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

[Model S M.D.]

I have the same idea of where I'm moving forward with this project. I'm glad that you appreciate the support for orientation changes. Most people don't realize that Remote S is actually a Landscape app where the controls are at your thumbs and all the panels don't overlap. On the iPhone 4S, all the panels actually connect together in Landscape mode.

As for the overlay suggestion, it's sort of already there if you press the Remote S logo and scroll down. In the next interface update, I want to streamline the functions so well that you wouldn't need instructions to use.

Thanks for your support! It's great to hear feedback and fun to churn out people's suggestions. Feels more like this is a community project with feedback from hundreds (thousands?) of people. I read every single feedback I get to make sure that the app is constantly improving (yes even the App Store reviews, thanks for those btw).

Just gave you another great rating in the app store

Quick question: is there any way to change the charge percentage limit in increments other than 10%? When I when on a recent road trip, I wanted to change the percentage to 95% (so that I could charge quicker to 100% right before I left) and I ended up having to use Tesla's app to do so. Just a small suggestion that might already have a solution that I can't figure out.

I am one of the users who love the "all in one screen" layout. Your app is still my go to app (I have tried several and keep coming back to yours). I'm excited to see what you have planned next, including the today's screen widget.

 

[Lawsteve]

Just gave you another great rating in the app store

Quick question: is there any way to change the charge percentage limit in increments other than 10%? When I when on a recent road trip, I wanted to change the percentage to 95% (so that I could charge quicker to 100% right before I left) and I ended up having to use Tesla's app to do so. Just a small suggestion that might already have a solution that I can't figure out.

I am one of the users who love the "all in one screen" layout. Your app is still my go to app (I have tried several and keep coming back to yours). I'm excited to see what you have planned next, including the today's screen widget.

Just tap on the charge percentage indicated in the upper right of the screen. It will open a slider screen in the bottom center and you can reset the charge level at whatever level you want.

 

[AllenWong]

Just gave you another great rating in the app store

Quick question: is there any way to change the charge percentage limit in increments other than 10%? When I when on a recent road trip, I wanted to change the percentage to 95% (so that I could charge quicker to 100% right before I left) and I ended up having to use Tesla's app to do so. Just a small suggestion that might already have a solution that I can't figure out.

I am one of the users who love the "all in one screen" layout. Your app is still my go to app (I have tried several and keep coming back to yours). I'm excited to see what you have planned next, including the today's screen widget.

I can add a 95% preset charge limit in the website when you press the Remote S logo. I am currently away from home on a week long vacation without an Internet connection. So all I can do right now is use the iPhone. But when I get internet again, I will added the 95% preset for you. Or you can use the slider as someone else suggested.

 

[CmdrThor]

Yup, we did the fob 1 and fob 2 thing. The issue is when I approach, the car unlocks and all based on my fob but it only "recognizes" me 2/3 times. The other 1/3 of the time means the seat and the wheel are painfully close together for me to squeeze in and change it to my profile manually.

Maybe you should associate both fobs with an "exit" profile which moves the seat back and pulls the steering wheel in. You'd have to change the profile every time but you at least wouldn't have to squeeze in.

 

[Model S M.D.]

Just tap on the charge percentage indicated in the upper right of the screen. It will open a slider screen in the bottom center and you can reset the charge level at whatever level you want.

I can add a 95% preset charge limit in the website when you press the Remote S logo. I am currently away from home on a week long vacation without an Internet connection. So all I can do right now is use the iPhone. But when I get internet again, I will added the 95% preset for you. Or you can use the slider as someone else suggested.

Just tried clicking on the charge indicator, which brings up a screen with a slider for the charge % AND both passenger temperature settings. I've never seen this before. Thank you for the tip! Its hard to remember all of these little shortcuts.

Remote S now satisfies everything and more

 

[Ugliest1]

I can add a 95% preset charge limit in the website when you press the Remote S logo. I am currently away from home on a week long vacation without an Internet connection. So all I can do right now is use the iPhone. But when I get internet again, I will added the 95% preset for you. Or you can use the slider as someone else suggested.

From memory, which admittedly isn't anywhere near good, and semi-quoting others who are far smarter than I, in reading a whole bunch of charging-related threads over the years I believe the consensus was it's better for battery life to stop at 90% as a general rule instead of always charging to 95 or 100. I'm too lazy to find 100's of discussion links. I believe charging to 95% then leaving the car for several hours is nearly as "bad" for the battery as charging to the full 100% (somewhere around 92% or 93% is the ... cutover ...?). So... perhaps better not to give a default 95% click option but instead leave it at 90? Then only those who really need to play with the more exact numbers can do it easily enough with the slider.

