I'd love to have home automation by Tesla. 17" touch screens in major rooms with controls for: Doors Lights Windows and curtains A/C Entertainment Appliances (make coffee from bed!) Pool/jacuzzi Security/cameras Car Auto-presenting door handles, automatic doors Solar panels and PowerWall Everything connected to internet, updates Profiles Password protection for sensitive features what else?
Hmm, I'm not so keen on home automation by Tesla. I arrive home, park in the garage, grab four bags of groceries and carefully walk to the door at the back of the garage that goes into the kitchen. I have to be careful to avoid the robotic snake that's bringing the HPWC charger plug over to the car. Sometimes I get out of the car and damn if it hasn't snuck between one leg and the other on its way to the car's chargeport and I almost trip. Anyway, this time I manage to make it to the kitchen door while holding four grocery bags. The door is locked, and nothing happens. It doesn't seem to notice I'm there. So I back up a few steps, bags starting to shift, one of them starting to rip, and walk back to door, finally, it unlocks, and I enter. Inside on the wall panel I see an alert that there's been motion activity sensed in the house, 2 hours ago when nobody was here. Unfortunately I can't rewind the surveillance video to see what it might have been because there is no surveillance video (I didn't spring for one of the camera add-on systems from an aftermarket vendor) and to see which sensor got tripped would require my calling the 800 number for Tesla Ownership and put in a request to check the house logs, but who has time to wait for that. Burglar, or spider, whichever you were, you get off easy this time. I plop the bags on the counter, reach for the fridge. Nobody's opened it in hours, and the screen on the front of it is dark. I pull the door to open and it won't budge. The screen starts glowing a faint gray, then there's a T logo. It's rebooting. I wait 45 seconds and finally I can open the fridge and put stuff inside. The kitchen faces south, and it was a hot day and the sun streamed in and the place is way too warm. I turn the A/C on full blast, and the living room and dining room cool down fast but the kitchen stays hot because it's in the back of the house. In an hour there will be icicles hanging the ceiling in the living room while it's still unbearably warm here in the kitchen. I grab a beer and head for the couch. I pick up the media center control tablet next to the couch, tap its screen. It's dark, like the fridge screen. The T logo eventually appears and I wait 45 seconds and then I see an array of app icons. I tap the movie projector icon and the wall screen comes to life. I feel like watching BOURNE SUPREMACY movie. I know I have it in my collection, I ripped it a long time ago. But the app doesn't let me search by title or genre or actor or director or anything, I just have to manually go through the alphabetical list and I eventually find it. I put my feet up on the coffee table and hear a loud deet-deet-deet sound, and there's a message at the bottom of the wall screen telling me to take my feet off the table. I dunno. Not too keen on Tesla home automation.
And any number of other products. I personally have a Control4 system with various (including Zigbee) components to achieve much on the list.
Also, do you really want to live in a house where only in MA will Tesla be legally compelled to give you the instruction manual so that you can change your own lightbulbs?
Which is... what exactly? Late? Hard to service on your own? If you mean elegant, I do encourage you to look at home automation products on the market. We have touch screens that control the home, allow us to view camera feeds, can be used as intercoms within the home and for when the doorbell rings etc. At night a single voice command arms the alarm, shuts off lights and overall puts the home into a "night rest state". If not elegance, then what? Surely you don't just mean auto-presenting handles?
But it will tell you to climb out the bathroom window, and walk 15 miles down the road to get a snack first before you can go from the livingroom to the kitchen...
Yes, exactly. Late and hard to service on your own. You got it. - - - Updated - - - Wow this thread is filled with a bunch of haters. I thought people liked Tesla on this forum?
Haters? No. We* like Tesla. And what you see above is good natured ribbing of the deficiencies of the Model S and the company. But just because we* like them, and want them to succeed, doesn't mean they don't have a bunch of deficiencies that need addressing. Also, Home Automation user interface and integration has improved vastly in the last few years (essentially following the mobile computer flat screen UI trend, tied with inexpensive two way powerline/RF networking), while that of cars have not. *(royal "we"... Okay, I like Tesla)
Didn't know that an "Imagine a Tesla Home" thread would turn into a place for good natured ribbing about a bunch of deficiencies that need addressing. Maybe we should change the name?
I like Tesla too. Their deficiencies aside though, this just doesn't seem like a well-thought-out idea. As mentioned, I'm not sure you're aware of what the Home Automation landscape is like these days, which is why I'm trying to figure out what exactly from Tesla do you want to see brought into Home Automation?