Things I learned about Slacker Streaming

[Black/Black MS]

Recently I did a deeper dive into how Slacker streaming works by doing research on this board, other discussion groups, emailing Tesla, and RTFM. Since I came across a lot of conflicting information out there, I thought I'd write what I found down all in one place. It may be common knowledge to many, but here goes. Note, this applies to a mid-2016 facelifted Model S with UHFS. YMMV.

1. Our cars come with 4 years of free access to Slacker Radio Plus. According to Slacker this allows "...ad-free listening, unlimited song skips, complete song lyrics and mobile station caching. You'll also get the custom ESPN radio stations that you can personalize with your favorite teams, sports and shows!"
2. There's no need to login in your car, but you can email Tesla for your log in credentials to use on the iPhone app, etc. It's pretty cool to be listening to a song on your phone, hop in your car and pick up where you left off. Email your VIN to Tesla to get your credentials. Your email has to come from the email account registered with your Tesla account.
3. Your Tesla Slacker account is not upgradeable, but if you go out an purchase your own Premium account at full price, you can log in with those credentials instead and listen to songs on demand.
4. If you click the Sign In button at the bottom of the Slacker screen it takes you to a log in screen that has a "High Bitrate Streaming" checkbox. If you leave that checked Slacker streams 320kbps mp3. If you uncheck it the stream is 128kbps mp3. According to Slacker you can uncheck that if you're having buffering problems, but I've never experience buffering unless I'm completely out of LTE range anyway.
5. If you want to listen to a particular song on demand just press the voice command button on your steering wheel and say "Play song whatever by whoever". Your Tesla will search Slacker and play that song if it's in their library (I've never had it fail to find one). It will set up a "song whatever" station and start playing related songs after your requested song is over. You can't go back and repeatedly request the same song, Slacker will just take you to the newly-created station that's playing related songs, but if you wait a day or so you can request the same song again. There must be a minimum waiting period to request the same song over again.

That's what I found out. I hope it's informative to some people. As someone who has never invested in a streaming account before I've been very impressed with what Slacker has to offer, all completely free of charge with my Tesla!

 

[doubleohwhat]

There's no need to login in your car

Most of the time. When I took deliver slacker was not setup. I had to email them for the username and password to put in myself.

 

[pdxrunr]

After owning my car for a year now, I finally purchased the premium account. I highly recommend it! Custom playlists, ability to play any song, anytime, the ability to play complete albums, etc. You can also use the account with Sonos and any other product that lets you enter your Slacker credentials, so I get to enjoy the same playlists in the house that I use in the car. Well worth the $9.99 per month.

 

[DDotJ]

After owning my car for a year now, I finally purchased the premium account. I highly recommend it! Custom playlists, ability to play any song, anytime, the ability to play complete albums, etc. You can also use the account with Sonos and any other product that lets you enter your Slacker credentials, so I get to enjoy the same playlists in the house that I use in the car. Well worth the $9.99 per month.

When you said ability to play complete albums, if I search for a specific album and play it, will it play the whole thing instead of switching to a 'similar artist' after the first song? And also, can I select what song I want from within that album (kind of like Spotify)?

I always had issues with the Tesla account on Slacker, I would request an artist (such as Frank Sinatra) and it would play one or two of his songs but then switch to some random Spanish songs or even rap one time. Would a premium Slacker account fix these issues?

If so, I might stop paying for Spotify Premium and just switch to Slacker Premium

 

[PeterK]

There's no need to login in your car, but you can email Tesla for your log in credentials to use on the iPhone app, etc. It's pretty cool to be listening to a song on your phone, hop in your car and pick up where you left off. Email your VIN to Tesla to get your credentials. Your email has to come from the email account registered with your Tesla account.

Is there a specific email address to send the request to?

 

[msnow]

Is there a specific email address to send the request to?

For North America it's [email protected]

 

[TexasEV]

Tesla said four years connectivity, but people who had Model S delivered more than four years ago continue to have access free of charge.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

After owning my car for a year now, I finally purchased the premium account. I highly recommend it! Custom playlists, ability to play any song, anytime, the ability to play complete albums, etc. You can also use the account with Sonos and any other product that lets you enter your Slacker credentials, so I get to enjoy the same playlists in the house that I use in the car. Well worth the $9.99 per month.