I echo earlier comments about your development and R&D and ongoing "help" support being fabulous (to say nothing about your efforts while recovering and away from your own Model S). To answer your initial question, no, I don't really see the point behind the updated Tesla app beyond a changed screen, and it does feel like it was change for change's sake. I use Remote S for darn near everything and only keep Tesla open for calendar updates and status notifications. I find the charging information especially useful as I live in a condo and have to track the kWh usage to give the strata a cheque every year.

 

[Ugliest1]

Yup, we did the fob 1 and fob 2 thing. The issue is when I approach, the car unlocks and all based on my fob but it only "recognizes" me 2/3 times. The other 1/3 of the time means the seat and the wheel are painfully close together for me to squeeze in and change it to my profile manually.

This is why, one or two years ago in the threads associated with key fob profiles, I argued that I liked the non-profile fobs better. However, the solution I've found (since I drive the car 99.9% of the time) is to only link my fob, not my wife's. It's far easier for her to get in with the seat back and manually touchscreen her profile to move the seat forward. Another method is for the "driver" to double-click the fob roof when approaching so that fob gets recognized before the "offending" fob gets close enough to trigger.

 

[MathTek]

Just seen that you need summon to remotely trigger the homelink. Is it possible to do it without? I was hoping to ditch my garage fob and just use this!
HW2 so no summon yet

 

[Electroman]

Interesting that today, using Tesla app (the old one) Homelink just spins and spins and does nothing, whereas on the Remote S app, it works just fine !!

 

[AllenWong]

Just seen that you need summon to remotely trigger the homelink. Is it possible to do it without? I was hoping to ditch my garage fob and just use this!
HW2 so no summon yet

Unfortunately there isn't a way yet because Tesla tied HomeLink to Summon.

From memory, which admittedly isn't anywhere near good, and semi-quoting others who are far smarter than I, in reading a whole bunch of charging-related threads over the years I believe the consensus was it's better for battery life to stop at 90% as a general rule instead of always charging to 95 or 100. I'm too lazy to find 100's of discussion links. I believe charging to 95% then leaving the car for several hours is nearly as "bad" for the battery as charging to the full 100% (somewhere around 92% or 93% is the ... cutover ...?). So... perhaps better not to give a default 95% click option but instead leave it at 90? Then only those who really need to play with the more exact numbers can do it easily enough with the slider.

I echo earlier comments about your development and R&D and ongoing "help" support being fabulous (to say nothing about your efforts while recovering and away from your own Model S). To answer your initial question, no, I don't really see the point behind the updated Tesla app beyond a changed screen, and it does feel like it was change for change's sake. I use Remote S for darn near everything and only keep Tesla open for calendar updates and status notifications. I find the charging information especially useful as I live in a condo and have to track the kWh usage to give the strata a cheque every year.

It's not just one preset at 95%, it's several options. When you press the Remote S logo now, it will give a bunch of preset charge limits, so that you can quickly change it without adjusting it manually. Have a look:

 

[wayner]

Any chance in making Camp Mode more permanent so that you can turn it on and it stays on all day, regardless of whether you switch apps or turn your phone off? I realize that this has battery drain ramifications but I can live with that.

It would be great to use this as ice/snow melting mode where you could keep your cars HVAC running which should help to keep it from getting encased in freezing rain, or even if you just want much of the snow to melt when it is snowing.

 

[BertL]

Any chance in making Camp Mode more permanent so that you can turn it on and it stays on all day, regardless of whether you switch apps or turn your phone off? I realize that this has battery drain ramifications but I can live with that...

Been discussed many times upthread. Tesla really needs to create a real camp mode first -- it's a requirement that has been bandied-about for years but isn't fully implemented through 8.0 as you know. Workarounds that apps like Remote S do are as far as they can go given Tesla+Apple iOS limitations until then, without building a dedicated behind-the-scenes server environment to handle a limited number of functions like this (and I personally doubt Allen could afford to create and maintain additional infrastructure just for that).

 

[AllenWong]

Any chance in making Camp Mode more permanent so that you can turn it on and it stays on all day, regardless of whether you switch apps or turn your phone off? I realize that this has battery drain ramifications but I can live with that.

It would be great to use this as ice/snow melting mode where you could keep your cars HVAC running which should help to keep it from getting encased in freezing rain, or even if you just want much of the snow to melt when it is snowing.

