[POLL]Would you want your Tesla to turn AC/heat ON when you're in range?

[insaneoctane]

Just curious, Telsa has high tech cars and this seems pretty easy to code.....
Would you like an option to have your car automatically turn AC/heat to [auto] once it sees you're in range? I know that there is an "app for that", but sometimes we aren't always planning ahead. I think I'd like the car to see I'm approaching and if the external temp is > 80F to turn the AC to [auto] and if the external temp is < 60F to turn the heater to [auto]. You could use the cabin temperature, etc. Anyway, just wondering if anyone else sees this as useful or not? It could be an option in the menus just like auto unlock is now.

I don't know how far the car can sense you with the new bluetooth "FOB"/smartphone, but the farther the better. I know that it won't unlock until a certain distance, but it may sense you coming before it unlocks...I don't have those details. I also don't know how this (or the auto unlock of doors) would work when your car is in your garage/driveway- that needs to be understood, but not what I'm after here.

 

[BerTX]

Voted no because I'm in an area where I mostly use a/c, and by the time I was close enough for the a/c to come on, opening the door would probably do more good than the 20 seconds of cooling.

 

[Thomas Edison]

Just curious, Telsa has high tech cars and this seems pretty easy to code.....
Would you like an option to have your car automatically turn AC/heat to [auto] once it sees you're in range? I know that there is an "app for that", but sometimes we aren't always planning ahead. I think I'd like the car to see I'm approaching and if the external temp is > 80F to turn the AC to [auto] and if the external temp is < 60F to turn the heater to [auto]. You could use the cabin temperature, etc. Anyway, just wondering if anyone else sees this as useful or not? It could be an option in the menus just like auto unlock is now.

I don't know how far the car can sense you with the new bluetooth "FOB"/smartphone, but the farther the better. I know that it won't unlock until a certain distance, but it may sense you coming before it unlocks...I don't have those details. I also don't know how this (or the auto unlock of doors) would work when your car is in your garage/driveway- that needs to be understood, but not what I'm after here.

The range of the Bluetooth is 50 meters. I don't know if the time to walk to the car (about 30-40 second) is really going to change the cabin temp too much. But I do think it's a good idea. Using the app to preheat when I start walking back to the car makes more sense to me (3-4 minutes).

 

[ChadS]

Only if there is a way to turn it off. I do a lot of events where I stand near the car.

 

[Runt8]

I think coming at the problem from the other direction makes more sense - have it optionally turn off heat/ac if you don't have the range to make it where you're going.

 

[insaneoctane]

Only if there is a way to turn it off. I do a lot of events where I stand near the car.

If it turned on due to proximity vs app then if you didn't open a door within 5 minutes it could turn back off

 

[JeffK]

I agree with some of the others, by the time I'm in range is too late. From my desk at work it takes about ten minutes to reach my car... I'd want it on when I leave my desk. In the mornings I'd want it on a schedule to be on before the typical time I'm ready to leave the house.

 

[insaneoctane]

So, I can appreciate the "doesn't save me much time" folks....
But, isn't this the kind of thing Tesla's just "do" because they are so smart? Granted it only helps a bit, but it seems just kinda of smart to do; like not having to push a "start" button?

 

[Jayc]

It should be possible determine mobile phone location either with gps or mobile signal triangulation. To locate car, you'd want to know gps coordinates. So we don't need to always think in terms of near field communications to determine proximity.

Having said all that however I think the preferred option might be to remotely switch on either heating or AC using the Tesla APP.

 

[BerTX]

Apparently Tesla has very limited resources for doing software development. There are many, many things they should do before this. I don't disagree it can be on the list, just close to the bottom.

 

[Chewy3]

The range of the Bluetooth is 50 meters.

I'm pretty sure it's more like 10m or 30ft (for class 2 devices, like phones) MAYBE 50 ft with a good signal. But I've never seen any class 2 Bluetooth connection span 150ft (50 meters)

 

[DriveMe]

I voted No. Proximity heating/cooling doesn't make much sense to me. For the following reasons.
1. If the proximity range is more than just a couple of feet, it would false-trigger too often: whenever I am near the car and have no intention of driving it, whenever I am in the garage, near it, or in the room next to it. That would be annoying and would waste the battery charge.
2. If the proximity range is short, say a couple of feet, then it would be just seconds before me opening the door and entering the car. Wouldn't be enough time to make any noticeable difference. It takes much longer than that.

 

[BrettS]

Honestly I’m not sure this would really buy us much and I can see it being more annoying than useful. I live in Florida where it gets hot and I love the fact that the AC turns on as soon as you come up to the car and open the door. Even without using the app to precool that results in getting into a much cooler car than my previous car where I would need to get in and sit down and turn it on before the AC started up. I’m not sure that starting the AC 30 or 40 seconds sooner would really make much of a difference temp wise. I usually don’t think of using the app to precool the car, but occasionally on really hot days I’ll pull it up and start cooling on my way out of a store or something, maybe giving it an extra minute or so to cool the car before I get there and I really don’t see much of a difference in temp.

