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Hot Spotting from Cell Phone

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I was curious to know if any Canadian Tesla owners are using their cell phone data for their cars (Spotify, Nav, browser etc,,,,)?

I have an older Model S, with unlimited connectivity (so I have never done this) but I assumed people were doing this and I would like to hear if you find it effective, safe, fast and useful. I have a 5G phone and get a 5G connection at times but I have never tried it with my car (I don’t believe my car can utilize 5G, right???)

If I was to get a new Model S, could I do this after the year of premium connectivity runs out and would it make sense (I have an unlimited data plan on my phone)? Are there any downsides to doing it?
 
I have a model 3 and I use mobile hotspot on phone to provide WiFi to my car.

While diving I sometimes it use for Spotify, it sounds different than using Spotify via Bluetooth.

I also use it to watch YouTube and Netflix if I arrive a little early to work.

I dont have premium connectivity features like the satellite maps or caroke
 
I have a model 3 and I use mobile hotspot on phone to provide WiFi to my car.

While diving I sometimes it use for Spotify, it sounds different than using Spotify via Bluetooth.

I also use it to watch YouTube and Netflix if I arrive a little early to work.

I dont have premium connectivity features like the satellite maps or caroke
Did you ever have premium connectivity and if so, how can you compare it to using your cell phone?
 
Did you ever have premium connectivity and if so, how can you compare it to using your cell phone?

Yes I had it free for a month. For me the benefits of premium would be for my Spotify experience. With premium, I could push the steering wheel button and tell the car what song is like to play. I can also navigate my playlists using the car screen.

Without premium, I have to ask google via my phone to play a song and navigate my playlists using my phone.

Also like I said in my previous post, the sound is different when using wifi. It's definitely a little louder.

Also the car will not connect to my phones wifi automatically, I have to manually turn on the cars wifi and choose my phones wifi.

Hope that helps
 
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My premium connectivity just expired. I've been trying to use the data directly from my phone for streaming music while I drive. The really annoying part about this is that when you set the car into Drive, the wifi turns off and you then need to turn it on again while driving to connect to your phone. This might sound trivial but it becomes really annoying if you're making a few stops along your trip. I'm big on music and really like being able to search by using the button on the steering wheel, but it would be nice to have an option to keep wifi on at all times. But I guess that wouldn't help Tesla in trying to get 15 beans a month from us.
 
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I had NO idea you couldn’t use it while driving. Why would that be? Is it just about $$$$ or some safety issue or something else?
There is a safety aspect to it: certain features (streaming video & YouTube, etc) are limited to wifi only. There are other triggers/blocks to prevent that kinda stuff being done while the car is being driven (being out of Park being key), but the more precautions in place the better.
 
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There is a safety aspect to it: certain features (streaming video & YouTube, etc) are limited to wifi only. There are other triggers/blocks to prevent that kinda stuff being done while the car is being driven (being out of Park being key), but the more precautions in place the better.

They could disable the functionality without disabling the connectivity...
 
Not possible. In Canada or anywhere else.
Are you sure about this? Or do you mean that you can't use your car as a Wifi hotspot for other devices. What the OP wants to do is to use his phone to provide Wifi to the car, not the other way around. I have done this in the past and I have used an LTE Wifi hotspot to provide connectivity to the car. But that was a few years ago and there have been a lot of software changes since then.
 
I do this all the time. Car parked underground and can't connect to any wifi, so I use my cell personal hotspot when driving to get updates and listen to music.

I turn on personal hotspot on my cell phone and setup car to access the wifi. When it park works automatically. As soon as you put the car into drive it turns off wifi, but it can be turned back on and will connect and keep the connection while driving. Each time you park and put the car back into drive it turns off wifi, so before I start to move when in Drive I just switch wifi back on.
 
I do this all the time. Car parked underground and can't connect to any wifi, so I use my cell personal hotspot when driving to get updates and listen to music.

I turn on personal hotspot on my cell phone and setup car to access the wifi. When it park works automatically. As soon as you put the car into drive it turns off wifi, but it can be turned back on and will connect and keep the connection while driving. Each time you park and put the car back into drive it turns off wifi, so before I start to move when in Drive I just switch wifi back on.

With the wifi on while driving, does Spotify, traffic work on the in car display
 
Has anyone ever calculated the average value of unlimited supercharging and premium connectivity for the average owner (if there is such a thing)? Since those of us with older cars have both I wonder how much the loss of each has added to the lower price of the S?
 
Has anyone ever calculated the average value of unlimited supercharging and premium connectivity for the average owner (if there is such a thing)? Since those of us with older cars have both I wonder how much the loss of each has added to the lower price of the S?
Haven't really calculated it but pretty easy to estimate:

For me, electricity cost is around 500/year (less now with covid-19). Supercharging is more expensive than charging at home, but let's say I did 50% charging at home so $500 for supercharging per year (which is high if you have the option to charge at home).

Premium is $15/month I believe, so 180/year.

So, both are 'worth' around 700/year give or take. In the big scheme of things not really a lot relative to the price point of most tesla's. It's like 1 month car payment or less.

I also fine it annoying to have to manually enable wifi each time. Tesla could easily make wifi persistent, but they probably do it to make you annoyed enough to pony up the $15/month.

You don't get satellite maps or traffic view over WiFi, but everything else works as if it was on premium (you can stream while driving and open web pages, but no video. While parked you can watch video).
 
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