teslafi vs teslaspy

[randing89]

I just don't understand why people use services like this. The token is authorized to do almost everything your app can do. This includes unlocking, locate and start your car.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

At least with TeslaFi, by default, it is NOT authorized to do those things. You have to specifically request a token with those capabilities.

 

[Geo77]

I feel like Tesla should either devolop a similar app, or just buy up one of these companies. This seems like something that should be offered by default.

 

[DannyHamilton]

The token is authorized to do almost everything your app can do. This includes . . . start your car.

Are you certain that you understand what you are talking about? Or are you just making things up to satisfy your own personal paranoia?

 

[Nocturnal]

With that said, the energy (from wall) is an estimate. If you want actuals, you'd need to get that data from the source (eg your EVSE, like a JuiceBox Pro). With that said, I have a JuiceBox Pro, and the estimate of what's being used at the wall from TeslaFi is generally pretty close to what my JuiceBox reports. Not sure if 'generally pretty close' is good enough for your expense reports or not.

I think a close estimate will be sufficient. There is already a bit of grey area when it comes to monitoring miles etc. for business use. I'll just add a small fudge factor to be a little on the conservative side in case the IRS wants to ask me questions.

 

[Zaxxon]

I think a close estimate will be sufficient. There is already a bit of grey area when it comes to monitoring miles etc. for business use. I'll just add a small fudge factor to be a little on the conservative side in case the IRS wants to ask me questions.

Here's this morning's charge, for example.

TeslaFi:

JuiceBox stats for the same charge:

So TeslaFi underestimated by about 2%. Looking at another example, TeslaFi overestimated by around 2%. So it sure seems pretty close, especially if you fudge it by a couple percent to the conservative side.

 

[Runebane]

I have a question about charging and Nighttime TeslaFi Sleep Mode. If I enable the Nighttime sleep mode but set the car to charge at 11pm for better rates, will it still charge or will it be put to sleep instead?

 

[Zaxxon]

I have a question about charging and Nighttime TeslaFi Sleep Mode. If I enable the Nighttime sleep mode but set the car to charge at 11pm for better rates, will it still charge or will it be put to sleep instead?

It'll charge either way. TeslaFi's sleep modes don't actually do anything to your car other than leave it alone. Think of those settings as telling TeslaFi 'hands off' during that period.

 

[Runebane]

Great, thanks!

 

[Nocturnal]

Here's this morning's charge, for example.

TeslaFi:
View attachment 328466

JuiceBox stats for the same charge:
View attachment 328465

So TeslaFi underestimated by about 2%. Looking at another example, TeslaFi overestimated by around 2%. So it sure seems pretty close, especially if you fudge it by a couple percent to the conservative side.

Really I just need to aggregate all energy use and then I'll divide that by miles driven x business miles.

 

[Zaxxon]

Here are some of my "standard" settings. I have others that come and go, but I find these to be most useful and valuable. Even if these were the ONLY settings I had, it would be worth $4.17 per month to me:

Thanks for this post. I hadn't dug into the scheduling aspect of TeslaFi yet, and your post spurred me to do so.

Aside from the obvious stuff like setting up geo/time-fenced preconditioning, I also set a pair of schedules to take care of my charge limit settings. Generally I keep it at 80%, but on the weekends I had been pushing it up to 90% so we have the range available. Now that's automatic.

 

[randing89]

Are you certain that you understand what you are talking about? Or are you just making things up to satisfy your own personal paranoia?

When you sign up you are required to enter the login/password or the token. If you enter the login/password, the website will use the API to generate a token for you. Either way, they are going to store the token as every request need that token to be passed along.

If you follow the link on their sign up page you will see Tesla hasn't implemented any granular permission so far.
There is no way to specify "permission" when requesting the token or generate a "read-only" token.



I just generated one myself and tried on my car. Unlocking it is just 2 steps:

Get the vehicle id:
curl --include --header "Authorization: Bearer {token here}" 'https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/api/1/vehicles'

Unlock the car
curl --include --request POST --header "Authorization: Bearer {token here}" 'https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/api/1/vehicles/{vehicle id}/command/door_unlock'

 

[randing89]

I just don't understand why people use services like this. The token is authorized to do almost everything your app can do. This includes unlocking, locate and start your car.

