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Tesla Winds and Elevation Web Browser App
- Thread starter SomeJoe7777
- Start date
I posted the following to another thread in the Tesla.com forum. Reading posts in this thread indicate Teslawinds should work on the Model 3.
I had seen Teslawinds before but the website said it was for Model S/X no mention of Model 3. i tried it out on my Model 3 yesterday. The wind speed and direction seemed reasonable and the compass worked; however, the elevation did not work and Ground Speed was all over the map. I drove 10 miles on the interstate with Autopilot set to 71MPH and the Ground Speed was reading speeds between 40 and 90MPH and everything in between. I would think Ground Speed would come from GPS, is GPS data different on the Model 3? The cars speedo meter gives me ground speed and I can add or subtract the head/tail wind speed mentally to get air speed. Better than nothing in Model 3 but it would be nice if everything worked!
Maybe I am doing something wrong? Can anyone confirm or deny my results?
I had seen Teslawinds before but the website said it was for Model S/X no mention of Model 3. i tried it out on my Model 3 yesterday. The wind speed and direction seemed reasonable and the compass worked; however, the elevation did not work and Ground Speed was all over the map. I drove 10 miles on the interstate with Autopilot set to 71MPH and the Ground Speed was reading speeds between 40 and 90MPH and everything in between. I would think Ground Speed would come from GPS, is GPS data different on the Model 3? The cars speedo meter gives me ground speed and I can add or subtract the head/tail wind speed mentally to get air speed. Better than nothing in Model 3 but it would be nice if everything worked!
Maybe I am doing something wrong? Can anyone confirm or deny my results?
Regarding issue 3 above, does the Tesla API allow access to speedometer data. If so, that could be used in lieu of GPS. I suppose Tesla could be using GPS to display speed on the left side if the center screen?
The app works by requesting GPS position from the browser via Javascript. This used to work very accurately until Tesla release the v9 software. Ever since then, the GPS data is very quantized and inaccurate. This results in varying heading and speed displayed in the app.
I have not yet found a way to compensate for this or get the old, accurate GPS data from the browser. The Tesla API does have accurate GPS data, so I could read the GPS data from there and it would smooth things up again, but there are several disadvantages to this approach:
1. There would be a delay in getting the data because that has to be requested over the Internet, and the car has to send the data to the Internet as well.The displayed speed and heading would lag behind the actual speed and heading by quite a bit, probably at least 5 seconds, maybe more.
2. My app would have to request your Tesla login so that it could access the API for your car. Many people are uncomfortable with that, and I'm not keen on accepting the responsibility for handling sensitive data in my app.
3. I'd have to build a new UI for gathering the Tesla login from the user, and since my app intentionally does not use cookies or store data on any server, I'd have no secure way to store the Tesla login between uses of the app, thus the user would have to enter it every time.
4. The app currently will work even if there is no Internet connection in the car, which is important if your on a road trip out in the middle of nowhere. The wind data may be old, but the course and speed will still work. Getting GPS data rom the API means that the app would no longer to be able to do anything without an Internet connection.
I have wanted to speak to the guys who do A Better Route Planner and TeslaWaze, as they may have found a way to get the accurate GPS data, but I have not been able to get in touch with them.
Thanks so much for your detailed response. Having the speed and direction from the weather stations, via the internet, is still valuable. Teslawaze also shows wind speed and direction and seems to use the same weather stations; however, it does not show side winds nor calculate the headwind/tailwind component of such. I assume the Model S/X also have the browser/javascript problem?
Thanks again
Correct, all Tesla's are affected, as the problem is somewhere in the browser implementation. Originally, the web browser was based on WebKit (same rendering engine used in Apple Safari), and the GPS worked perfectly. But the WebKit implementation was of an older build of WebKit, and as such it was slow and did not support modern HTML, CSS, and DOM constructs, thus limiting the types of apps, displays, and pages that it could render properly. The slowness was especially an issue on the Model S/X MCU1 units.
