Remote S: Tesla app for Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

[Muzzman1]

I have heard of this before when someone simply opened the roof and the alarm went off. I think it has to do with the roof venting during Max Cool. Was it raining when it happened? Maybe it alarmed because the roof opened in the rain and the car was warning you.

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the negative can be a positive to someone else like me who wants all the info in one screen. But I understand why it's a negative to people who want clutter-free interfaces. That is why I have plans to work on a new interface for my spin off app that would be more similar to what you are saying. This way users have a choice of either the advanced Remote S app or the simplified Remote S spin off app.

I was wondering why my car "dinged" at me on a couple of occasions. Both times I used max cool. It must have triggered my alarm. I do not have a sunroof.
(Just another data point for you)

 

[AllenWong]

I was wondering why my car "dinged" at me on a couple of occasions. Both times I used max cool. It must have triggered my alarm. I do not have a sunroof.
(Just another data point for you)

What do you mean by "dinged"? Like the sound it makes when the car is locked?

 

[MarcG]

Quick bug report here: I forgot my key at home this morning and was in a rush, so I used Remote S to unlock and keyless drive.
Upon arriving at my destination, I use Remote S again to lock the car. Although the side-view mirrors and the door handles retracted, the tail lights stayed on. I then opened the official app and it said the car was still unlocked, so I went ahead and locked it via the official app.

 

[gizmoboy]

Is there anyone here who didn't buy Remote S because of the price? I'm thinking about releasing a spin off app that will be free and will have a new, simpler interface (possibly less advanced features and ad-driven).

so is there any interest in that or did everyone here buy the Remote S app and don't need a free version?

It certainly looks worth it (I will get one when/if I get my S), but I did notice that the UI is becoming increasingly cluttered due to creeping featuritis.

I'd love more screens with less on them versus the power-user aesthetic in current view. Perhaps a "lean mode" and a "power mode" for the UI so that users can choose their poison?

You could make 4.0 default to "lean mode" and restrict access to certain clean screens/features until the user does an in-app purchase to unlock full access to the app (kill 2 birds with one stone/app).

 

[andrewket]

Quick bug report here: I forgot my key at home this morning and was in a rush, so I used Remote S to unlock and keyless drive.
Upon arriving at my destination, I use Remote S again to lock the car. Although the side-view mirrors and the door handles retracted, the tail lights stayed on. I then opened the official app and it said the car was still unlocked, so I went ahead and locked it via the official app.

Sounds like a tesla bug, not remote s.

 

[omarsultan]

Does anyone have close ties to him?

Ben is on this site (member name is EVTripPlanner), have you tried PM-ing him? IIRC he is starting Stanford, so might appreciate some help.

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Have you done any testing with Watch OS 2? Toying with updating, but trying to get a handle on how much its going to kill battery life.

 

[Phil K]

FYI, just installed IOS 9 public beta and everything seems to be working fine so far.

 

[Muzzman1]

What do you mean by "dinged"? Like the sound it makes when the car is locked?

Yes, exactly, like I hit the lock command on the touch screen while getting in the car, but I did not. The car made the chime sound and I wondered why.

 

[Peter_M]

- the user interface seems dated/archaic. Like it's trying to do too much on one screen. The Tesla native app has a beautiful interface. I would like to see a more "Apple-like" experience rather than so many small buttons on one screen.

I agree. Awesome app but the UI is a bit hard to discover, learn and remember, especially all the hidden buttons. I'd prefer a more "spread out" UI with a few screens and big buttons that are clear. I still much prefer this app over the Tesla one but maybe a UI refresh could be in the plan for 4.0.

 

[pmoa]

FYI. I think the app is reporting charging average incorrectly. I know the car is set to 30A. See screen shots below. Your app is reporting only 21 A while the tesla app is reporting 30 A.

 

[AllenWong]

Quick bug report here: I forgot my key at home this morning and was in a rush, so I used Remote S to unlock and keyless drive.
Upon arriving at my destination, I use Remote S again to lock the car. Although the side-view mirrors and the door handles retracted, the tail lights stayed on. I then opened the official app and it said the car was still unlocked, so I went ahead and locked it via the official app.

Maybe you double tapped the lock and unlock button by accident? Enabling an unlock confirmation screen in the app settings could prevent that from happening again in the future.