I tried this very thing, and not a single additional capability was present. I still could not request songs on demand repeatedly without the same waiting period as the plus account, and albums wouldn't play through either. Many albums couldn't be found, just like the plus account.

I cancelled the premium account and went back to the Tesla-provided plus account.

 

[Buddy]

Tesla said four years connectivity, but people who had Model S delivered more than four years ago continue to have access free of charge.

Ive read this on the forum but where did Tesla say this? Its not in any of my paperwork or window sticker

 

[Maaz]

I tried this very thing, and not a single additional capability was present. I still could not request songs on demand repeatedly without the same waiting period as the plus account, and albums wouldn't play through either. Many albums couldn't be found, just like the plus account.

I cancelled the premium account and went back to the Tesla-provided plus account.

You have to create the playlists online from your computer or phone app. And they will play and show up on your tesla. I have all my favorite songs saved in custom playlists and can replay songs on repeat and albums as much as I want.

 

[gaswalla]

Tesla said four years connectivity, but people who had Model S delivered more than four years ago continue to have access free of charge.

I believe the 4 years of connectivity had a start date of 1/1/2014. So folks that had delivery in 2012 and 2013 will find out 1/1/2018

 

[garwood]

I found an interesting problem when I upgraded my P85 to a P100D that I get a female announcer when listening to popular songs. I never had that with my older car and I have called Testa twice and they have asked me to reset the center screen but it doesn't change a thing. Is there any way I can get rid of the DJ without skipping her every time she comes on?

 

[drklain]

@garwood There's a button/hotkey on the slacker display on the MCU when you are on a slacker channel right in the center below the station/album art that says "DJ" in a box (it almost looks like the Dolby logo). If you click that to make it light gray, it turns off the DJ commentary. Click it again to make it dark grey and the DJ commentary is back on.

 

[boonedocks]

I tried this very thing, and not a single additional capability was present. I still could not request songs on demand repeatedly without the same waiting period as the plus account, and albums wouldn't play through either. Many albums couldn't be found, just like the plus account.

I cancelled the premium account and went back to the Tesla-provided plus account.

Worlks perfectly as described in the OP for me. Highly recommend it

 

[boonedocks]

complete song lyrics

How do I get those?!? Without opening a browser and searching for them (obviously)

 

[SomeJoe7777]

You have to create the playlists online from your computer or phone app. And they will play and show up on your tesla. I have all my favorite songs saved in custom playlists and can replay songs on repeat and albums as much as I want.

Are you saying that the only way to allow on-demand repeat and album play-through is to use playlists? You cannot simply voice/keyboard search for a song and repeat it?

If so, that small detail is not stated anywhere and is not at all obvious.

 

[Black/Black MS]

Ive read this on the forum but where did Tesla say this? Its not in any of my paperwork or window sticker

I read it in the owners manual.

 

[Buddy]

Found it on page 108


"Note: Tesla also provides you with a complimentary four-year Streaming Personal Radio account. "

 

[scottflys]

Ok, here's some delatiled info:

Signup for a Premium account on your computer
Start listening to songs on your computer and add them to your newly created playlist
You can add just about any song to your playlist and have as many playlists as you want.
Now go to the car and scroll to the bottom of the Slacker screen
You will see the Login tab
Click and enter your info fo your Premium account
Click the high bit rate box
To find your playlist you have to scroll again all the way to the bottom of the screen to find it and there is no way to move that playlist to the top
Start playing your playlist songs and you will be able to reverse and scrubb the song.
If you switch to listening to a set Slacker Station even if it's the exact same song that's in your playlist you will not be able to reverse and scrubb the song. You can only do this from your playlist
If you hear a song in the car, you cannot add it to your playlist, adding songs to your playlist can only be done from a computer.
Don't give anyone else your Slacker Premium account info
You can only be logged into one device at a time.
If someone is on Slacker and you get in the car you can always switch to the Tesla account to keep listening

Overall it's a ok upgrade for $10 bucks a month. If you could add songs to your playlist from the car that would be better and the location of the playlist needs to be where the other saved stations are would help.
But over all I like it

Hope this helps

 

[pdxrunr]

Agreed. Have you found a way to make the car update your playlists? I created new playlists on the computer, but the only way I could get the car to pick up the new ones was to sign out and back in again. I couldn't seem to manually force a reconnect. Perhaps it will over time, but it seems like we should have a way to force it on demand right after they are created. My Sonos system picks them up just by switching from one list to another, etc.