With the v9 software, Tesla fixed this by upgrading the browser rendering engine (I forget whether they did an upgraded WebKit or switched to Chromium), and that's when the GPS problems started.
SucreTease
Teslarian
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Works on my Mac, so I emailed the URL to myself and will try it out in my Model 3 today during a trip. I'm looking forward to having wind data !
Thanks very much, SomeJoe7777
Thanks very much, SomeJoe7777
It does work, it’s been even better now (Tesla native web browser) with the latest sw that MCU1 cars have as it can be launched during a drive vs. previous time that you needed to open the browser prior any trip. It’s my only webpage that I use during my everyday commute.
The app works, it just doesn't update your heading as often as I would like, and there's minor errors in the position returned by the browser, so the heading and speed will occasionally have a slight error in one reading, then go back to the correct reading. It's not ideal, but it doesn't diminish the usefulness of the app.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Sweet ! Works great. Even my wife was suitably charmed and she is usually not interested in tech.
swaltner
Active Member
It was my understanding that ALL websites that used geolocation data were broken in the v11 software. Can you provide an example of a website that is still able to obtain geolocation data when accessed from the browser in the v11 software stack?
I suspect the website you think are working are really just getting some generic location data based off IP address, not accurate data from the GPS.
Jeff Hudson
Lovin the Tesla Life
Yeah I just went through the steps to get a new API Key from openweathermap.org and recreated the saved teslawinds URL in my Tesla. I don't get any errors but there is no data coming through to the car.
As far as I can tell, the geolocation API has been removed from the browser. JavaScript apps running in the browser can no longer obtain the location.
I have no good solution for this. The only possibility would be to ask for the Tesla login and password and obtain the car's location via Tesla's API, but I don't want to mess with that. Setup of the application is already kind of difficult as it is (two API keys required) and I don't like the idea of having to ask people for their Tesla login credentials. (Even though they wouldn't get sent to the server -- I'd have the JavaScript running in the browser handle the login and the API calls.) Also, the Tesla API location lags behind the car's actual location by several seconds, so the course and speed data would no longer be real-time but would instead lag behind your actual driving.
In addition, the screen real estate for the browser has been reduced and the site would need revisions to the layout to make it work properly in v11.
Sorry gents, but unless Tesla restores the geolocation API in the browser I don't think I can make this work in a user-friendly and secure way.
I have no good solution for this. The only possibility would be to ask for the Tesla login and password and obtain the car's location via Tesla's API, but I don't want to mess with that. Setup of the application is already kind of difficult as it is (two API keys required) and I don't like the idea of having to ask people for their Tesla login credentials. (Even though they wouldn't get sent to the server -- I'd have the JavaScript running in the browser handle the login and the API calls.) Also, the Tesla API location lags behind the car's actual location by several seconds, so the course and speed data would no longer be real-time but would instead lag behind your actual driving.
In addition, the screen real estate for the browser has been reduced and the site would need revisions to the layout to make it work properly in v11.
Sorry gents, but unless Tesla restores the geolocation API in the browser I don't think I can make this work in a user-friendly and secure way.
israndy
Supercharger Hunter
Works great on my phone, I usually use that anyway as the screen real estate is too valuable. It helps that I have a wireless charging dock that let's me place my phone in landscape mode.
Jeff Hudson
Lovin the Tesla Life
Thanks for the few years of use. Your programming efforts were not in vain. Just in case Tesla decides to restore the browser geolocation API, will this resource still be available? I don't road trip so much anymore but I want to thank you for the effort because it really reduced range anxiety when Superchargers were further apart.
Thanks Randy. I feel humbled by your technological insight. lol I don't know why I didn't think of using my smartphone but since you mentioned it I used it to log in to teslawinds.com and sure enough the data is still coming through. Now I just need a slightly larger screen, lol, but it is working like you said so if I need it I know I have it.
It occurred to me that the technology part of our lives can be challenging at times. We must constantly be on guard to not let ourselves be overwhelmed by it. Constantly strive to learn something new every day but avoid rabbit holes or at least become familiar with the attraction enough to realize when you've descended into one.
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