At least with TeslaFi, by default, it is NOT authorized to do those things. You have to specifically request a token with those capabilities.

Are you certain that you understand what you are talking about? Or are you just making things up to satisfy your own personal paranoia?

Update: I looked at the API docs again. I want to correct myself.
Remote start needs a password so they wouldn't be able to do that.
But the token is certainly authorized to locate your vehicle and unlock the doors.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Update: I looked at the API docs again. I want to correct myself.
Remote start needs a password so they wouldn't be able to do that.
But the token is certainly authorized to locate your vehicle and unlock the doors.

With TeslaFi.com, using a default token, trying to even view the controls page results in :

Controls are not enabled. To enable controls please generate a new token in settings and select Enable Controls.

The default token TeslaFi generates can't do more than query location and other information, it can't command anything. And if you're worried about location information, well, you should ditch your smart phone then.

 

[randing89]

With TeslaFi.com, using a default token, trying to even view the controls page results in :



The default token TeslaFi generates can't do more than query location and other information, it can't command anything. And if you're worried about location information, well, you should ditch your smart phone then.

Everything is built on Tesla Model S JSON API · Apiary
There is NO API for generating such "default token".

Yes, it is possible that teslafi.com found a different way to generate a scoped token. If that's the case they would have been documented it for "advanced users". It is the easiest way to prove they don't have access to stuff other than reading data.

Most likely they are just hiding some functionalities before you clicking "enable control" to make you feel safe.

 

[jombolo]

Here are some of my "standard" settings. I have others that come and go, but I find these to be most useful and valuable. Even if these were the ONLY settings I had, it would be worth $4.17 per month to me:

I leave home for work at 7:15am every weekday, so...
I have an event scheduled for 7:00am every weekday to "Set HVAC temperature" to 74 degrees Fahrenheit (in case I happen to have changed it at all the previous day)
I have another event scheduled for 7:05am every weekday to "Start HVAC" to precondition the car for me, but only if the car is at home and plugged in. That way (assuming I'm at home and remembered to plug the car in), regardless of the temperature outside, the vehicle interior (and battery) are all set for a comfortable and efficient drive.

I leave work for home at 4:00pm every weekday, so...
I have an event scheduled for 3:45pm every weekday to "Set HVAC temperature" to 74 degrees Fahrenheit (in case I happen to have changed it at all earlier in the day)
I have another event scheduled for 3:50pm every weekday to "Start HVAC" to precondition the car for me, but only if the car is at work and plugged in. That way (assuming I'm at work and remembered to plug the car in), regardless of the temperature outside, the vehicle interior (and battery) are all set for a comfortable and efficient drive.

I'm generally done driving and running errands for the day on weekdays by 10pm, so...
I have an SMS text alert set to remind me to plug my car in at 10pm on weekdays, but only if the car is at home, and it is not plugged in, AND only if the amount of charge of that battery at that time is less than 66%.
I have the same alert set to remind me to plug my car in at 12am on weekends, but only if the car is at home, and it is not plugged in, AND only if the amount of charge of that battery at that time is less than 66%.

I've gotten used to the vehicle auto-locking as I walk away. Unfortunately the phone-key isn't perfect. I've had a couple instances where the vehicle didn't lock, and I didn't know it. I park in a locked attached garage at home, but at work the vehicle would be accessible to pedestrians while unmonitored. So...
I set up an SMS text alert to remind me to lock the doors at 8:30am if the car is at work, and it is not locked.
I might be stuck in meetings or otherwise unable to get out to the car, so I have an event set up to lock the doors automatically at 9:00am if the vehicle is at work and the doors are still unlocked.

I've had a few instances where I've either forgotten to plug in (or someone has removed the plug from my vehicle) while at work, so...
I also have an SMS text alert to remind me to plug in my car every hour from 9:00am to 3:00pm on weekdays, but only if the car is at work, and it is not plugged in, AND only if the amount of charge of that battery at that time is less than 66%.

