Hotspot instead of Tesla connectivity

[AndyS3]

I find Tesla to be penny pinching with this premium connection pricing whilst they allow tethering whilst on the move.

Why dont they just allow all features as long as its not costing them data charges.

I dont like that my £80k Model S has a basic feature of traffic congestion removed.

 

[Adopado]

I find Tesla to be penny pinching with this premium connection pricing whilst they allow tethering whilst on the move.

Why dont they just allow all features as long as its not costing them data charges.

I dont like that my £80k Model S has a basic feature of traffic congestion removed.

I believe that the navigation will reroute for traffic whether you have premium connectivity or not. The only difference is the visual representations on the map.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I dont like that my £80k Model S has a basic feature of traffic congestion removed

Personally I find that Waze does a far better job of Traffic (and speed cameras etc.) than in-car SatNav.

 

[prabhu]

Tasker automatically (when connected to bluetooth) turns on phone's hotspot but Tesla won't automatically switch from LTE premium connectivity to turn-on wifi.

This is incorrect. Under wifi settings there is a checkbox called "Remain connected in Drive" which exactly does that.

Model Y Owner's Manual | Tesla

Learn how to connect your vehicle to Wi-Fi and hot spots.

www.tesla.com

 

[odguy]

I plan to do the same and use my iPhone hotspot when driving so I and listen to Spotify when driving. Not really interested in the "earth map".

One concern I have is software and map updates - which could be huge. My understanding is that Tesla will "download" the software update when connected to Wi-Fi (it won't install the update). So that could be gigabytes of data.

When at home the car will connect to my home Wi-Fi, but I'll switch to my phone hotspot when driving (which will stay connected now).

Is there any way / workaround to stop it downloading a software update from my hotspot?

Did you ever figure this out?

 

[jeremymc7]

Why do you need a faster network? For car connectivity 4g is fine. A reliable connection available everywhere is the priority… and I’m not sure 5g meets that requirement!

Theater streaming and even browsing the web is pretty slow on 4G. My 5G phone is so much faster.

I would pay upwards of $500 for a 5G upgrade to the car.

I pay the $10 btw. Well actually less since I pay annually.

I hesitated as well since I have unlimited everything on my 5G phone including no data caps. But I’m happy.

 

[jeremymc7]

Did you ever figure this out?

I’ve updated the firmware while on the road using my phone hotspot connected as WiFi. But with unlimited data and no caps I’ve never had any problems.

 

[odguy]

I’ve updated the firmware while on the road using my phone hotspot connected as WiFi. But with unlimited data and no caps I’ve never had any problems.

I'm currently unlimited but likely changing plans. Even so no reason to not use my home wifi if possible. Even though it's connected to home while parked, I've gotten all my 2 updates while driving on the phone hotspot.

 

[Adopado]

Theater streaming and even browsing the web is pretty slow on 4G. My 5G phone is so much faster.

Well, obviously your 5G phone is faster… no surprise there. But if you hotspot the phone and connect the car via Wi-Fi does that transform the car experience overall?

 

[Drew57]

Well, obviously your 5G phone is faster… no surprise there. But if you hotspot the phone and connect the car via Wi-Fi does that transform the car experience overall?

I haven't noticed anything, probably because the 5G indication on the phone drops in and out around my home area and while driving it wouldn't be safe to check (nothing seems laggy or slow in my car anyway when using the hotspot as it is). The two places I have recently stopped to supercharge showed 4G on the phone, nevertheless Netflix played just fine via the hotspot once it loaded.

 

[Adopado]

I haven't noticed anything, probably because the 5G indication on the phone drops in and out around my home area and while driving it wouldn't be safe to check (nothing seems laggy or slow in my car anyway when using the hotspot as it is). The two places I have recently stopped to supercharge showed 4G on the phone, nevertheless Netflix played just fine via the hotspot once it loaded.

Yes that’s what I reckoned would be the case. So the argument for the car having 5G doesn’t seem very strong (at the moment). The key requirement for a car is to have consistent availability of signal rather than the very fastest potential download speed.

 

[jeremymc7]

Yes that’s what I reckoned would be the case. So the argument for the car having 5G doesn’t seem very strong (at the moment). The key requirement for a car is to have consistent availability of signal rather than the very fastest potential download speed.

I went out and ran several speed test and times various page loads in a few areas around time.

On the cars 4G things were often, but not always so slow as to sometimes make you think the browser has froze up. The up and down speeds themselves were good. But latiency was so bad in some cases that some speed tests even refused to start. WiFi was off for the test.

I ran the same tests in the areas with WiFi on and cellular hotspot in use and latency was way down and page loads were peppy with sites clearing loading. None of the speed tests failed either. Speed much also much faster than over the car 4G

 

[Adopado]

I ran the same tests in the areas with WiFi on and cellular hotspot in use and latency was way down and page loads were peppy with sites clearing loading. None of the speed tests failed either. Speed much also much faster than over the car 4G

So "the car experience overall" ?

Nice that there are some latency benefits when fortunate enough to be in an area with 5G. The testing regime that makes most sense to me would be to select a set of locations (without prior knowledge of local connectivity) and to test with car 4G and with a 5G hot-spotted phone on the cars wifi at each location! (In the UK you are going to be lucky to get a 5G signal if picking a location at random.)

Once there is speedy 5G in the vast majority of the places you drive then it becomes more important for the car to be directly 5G capable. From looking at 5G coverage maps (UK) it still looks like there's only (patchy) 5G coverage around the major cities at the moment. I'm sure 5G connectivity will be added to future cars at some point but it doesn't yet look like a huge benefit if we can already stream HD video content and use all the other (more essential) features of the car on 4G.

 

[Cnixon]

I think I may have suggested this Hotspot idea earlier somewhere. This may not work for everyone but I use Teslaa Android Auto app and it seems to help me

The problem seems to be when I am connected to my home (strong) wifi. Sometimes it does not have time to swap from home wifi to hotspot before selecting 'D'. I believe "Remain connected in Drive" assumes we have been connected whilst in 'P'. I have had some success by giving my hotspot the same name/ssid and password as my home wifi and select that check box to remain connected. As you drive away it now swap to your hotspot as it becomes the stronger signal.

 

[Nick77]

4G is plenty fast enough for the car's needs. I can sit there and get 10-30Mbps down speed depending on where I am. My phone/SIM does 5G but its still very patchy coverage in my area so I don't notice any difference.

My Premium Connectivity runs out end of June and my Android phone is set up to automatically turn on Hotspot when the car connects to the phone. Has worked well so far during testing. Never had any issue with it not connecting other than very occasionally.

 

[yessuz]

4G is plenty fast enough for the car's needs. I can sit there and get 10-30Mbps down speed depending on where I am. My phone/SIM does 5G but its still very patchy coverage in my area so I don't notice any difference.

My Premium Connectivity runs out end of June and my Android phone is set up to automatically turn on Hotspot when the car connects to the phone. Has worked well so far during testing. Never had any issue with it not connecting other than very occasionally.

Had the same.
And two days later renewed subscription))

car is somewhat slow to connect to hotspot. Therefore I had number of drives where I started to drive and car did not connect and it was a bit annoying