What you're describing is having a 3rd party server run camp mode (or any commands) for you, so that the app isn't even required to be running. That falls under the category of background scheduling, which I have been exploring for the past two years trying to figure out a way to do it without having to run a separate server (it's not possible due to Apple iOS limitations on apps running in the background). I had been hoping that the new Tesla app would have a background scheduling feature, so that I wouldn't have to run an expensive server. But it didn't have it. So background scheduling is back on the table as a TODO item. And it's looking more and more like I'm going to have to run my own web service that will run people's scheduled commands for them.

 

[WannabeOwner]

so that I wouldn't have to run an expensive server

Just a thought - I expect you've already had it - but could you do a deal with someone like TeslaFi to piggy-back on their, existing, Tesla-aware server? They've already figured out the hardware, and probably have some redundancy, so if you had a trusted connection their server could just pass-through your commands (well .. I suppose they would have to "store", "pass-through" and then "repeat for required duration")

 

[MarcG]

Another thought would be to develop a simple app that runs on the owner'a home computer, and with which the mobile app can communicate scheduling commands.

Take VisibleTesla for example: it's running on my Mac Mini 24/7 and does a great job at scheduling charge sessions, climate sessions, wake/sleep, etc. But it doesn't have a mobile component.

@AllenWong if you were to develop a simple VT equivalent that spoke to your mobile app, this would replace the need for your expenses server. Granted, this would not work for those who do not own a home computer, but for those who do it would be a great solution!

 

[msnow]

Another thought would be to develop a simple app that runs on the owner'a home computer, and with which the mobile app can communicate scheduling commands.

Take VisibleTesla for example: it's running on my Mac Mini 24/7 and does a great job at scheduling charge sessions, climate sessions, wake/sleep, etc. But it doesn't have a mobile component.

@AllenWong if you were to develop a simple VT equivalent that spoke to your mobile app, this would replace the need for your expenses server. Granted, this would not work for those who do not own a home computer, but for those who do it would be a great solution!

Not a bad idea as long as it was ported to Mac as well.

 

[BertL]

...oh my, and poor Allen would then get to help troubleshoot not only his App, and help users with MS Settings and Tesla changes upon occasion as he already does (over and over) -- but then Windows and macOS variations with the connectivity challenges both would potentially entail.

As a user, having something on your own computer sounds great, but my being an x-tech support kinda guy for 35+ years who also held strategy and P&L responsibility for that business segment in a large corporation you'd recognize, I would never think Allen could justify building/maintaining the capability with additional Remote S licenses he'd sell purely because of background scheduling. I am just one user, but as discussed upthread months ago, I wouldn't use camp mode or pay for an additional background scheduling service given a choice -- it's just not important to me as it may be to some others. How many that is in both camps, is anyone's guess. Allen would know best what he wants to do with his own business model and how important background scheduling is to that either for the potential incremental money he believes it would make him, or just because he's a good 'ol soul that wants to build and maintain the functionality for his love of our community -- but IMHO, a centralized background scheduler that he builds or buys and can stay in mgmt control of, would both minimize user complexity and be far more cost effective for him than creating something that runs in a distributed manner on end-user owned computers where he'll get to play an even heavier tech support role than he already does.

 

[msnow]

...oh my, and poor Allen would then get to help troubleshoot not only his App, and help users with MS Settings and Tesla changes upon occasion as he already does (over and over) -- but then Windows and macOS variations with the connectivity challenges both would potentially entail.

As a user, having something on your own computer sounds great, but my being an x-tech support kinda guy for 35+ years who also held strategy and P&L responsibility for that business segment in a large corporation you'd recognize, I would never think Allen could justify building/maintaining the capability with additional Remote S licenses he'd sell purely because of background scheduling. I am just one user, but as discussed upthread months ago, I wouldn't use camp mode or pay for an additional background scheduling service given a choice -- it's just not important to me as it may be to some others. How many that is in both camps, is anyone's guess. Allen would know best what he wants to do with his own business model and how important background scheduling is to that either for the potential incremental money he believes it would make him, or just because he's a good 'ol soul that wants to build and maintain the functionality for his love of our community -- but IMHO, a centralized background scheduler that he builds or buys and can stay in mgmt control of, would both minimize user complexity and be far more cost effective for him than creating something that runs in a distributed manner on end-user owned computers where he'll get to play an even heavier tech support role than he already does.

Having it on ones own computer would eliminate any security concerns, if one exists (or hosting costs) but you bring up a good point about support.

 

[Adrian]

I wouldn't have to run an expensive server.

Personally i, and probably many more, would be happy to pay a subscription fee for "offline" features like this.

 

[HebrHmr]

Couldn't this be accomplished on a not so expensive VPS?