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Remote S: Tesla app for Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch
- Thread starter AllenWong
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BertL
Active Member
The Tesla app portal is down as of a few minutes ago for me too, but I do have some candid observations about a couple of apps.
I could not get the app to reliably work last month, after two weeks of trying. It also may have corrupted my iPhone and watch. I had to restore my phone and watch. When I finished that, I changed my Tesla password. Another watch/iPhone app did the same thing, which caused me to take the same steps. Since the restoration, my phone and watch have been fine. No slight to the app authors, but I decided to solely rely on the Tesla app from now on.
Apple did refund my money for the Remote S app but that's another story because initially, for three days, the app would not fully download from the app store. The other app, namely KeyMote, downloaded fine but parts of the app were non-functional even after paying to unlock all its features. In the end, I decided not to trust bar money apps with my $100k car. My decision only, with no intended slight to good people, who don't have trust issues, unlike me.
If you decide to stop using these non-Tesla Motors apps, recommend changing your password. I also changed my USERID. Albeit the app authors say they do not have access to your password data, there is no way to verify it when you are an average (perhaps below average in my case) customer.
I could not get the app to reliably work last month, after two weeks of trying. It also may have corrupted my iPhone and watch. I had to restore my phone and watch. When I finished that, I changed my Tesla password. Another watch/iPhone app did the same thing, which caused me to take the same steps. Since the restoration, my phone and watch have been fine. No slight to the app authors, but I decided to solely rely on the Tesla app from now on.
Apple did refund my money for the Remote S app but that's another story because initially, for three days, the app would not fully download from the app store. The other app, namely KeyMote, downloaded fine but parts of the app were non-functional even after paying to unlock all its features. In the end, I decided not to trust bar money apps with my $100k car. My decision only, with no intended slight to good people, who don't have trust issues, unlike me.
If you decide to stop using these non-Tesla Motors apps, recommend changing your password. I also changed my USERID. Albeit the app authors say they do not have access to your password data, there is no way to verify it when you are an average (perhaps below average in my case) customer.
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First you should make sure that breadcrumb tracking is turned on. This means that the left-most button out of the 3 buttons on the top should be blue. Then tap the top-right button to expand the map. Press the left circular button if the stats control panel is not showing on the bottom. Press on the "Efficiency" for the trip that you want the stats for. The Current Trip is the top-most bar. To record a trip, first press the Red trash can icon to erase all previous data points. You must at least turn on the app at the start and at the end of the trip. This gives you two data points, and the trip stats will display using those two points if you press on "Efficiency". If you leave the app on longer during the trip, it'll have more data points to give more accurate stats.
Remote S will attempt to wake the car after you issue a command (and that command will fail because the car is asleep). You can also try to wake the car by pressing on the text that looks like "Updated: 10:30 PM". If you don't issue a command, it'll leave your car asleep and give you the last known stats for that car. Waking a car usually takes a few minutes whether you're on the official app or Remote S. Easiest way to tell when the Remote S app is connected to the car is if the "Updated" time matches your current time.
The next app update will move Remote S into watchOS 3.
There are several security experts who use this app and have monitored the network activity of the app since the very beginning. There was a detailed post by one such expert near the beginning of this thread. It all shows that the app only communicates with Tesla's servers and nothing else. If someone were to find out that the app steals passwords, it'd be talked about on here. I'd lose people's trust and thus lose business. It wouldn't make sense for me to want to steal passwords. I'd have nothing to gain, but a lot to lose. An iOS app also doesn't have the ability to corrupt devices. There are many people who use this app just fine. It's probably just a coincidence that the Tesla servers went down and then after you restored your device and changed your password, the servers came back up.
alexvirital
Member
Just a heads-up as someone who works around iOS quite a lot - I strongly suspect that wasn't the App's fault (at least, not Remote S) due to how iOS architecture works. It sounds like you had some major issues with the OS that may well have hit at the same time. If you haven't already, I'd take your phone in to Apple.
It is almost impossible for a usermode iPhone app to corrupt the phone or do any damage. The worst a poorly written app can do is to hog the system and slow your phone down and consume battery.