Frequently, when I need to park directly in the sun on a summer day, and I know what time I'm likely to return to the car, I log into the website from my phone and set up an event to "Start HVAC" 10 minutes or so before I expect to be back to the car, but only on that day of the week, and geofenced to that location if I have already tagged the location in the past. Then I remove the event the next time I happen to log into the website.

Danny, thank you for this post! Very interesting. To me, this makes the subscription worth it. Added features you can’t get thru the Tesla App or car settings. I can’t wait to dabble with these event settings

 

[jombolo]

They just added a Supercharger cost setting this week, where you can set whether it uses free or a set rate.

Zaxxon, is the tier 1 and tier 2 on Teslafi directly correlated to tesla's billing? I would have thought TeslaFi's tier 2 (at or under 60kw) would be the cheaper of the 2 tiers for Tesla's bill.

 

[SalisburySam]

This thread is titled to compare two 3rd-party apps, though far and away most posts relate information about TeslaFi, to which I also subscribed. Having never heard of TeslaSpy before seeing this thread, are there any users? What are their thoughts in this? Anyone have or have used both? Comparative thoughts?

 

[Zaxxon]

Zaxxon, is the tier 1 and tier 2 on Teslafi directly correlated to tesla's billing? I would have thought TeslaFi's tier 2 (at or under 60kw) would be the cheaper of the 2 tiers for Tesla's bill.
View attachment 329449 View attachment 329450

Looking at your attachment, it looks like the receipt shows Tier 1 as the lower tier ($0.11/min) and 2 as the higher, while TeslaFi is calling Tier 1 the higher-power (and cost) tier and 2 the lower. Mismatch there. Maybe send that receipt in as a bug report to TeslaFi.

This thread is titled to compare two 3rd-party apps, though far and away most posts relate information about TeslaFi, to which I also subscribed. Having never heard of TeslaSpy before seeing this thread, are there any users? What are their thoughts in this? Anyone have or have used both? Comparative thoughts?

I've never used TeslaSpy but am interested in more reports from those using it.

 

[jombolo]

This thread is titled to compare two 3rd-party apps, though far and away most posts relate information about TeslaFi, to which I also subscribed. Having never heard of TeslaSpy before seeing this thread, are there any users? What are their thoughts in this? Anyone have or have used both? Comparative thoughts?

Hi Sam,

I kind of felt the same, as no one has posted input on TeslaSpy.

Here's my 2 cents: I've used both TeslaFi and TeslaSpy for about a week each. Which is not a ton of time for either. It seems with TesaFi the information is laid out a little better and is more accurate. For instance, on several drives, TeslaSpy didn't pickup the drive until about 5 minutes into it. I've not had that issue on TeslaFi (though others have reported this issue with TeslaFi). TeslaSpy also didn't calculate the cost from a supercharge correctly, I'm not really sure why. i had both TeslaSpy and TeslaFi running at the same time and TeslaFi calculated it accurately. Also, TeslaFi has far more settings when it comes to sleep timers and custom "schedules" as Danny Hamilton pointed out above. TeslaSpy might have this functionality, but I could not find it. I also like the layout of TeslaFi a lot more. it lays out everything in a sequential timeline that allows you to see all the days activities with a "glance" at the screen. TeslaSpy, you have to do a lot more scrolling and it's categorized by events, not timelines. So charging is always at the bottom, drives are always above that, etc. This is more of a preference, i prefer the sequence of events style more. TeslaFi includes the inside/outside temp at the top of the "dashboard" which is really nice. TeslaSpy does not - it is displayed as a graph halfway down the page that you must scroll to. the graph is actually really nice, but would be great in the dashboard (helps to see why the car is awake/asleep). I do like the graphic feel of TeslaSpy's website much more. If TeslaFi were to update their website graphics from 1998, that would be amazing. TeslaSpy also has a "sleep analyzer" which is a graphical layout of online, put to sleep, and sleep statuses for the day

These are all preferences IMO, except for the custom "schedules" I believe this really distinguishes TeslaFi and is really where the $50/year is justified (just my opinion).

I would encourage others to try out both and provide their thoughts as most of it will come down to preference.