Tesla - Apple Watch support

[wayner]

If your phone and/or the car do not have a cell data signal you will need your fob to use the car. The phone and the car communicate over the cell system. They do not communicate independently of it.

Very good point - I didn't think of that. Here in Canada we often have a lot of 3G connection issues since Canadian Model S's have AT&T SIMs but they are roaming on a Canadian wireless network. Sometimes there are glitches and the car has trouble auhtorizing on the network.

 

[spentan]

Looks great!

Pls let us know when it is in the app store

 

[swaltner]

From the iPhone screenshots... Are you really sure you want to advertise that you're driving 88 mph through residential areas and through parks?

Obviously kidding, since those shots list the cell carrier as Carrier, so they're from the iPhone simulator in the iOS SDK. Funny how Apple changed the location services readings. Several years ago, the simulator just had you stationary at the Apple HQ at 1 Infinite Loop.

 

[ibcs]

Outstanding utilization of the iWatch. Unfortunately, mine is 3 to 4 weeks away. Hopefully, you will have this published ahead of my delivery.

 

[AllenWong]

From the iPhone screenshots... Are you really sure you want to advertise that you're driving 88 mph through residential areas and through parks?

Obviously kidding, since those shots list the cell carrier as Carrier, so they're from the iPhone simulator in the iOS SDK. Funny how Apple changed the location services readings. Several years ago, the simulator just had you stationary at the Apple HQ at 1 Infinite Loop.

The simulator can simulate different major cities like London and San Fran. But I just thought it'd be funny to be going 88 mph through a park in Paris, so I set up the stats to read that out. My homage to Back to the Future.

Looks great!

Pls let us know when it is in the app store

Probably 9 days from today. May 17th?

Outstanding utilization of the iWatch. Unfortunately, mine is 3 to 4 weeks away. Hopefully, you will have this published ahead of my delivery.

If Apple doesn't reject this first version, I'm sure that it'll be in the app store at least a week before you get your Apple Watch.

 

[artsci]

This is incredible! You've done what most of us hoped Tesla would do with the app. Better yet you've created versions for all the Apple mobile platforms.

Thanks for all of your very hard and dedicated work. Now get some rest and take care of yourself -- your health is more important.

 

[ny888]

Don't even have my car yet but this makes me want to buy an the Apple Watch !

 

[lg_golfs]

Man that looks slick!

Very nice work and please remember to balance your work as well as your recovery.

I have the watch. Will wait impatiently for the app as well as my 70D. It should hit production any day now (looks at watch waiting for date to change)

 

[andrewket]

Thanks for all your kind words. I can finally rest, because I just finished and submitted the app to the App Store. What took so long? Well, the Apple Watch app was completed when I made that video. But I also had to code the iPhone/iPad version. That took a whole other week to do. And then finally I had to field test this app for several days to make sure that it's perfect. I also added the features that I said that I wouldn't add to the first version, but ended up including them anyway, due to the huge support from you guys. Thanks, it really motivated me a lot to create a very feature-heavy app.

Breadcrumb mode is now pretty robust. It will keep a history of the MPH/direction/time of when the bread crumb was placed. Here's a picture of it in action. I just randomly picked one of the pins as an example: View attachment 80404

Here's some screens of the main app:
View attachment 80405View attachment 80406View attachment 80407View attachment 80408View attachment 80409

And yes, Touch ID does allow you to start the car. Besides the Apple Watch, Touch ID keyless start was the most requested feature. Just make sure that you have Apple Watch and Touch ID enabled in the login screen to enable these features. If you don't enable it in the login screen, you'd have to sign out and log back in to change the settings.

There's support for multiple cars. Just press that white car icon on the top-right to switch between cars.

There's support for km and celsius. The app will read the settings from your car automatically, so you don't have to set them. It will also change them on the fly when you change it in the car.

The Odometer is also more accurate than what your car will tell you. I tested it out, and it turns out that it's not accurate up to an inch (even though they give me the figure in inches). It's accurate up to maybe 10-20 feet. Still not bad. The odometer just doesn't update until you move a few feet.

Camp Mode is now working, as suggested by someone. I actually camped overnight in my Tesla to make sure that it works. Turns out that sending a "Turn on HVAC" command at the 29.9th minute doesn't cause the timer to reset. The car will still turn off the HVAC after 30 minutes. Solution? Just have the app turn it back on after the 30 minutes.

I actually opened up my app to accept all sorts of commands from the internet using protocols. So if you use the in-app browser, and have a website that sends a hvac://on command via javascript, the app will do that command without any user input. You can create complex scripts this way. For example, in the morning, you can have the website tell you the temperature, check the weather first, and then open/close the roof accordingly. And if it's too hot or too cold for just simple roof opening, you can have the car turn on the HVAC a certain time before you leave the house. And then maybe even unlock the car and start the engine for you before you get in, so you don't have to wait for the car to "start up". The possibilities are endless.