Good comments by all, following my remarks. Thank you. I can say that something did slow down my phone, consume battery, etc. There did appear to be a correlation between installation of the two apps and degraded watch and phone performance: first one app installed followed by what I call a corrupted device, then fine after a clean iOS install for several days, then another app installed repeating corrupted behavior until wiped clean with a new iOS install. Since that time other, non-vehicle related apps have been installed and the phone works like it's brand new. Ergo no reason to take the phone back to Apple. Hopefully, no one else has my experience with these non-Tesla apps. Thank you for not taking my earnest remarks personally. You are certainly good gentlemen.
I accept that some security guy (also don't know his name or verified background) said the app was good a year ago or so but security is something that needs to be continually reviewed with a process aimed at discovering and mitigating zero-day vulnerabilities. Is there a process like that for any of the non-Tesla apps? Is the code open source? Is there a red team looking for vulnerabilities? I know Tesla is doing some of that but I don't know about some of the hobby apps.
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I have been using Remote S for a year and I haven't heard of anyone having the issues you describe so perhaps it was something else. How do you know Tesla is doing continual security testing of their app?
BertL
Active Member
FWIW: I upgraded my iPhone 6 and iPad Pro to iOS 10, along with my Apple Watch to WatchOS 3 which became available this morning. I really didn't expect anything different from what I know as a GREAT iOS app, but I'm pleased to report that Remote S works just fine without any hiccups thus far on any of my three devices. Even without the new Remote S update Allen mentioned a few days ago that would be coming in the near term, I'm especially happy with the new WatchOS 3 Dock feature that allows me to keep Remote S at the ready -- accessing up to 10 apps including Remote S, even faster than before without even taking my iPhone out of my pocket.
Thanks again Allen for a great app. It remains one of the best designed, most bullet-proof, and just flat-out well functioning apps I own.
Thanks again Allen for a great app. It remains one of the best designed, most bullet-proof, and just flat-out well functioning apps I own.
Frankman60
Member
Thanks for reporting this about IOS 10 and WatchOS 3. I haven't purchased the Remote S app because I was waiting to see how it would work with these major Apple updates. I was also wondering how Remote S may be affected by the upcoming Tesla Version 8 of its OS. I guess I will need to still wait for that one.
BertL
Active Member
Remote S has not failed me during the almost 12 months since I purchased my MS, crossing from 6.2 to 7.0 to 7.1 and all the interim dot releases.
Tesla can always change their API and cause issues for apps like Remote S and every other that is not an official Tesla App. Tesla to-date has allowed their API to sort of be hacked or reverse-engineered if you like, and while it remains officially undocumented and is certainly a bit of a risk, since Tesla could I suppose, get nasty and lock things done one day. What I would offer though once again is, the cost of the Remote S app is less than many people drop on a couple cups of coffee... if we can afford our MS, it's not a very big financial consideration even compared to individual MS options you may be considering.
. If something happened tomorrow and I couldn't use Remote S, I'd still say I got more than my monies worth out of it in less than a year of use.
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Agree, does Summon work yet on Remote S?Remote S has not failed me during the almost 12 months since I purchased my MS, crossing from 6.2 to 7.0 to 7.1 and all the interim dot releases.
Tesla can always change their API and cause issues for apps like Remote S and every other that is not an official Tesla App. Tesla to-date has allowed their API to sort of be hacked or reverse-engineered if you like, and while it remains officially undocumented and is certainly a bit of a risk, since Tesla could I suppose, get nasty and lock things done one day. What I would offer though once again is, the cost of the Remote S app is less than many people drop on a couple cups of coffee... if we can afford our MS, it's not a very big financial consideration even compared to individual MS options you may be considering.
BertL
Active Member
I've not tried it in a long time, as Summon for me is a novelty and emergency-use thing (when some @#$*&% driver pulls in so close on my left I can't open my driver's door to get in) ...but I suspect there is no change in status because of iOS 10. IIRC from posts further upthread, it wasn't Apple or iOS that caused Summon to become broken with apps like Remote S in the first place.
Right, I understand Tesla changed something on their end a little while back. I was just wondering if that's still the case. I rarely use Summon but when I do I use the fob.I've not tried it in a long time, as Summon for me is a novelty and emergency-use thing (when some @#$*&% driver pulls in so close on my left I can't open my driver's door to get in) ...but I suspect there is no change in status because of iOS 10. IIRC from posts further upthread, it wasn't Apple or iOS that caused Summon to become broken with apps like Remote S in the first place.
Ivo-G
Member
At least you get to use the fob, over here in Europe that's disabled, only the Tesla app works.
BertL
Active Member
It's been whispered a number of times upthread, and is in the authors to-do list.
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