However, the downside to this would be all of the false triggers... I already see the handles present several times a day as I would through my garage to go outside or get something from the garage... if it turned on the AC each time I did this then it would be wasting a lot of power. There are also times where you park close to a building at a small restaurant or a convenience store, or even in some cases at a hotel/motel. And not only would running the HVAC as it detected you close to the car be wasting energy, but since you aren’t home and plugged in it would be decreasing your range as well.

I think the ‘high tech’ feature that we get here is that the cooling starts as soon as you open the door... far fewer false triggers and it still results in getting into a much cooler car than most other people in the same parking lot.

 

[RubberToe]

Agree with others that having the phone app trigger this makes more sense. Leaving office takes 7 minute walk to car in parking lot. Phone detects I'm heading to car by both time and location, so triggers the car to start cooling. Car cools for 6 minutes.If the cooling is started only when I get within 50 meters, its on for one minute before I get in. 6 minutes of cooling is useful, 1 minute is not. If its really Arizona hot, you probably need 10-15 minutes to get it cool, so that would require you to manually start the cooling before heading out. Sure looking forward to doing this!

RT

 

[scaesare]

I'd be interested in the option, as long as I can enable/disable it.

As for the range... the phone app knows where both you and the car are via GPS. You can see this via the map. It doesn't need to rely on Bluetooth.

 

[BrettS]

Agree with others that having the phone app trigger this makes more sense. Leaving office takes 7 minute walk to car in parking lot. Phone detects I'm heading to car by both time and location, so triggers the car to start cooling. Car cools for 6 minutes.If the cooling is started only when I get within 50 meters, its on for one minute before I get in. 6 minutes of cooling is useful, 1 minute is not. If its really Arizona hot, you probably need 10-15 minutes to get it cool, so that would require you to manually start the cooling before heading out. Sure looking forward to doing this!

RT

This is an interesting idea and it seems like something that could possibly be implemented right now by any of the third party apps.

However, I’m not sure how much of a use case there is. It might work for you with your 7 minute walk, but you would still probably effectively only get 2 or 3 minutes of cooling out of it. The app would need to make sure that you are really walking to your car before it triggers and not just walking from one side of the building to the other, then by the time it decides that you have walked far enough to trigger and adding the slight delay to send the command to the car I suspect that most of your walk will be over by the time the AC turns on.

I think that most people typically park with much less than a 7 minute walk to the car, so I’m not sure there would be enough time to trigger and send the command in most cases.

 

[Az_Rael]

Well, the S (and I assume X) already have a feature called smart preconditioning. The car tries to learn your habits and guesses when you are about to leave and turns on the climate. Now, I don't have a regular enough schedule to try it out, so it's turned off on mine, but it is a feature that might make it into the 3 software and provide some of the functionality you are talking about.

 

[Swampgator]

I think a lot of people forget that Teslas have a dog mode, where you can set the cabin to never exceed 100 F (maybe adjustable?)
So for most people the car will already be cooler than your standard ICE car when you get out to it. Still, I voted yes because I live in Florida.

 

[RubberToe]

This is an interesting idea and it seems like something that could possibly be implemented right now by any of the third party apps.

However, I’m not sure how much of a use case there is. It might work for you with your 7 minute walk, but you would still probably effectively only get 2 or 3 minutes of cooling out of it. The app would need to make sure that you are really walking to your car before it triggers and not just walking from one side of the building to the other, then by the time it decides that you have walked far enough to trigger and adding the slight delay to send the command to the car I suspect that most of your walk will be over by the time the AC turns on.

I think that most people typically park with much less than a 7 minute walk to the car, so I’m not sure there would be enough time to trigger and send the command in most cases.

AI Assistant: "Hey RubberToe, are you walking out to your car after that hard days work or just out for some exercise?"
RubberToe: "Yeah, I'm headed to the car, just set it to 72 degrees today"
AI Assistant: "Yes Master, as you command!"

Unless of course you have your AI assistant set to snarky mode....
AI Assistant: "Hey RubberToe, you done goofing off at work today, headed to the bar now?"
RubberToe: "Yeah, I'm headed to the bar, just set the car to 72 degrees"
AI Assistant: "What if I'm not in the mood, whats in it for me?"
RubberToe: "You realize that you can be replaced by a much less intelligent and cooperative AI right???"
AI Assistant: "Yes Master, as you command!!!"

RT

 

[kaffine]

No. My phone and car keys are close to my car at work even if I'm not and walking around at home I would be frequently walking within range of the car even though I am not walking to the car.

I would rather have a either a set temp it will maintain all the time and schedule when I know I am going to use the car to have it cool down more or heat up to my desired temp. A large part of my driving is to work/home I leave within a few minute window every day.

If I am out running errands I don't see the range being enough to make a difference. Even at a few hundred feet there isn't enough time to make a large difference in temp.