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FYI. I think the app is reporting charging average incorrectly. I know the car is set to 30A. See screen shots below. Your app is reporting only 21 A while the tesla app is reporting 30 A.

This is a known "bug". The grey "30 A" in Remote S is the same as the white 30 A in the official app. The white 21 is the actual current flowing into the battery. This is a number that the official app doesn't display but is in the API data. If you turn on and off the HVAC, you can see the battery current change, meanwhile the charger current remains the same. If you go to the app settings, you can even keep this battery current remain on screen even when not charging. You can see vampire drain this way.

 

[pmoa]

This is a known "bug". The grey "30 A" in Remote S is the same as the white 30 A in the official app. The white 21 is the actual current flowing into the battery. This is a number that the official app doesn't display but is in the API data. If you turn on and off the HVAC, you can see the battery current change, meanwhile the charger current remains the same. If you go to the app settings, you can even keep this battery current remain on screen even when not charging. You can see vampire drain this way.

interesting. So when it's charging on 30 Amps I'm really charging at 21? Thanks for the explanation.

 

[AllenWong]

interesting. So when it's charging on 30 Amps I'm really charging at 21? Thanks for the explanation.

I assume so. I don't know to be honest, because I didn't engineer the API. That's just the number the API gives me and the label is "battery current". But doing things things that use batteries or charge batteries affects this number as predicted. So 21 would probably be the net charging current.

 

[MarcG]

Maybe you double tapped the lock and unlock button by accident? Enabling an unlock confirmation screen in the app settings could prevent that from happening again in the future.

No, I only tapped it once. Had I tapped it twice, the door handles would have extended again, which they didn't. Anyway, don't worry about it - probably one of those really hard to duplicate bugs.

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interesting. So when it's charging on 30 Amps I'm really charging at 21? Thanks for the explanation.

30A is the AC current that the "charger", or EVSE, is supplying to the car. 21A is the DC current the battery is getting.
As Alan mentioned, you'll see the DC battery current fluctuate if you enable/disable HVAC as the car redirects some of the current away from/back into the battery. Totally normal.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

interesting. So when it's charging on 30 Amps I'm really charging at 21? Thanks for the explanation.

Not to get too far off topic, but keep in mind the battery current is at a different voltage than the AC input.

So, if you're charging at 240 V and 30 A on the AC side you are inputting ~ 7.2 kW

If you assumed no losses in the conversion of AC to DC (there are some) then 7200 W / 21 A would equal 342 Volts DC at the battery.

In other words, the current in to the battery will always be less than the AC current since the battery (DC) voltage will always be higher.

Mike

 

[Johan]

Not to get too far off topic, but keep in mind the battery current is at a different voltage than the AC input.

So, if you're charging at 240 V and 30 A on the AC side you are inputting ~ 7.2 kW

If you assumed no losses in the conversion of AC to DC (there are some) then 7200 W / 21 A would equal 342 Volts DC at the battery.

In other words, the current in to the battery will always be less than the AC current since the battery (DC) voltage will always be higher.

Mike

Exactly right. And as SOC (state of charge) increases so does voltage, which means that even at a sustained given kW charge rate ("even draw" by the chargers) the current will drop as voltage increases.

State of charge is basically the voltage of the pack. IIRC 100% SOC means a pack voltage of slightly above 400V (as seen with a light load) and 0% SOC is somewhere around 330V. For the chemistry of the Model S bricking territory will be below 300V.

 

[AllenWong]

Yes. You two are right. You can tell the battery voltage when you supercharge your car and watch the charge voltage.

 

[JPP]

A slightly off-topic note: I was at TMC Connect this weekend. There were a sizable number of members/attendees wearing an Apple Watch, and the primary reason is your app. Pretty amazing. Apple should give you an added bonus for selling watches.

 

[pmoa]

Thank you for the info Nola, Marc, and Johan!

 

[Ken Edwards]

This is NOT a bug report, but rather a warning to those who, like me, use the Remote S app and leave their keys at home. I had no trouble unlocking my car at home and driving to a client about 8 miles away. Unfortunately when I went back to my car to unlock it the Tesla servers were busy and I got a message to try again shortly. After an embarrassing "short" hour and a half with repeated denials from the overloaded Tesla servers (July 9th, about 7:30pm ET), my client had to drive me home to get the key and back to his house. I won't do that again, and neither should anyone else exclusively rely on the app in lieu of the key. Love the app anyway!