Camp mode was my ask. Thank you!! Interesting on the 29/30m thing. I was using 29m minutes last summer and it worked. Maybe the functionally changed ever so slightly or my timing was just perfect. If you wanted to make it error proof you might consider sending HVAC off and then on. That is guaranteed to work every time and not have possible timing issues.

 

[JPP]

Looks impressive-can't wait.

BTW your breadcrumbs lead to a hospital....your home for a few days??

Get well fast-need you back to coding more apps.

Thx.

 

[jvonbokel]

Thanks for all your kind words. I can finally rest, because I just finished and submitted the app to the App Store. What took so long? Well, the Apple Watch app was completed when I made that video. But I also had to code the iPhone/iPad version. That took a whole other week to do.

Not to derail the thread, but is there any chance of an Android version in the future?

 

[AllenWong]

Camp mode was my ask. Thank you!! Interesting on the 29/30m thing. I was using 29m minutes last summer and it worked. Maybe the functionally changed ever so slightly or my timing was just perfect. If you wanted to make it error proof you might consider sending HVAC off and then on. That is guaranteed to work every time and not have possible timing issues.

It turns off at exactly 30 minutes. I sent a command 10 seconds before the 30 minutes was up. It still shut down on me. Now my Camp Mode just turns it back on in 30 minutes + 10 seconds. So it'll be 10 seconds of the HVAC winding down and then the app will power it back on again. You guys are more than welcome to tweak my scripts. The in-app browser accepts any website, so you can just write your own javascript script and see what works for you. And then I can update my website with the new script without having to go through the Apple approval process again.

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Not to derail the thread, but is there any chance of an Android version in the future?

Depends on how well the iOS version does and whether Tesla sues me or not.

 

[Rhym]

What is the name of the app? I assume "Remote S"?

 

[AllenWong]

By the way, I wrote a little tutorial on how to control the Remote S app from the web.

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

Normally, these buttons would be working if you were using my app. Don't bother pressing them on a normal browser.

So the problem is that Apple apps can't execute commands in the background unless it's for audio or GPS or downloads, etc. So the workaround is that I set the app to never idle and never lock the device, no matter what your autolock settings are. And then in the in-app browser, you can browse to the website you created that contains the custom script that you want. This way, you can have the script run overnight while you're sleeping. Camp mode is one example of a script that you'd use overnight. It's just a 30 minute and 10 second loop that sends a hvac://on command each time. This simple script allows the Tesla to keep the HVAC on all night while you sleep in the trunk or something. I already added the camp mode button in the app, so you don't have to code it.

If anyone else comes up with a good javascript command that makes sense for the general public, I can add it to my app's default page for the in-app browser.

Theoretically, you could just bypass my app and take the OAuth token generated by my app to have the scripts run in the background on your servers without having to use my app. Getting the OAuth token was really the hard part of the API and isn't really documented well. You could set up a CRON job to execute some javascript commands at different times in the morning for example. You can even check the charge and what not and have the script remind you to plug your charger cable in before you head to bed. The possibilities are unlimited.

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What is the name of the app? I assume "Remote S"?

Yup, Remote S.

 

[omarsultan]

App looks great - nice job. I cannot see Tesla suing you, but if they finally decide to harden access to their servers, it might cause you some headaches. They have long hinted at an SDK--hopefully it arrives soon--an ecosystem of cool apps like this one only serve to increase the appeal of the car.

O

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If anyone else comes up with a good javascript command that makes sense for the general public, I can add it to my app's default page for the in-app browser.

I would love to have a feature that knows if you have timed charging set and send you an alert if the car is not plugged in.

 

[xy46]

Woohoo - what you have done here Allen is amazing! Just totally awesome. My AppleWatch, iPhone, and iPad just became that much more valuable to me and makes me love my Tesla all that much more, which I didn't think was possible. :biggrin: Thank you!

 

[jasonsc]

Looks great! Can't wait to use it.

 

[pmoa]

Rego from a fellow software engineer, this is really well done. Kudos and thank you for your time put into this thing.

 

[jomo25]

Awesome job with the iOS and Watch apps! Thanks for your literally tireless efforts on this for the community. I do hope that you are able to take time for your health's sake and wish you a speedy and full recovery (at least to greatest extent possible).

The JavaScript capability makes me wonder how close this gets us to IFTTT integration? This would then allow things like notifications and dynamic settings based on geofencing, time of day, or event trigger, etc.

 

[eye.surgeon]

Amazing work!! Can't wait to buy it. Tesla should just cut you a check for $20k and call their Apple watch app done.