Requires a moderate knowledge of computer usage (downloading from github and running a script). Can also make this more user friendly in the future if there is interest
- Data can't be accessed away from your computer yet but I'm looking into options for better user experience
- Data cannot be collected when your computer is off
- Users will need to pull new updates to the dashboard instead of getting pushed updates. Also looking into options for better user experience around this

Release timeline
I'm working full time so I'm mainly working on this project during my downtime. There will need to be time for development and testing. If there is enough interest in the dashboard, I can probably get an initial version out on Github in the next month or so.

Let me know if you guys are interested or if I'm just completely wasting my time and there is a better app out there! Any suggestions on what type of data you guys are interested are welcome!

 

[DOCAL]

Sounds interesting. If you make it available on something other than Windows I'd be interested (Linux, BSD, MacOS).

Would also love the ability to load in data from files - I already have stats gathered by my own script over the last 3+ years that I could mangle into some other format.

 

[jyim89]

Sounds interesting. If you make it available on something other than Windows I'd be interested (Linux, BSD, MacOS).

Would also love the ability to load in data from files - I already have stats gathered by my own script over the last 3+ years that I could mangle into some other format.

Focusing mainly on Windows now but I can branch out at a later time depending on how this is received. Ability to load in previously collected data shouldn't be too difficult. I can add instructions on how to merge the data.

 

[israndy]

I just got a CANServer for my car

One of the capabilities that the designer speaks of is after collecting stats from your car during a drive it could connect to your home network and dump the CANBUS data into your desktop. Perhaps I should get the two of you together so you can have more data to render than just that that can be collected from the Tesla API

 

[zhu-]

I have stats and tried many of the other apps and found they all have pretty poor UIs. Most apps don't have much or any design thought put into it and IMO that's what can set apart one app from the rest that are on the market. However I'm not sure how likely I am to use a desktop app vs a mobile app.

 

[jyim89]

I just got a CANServer for my car

One of the capabilities that the designer speaks of is after collecting stats from your car during a drive it could connect to your home network and dump the CANBUS data into your desktop. Perhaps I should get the two of you together so you can have more data to render than just that that can be collected from the Tesla API

Very interesting product! I think in the near future I can add options to import data from other sources such as the CANBUS data from the microDisplay you linked as well as sources such as the TeslaLogger.

However, for now I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible as I don't how much time I want to invest in this project yet. If more people are interested in this type of data I can surely invest more time into it.

 

[jyim89]

I have stats and tried many of the other apps and found they all have pretty poor UIs. Most apps don't have much or any design thought put into it and IMO that's what can set apart one app from the rest that are on the market. However I'm not sure how likely I am to use a desktop app vs a mobile app.

Yes, I agree with the importance of UI and readability. If there is interest my plan is to gather as much feedback as I can from this community. As for a mobile app, it might be something I consider in the future. Again, my time commitment into this project will be based on user interest.

 

[DanCar]

I'm a Linux person. Let me know if you want help porting it to Linux. Also have a bit of experience with Android. I'm also curious about the Tesla SDK, and can we make this an app in the car.

 

[jyim89]

I'm a Linux person. Let me know if you want help porting it to Linux.

Another person on this thread mentioned Linux. If there is more interest in Linux, it might be something I consider for early next year and if so can definitely use the expertise from linux users like you .

 

[Jimbydude]

I don't want to dump on this as i b think it's great, however teslamate on linux (i installed in rpi) can do a lot of similar sruff and is open source. I bave it connectwd to my Home Assistant and Smart Mirror using this.
You also get bunch of dashboards wirh the charting from grafana, also free

 

[kavyboy]

I might suggest looking at Electron from cross-platform development. I can't actually recommend it since I've never tried programming with it, but it generally seems to get accolades from most people who program it or use the results.

 

[jyim89]

I don't want to dump on this as i b think it's great, however teslamate on linux (i installed in rpi) can do a lot of similar sruff and is open source. I bave it connectwd to my Home Assistant and Smart Mirror using this.
You also get bunch of dashboards wirh the charting from grafana, also free

I did see a couple of projects such as TeslaMate that required the use of Raspberry PI. However, I didn't want to go out and buy one if I didn't have to. For now I just trying to utilize what's publicly available through Tesla's APIs.

 

[Raleighdiver]

Definitely a great idea and I’d be interested!

 

[zhu-]

Instead of an app, any reason why not a web app instead? Could be a more extensive TeslaFi with personalized dashboard for your own car too.

 

[scooter62]

I'd be interested for Mac OS.

 

[Pemple]

I’d be interested, could beta test on Windows if you need someone to try that out.

 

[jyim89]

I’d be interested, could beta test on Windows if you need someone to try that out.

Sure I could use some people to test out some early versions of it and receive feedback. I will need a couple of days to make it ready enough to share out. Please send me your email to contact you through.

 

[jyim89]

Instead of an app, any reason why not a web app instead? Could be a more extensive TeslaFi with personalized dashboard for your own car too.

For a webapp, the service and your data needs to be hosted somewhere. That translates to needing money for hosting. Also, your data including location data could be vulnerable in the cloud. I was trying to a costless approach first but if there is more interest for a webapp I could consider it as well. Most likely a webapp wouldn't be free though.

Alternatively, I can develop in such a way where the user can use their own computer for hosting.

 

[m3snowy]

I did see a couple of projects such as TeslaMate that required the use of Raspberry PI. However, I didn't want to go out and buy one if I didn't have to. For now I just trying to utilize what's publicly available through Tesla's APIs.

TeslaMate does not require Raspberry Pi. Many are running the Docker images on the NAS (eg. Synology) that we already have.

And then there's also TeslaLogger that came before TeslaMate, same form factor.

To me, running a service such as yours or TeslaMate on a NAS make more sense than on a Windows PC, since NAS's are built to be run 24x7. But then there were users asking for a Windows version of TeslaMate before, so I'm sure your effort will be appreciated by them.

 

[sahaskatta]

Have you considered making the app work for other car brands too? I've got a Model S and a e-Golf and would love to use something like this on both!

Have you checked out the Smartcar API? Let's you do Tesla and several other EV brands. (Disclosure: I work for Smartcar.)