VisibleTesla

[jpasqua]

Joe
since I just got v5.6 I was going over my settings in VT and have a question about the VT sleep mode.
Under Options, I selected "Allow Sleeping" which will allow VT to stop polling the vehicle after 15 minutes.
When on the Charge tab and charging I see the "time Left" which counts down as VT gets refreshed. So far so good.

When VT goes to sleep (allowing my car to sleep) How can I interpret the "Time Left" if I am not polling my MS? (and without waking-up the car)
If I have not been active with VT and look at the Charge tab all I see is the "Time Left" since the last poll, but do not know when that was.
Would it be possible to put the time of the last charging data was collected or when VT went to sleep so I can figure out when my car will be done charging?

Good idea. I'll add that.

Joe

 

[dsmith2189]

Good idea. I'll add that.

Joe

Oh. forgot one other thing. a checkbox to tell VT not to wake up when changing tabs. i.e. only wake up if the refresh button (0n any tab) is pressed or the box is unchecked.

 

[jpasqua]

Oh. forgot one other thing. a checkbox to tell VT not to wake up when changing tabs. i.e. only wake up if the refresh button (0n any tab) is pressed or the box is unchecked.

It turns out that this is harder than it sounds. I'll put it on the list in github, but it's not a simple change (at least no simple solution pops to mind).

 

[jpasqua]

New scheduler options available in 0.22.00

A new version of VisibleTesla, version 0.22.00, can be found here.

If you have a new-ish version of VisibleTesla already, you can use the "Help->Check for Updates" to see the release notes and download a new version.

The main thing in this release is the ability to use the scheduler to set the charge target. Thanks to @Techlead for testing it out for me.

VisibleTesla 0.22.00 [11-15-13]

• User-Visible Changes
  • General
    • When the app is in either Daydreaming mode or Sleeping mode, it will display the time that the mode was entered in the title bar.
  • Login
  • Overview
  • HVAC
  • Location
    • Add a "Locating your Tesla" screen while the initial load of the Google Map is hapenning.
  • Charge
  • Graphs
    • Minor tweak to transparency settings.
  • Scheduler
    • Add three new commands: "Charge: Low", "Charge: Std", and "Charge: Max". These set the charge target for your Tesla. If you use "Charge: Max" or "Charge: Std" it will set the charge limit to these predefined set points. "Charge: Low" will default to the car's notion of minimum (50% these days), but you can set it to whatever value you'd like in the Scheduler preferences. See below.
  • Preferences
    • The Scheduler preferences now contain an option that allows you to set the value for "Charge: Low". By default this is set to the car's notion of minimum charging level. You can use the slider to set it to some other value.
• Under-the-covers
  • Minor refactoring of functionality and code cleanup.
• Known problems

 

[kseitzberg]

@jpasqua

Great work with the APP. Love it.

A small suggestion for the scheduling feature.. Would it be possible to add another checkbox "only when plugged in". Winter is coming soon and I am thinking about heating up the car a few times during the night - when parked outside - just to keep ice and snow off the car. However only if the car is plugged in.

For now I will just connect to my server and activate the schedule when needed, but I think it would be a "cool" feature.

Bes

 

[Mahedy]

@jpasqua
Thank you for all the work you've done with VT. I love it. I was on version .18.00 and I tried to update to .22.00 but I cant get it to launch. Any ideas?

All the best,
Alex

 

[jpasqua]

Thanks kseitzberg.

Yes, I can do something like that. The easiest thing I can do is modify the meaning of the "safe" checkbox. Right now if "Safe" is checked then you must have at least 25% remaining on your battery for the command to take effect. I can add a preference that says that in addition to minimum battery power, it must be plugged in. Something like that. I'll take a look.

 

[Klaus]

Thanks kseitzberg.

Yes, I can do something like that. The easiest thing I can do is modify the meaning of the "safe" checkbox. Right now if "Safe" is checked then you must have at least 25% remaining on your battery for the command to take effect. I can add a preference that says that in addition to minimum battery power, it must be plugged in. Something like that. I'll take a look.

I think two check boxes, one "safe", and one "when plugged in" would be better, they are overlapping but not close to identical.

I'm aware of UI cluttering ... Just my feedback for now.

 

[jpasqua]

I'm going to compromise for now. There is no room in the Scheduler UI to accommodate another checkbox without really tweaking it (which I know I'll need to do at some point). Also, at the moment, the "HVAC: On" command is the only command that "Safe" applies to. In the scheduler preferences there will be a couple of checkboxes that let you describe what you mean by "Safe". It will look like this:

You can select one, both, or neither of these choices (though neither is a little silly). The downside is that you can't change it on a per-command basis. That is, you can't have it mean one thing for an "HVAC: On" that executes in the morning and something different for an "HVAC: On" that executes at night. This is probably as much as I'll be able to bite off this weekend. In the future I'll rethink it.

In theory there should also be a slider which lets you select what "Minimum Battery Power" is. right now it is hard coded to 25%. I won't get to that this weekend either.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh. forgot one other thing. a checkbox to tell VT not to wake up when changing tabs. i.e. only wake up if the refresh button (0n any tab) is pressed or the box is unchecked.

OK, I think I've worked out how to do it without cluttering up the code. I will hopefully have a version by tonight along with some other small stuff.

 

[MichaelS]

Hi Joe,
Could you add an option to create a new graph data file each time they program is invoked?

I'm usually only interested in charge data for the current session.

Really enjoying your great app.

 

[jpasqua]

Hi MichaelS. I'm glad you're enjoying the app.

Regarding your request, keeping separate files might be problematic (I need to think about it a little more), but there may be an alternative. Right now you can choose how much data to load. Take a look at the Graph Preferences. The choices are:

• Last 7 Days
• Last 14 Days
• Last 30 Days
• This week
• This month
• All

Are you already using "Last 7 Days"? If that is still too much distracting data, I could consider adding another option: "None". It would load no historical data so the only thing you'd see in the graph is data from the current session.

It would still keep accumulating the data into the stats file so if you ever did want to look further back you could, but from a visual perspective, you'd just see the current data. Would that meet your needs?

 

[jpasqua]

Experimental Version Ready for Testing: 0.22.01

If you've got an adventurous streak, pick up VisibleTesla 0.22.01 here (or just do a Check for Updates).

Unlike previous versions, it's a little tougher to go back if you try this version and don't like it. I'll help you if you need to revert, but I want you to be forewarned.

Among other things, this version includes changes requested by MichaelS, dsmith2189, and kseitzberg. Check the release notes below for details. I believe I also covered all of this in the updated Documentation.

VisibleTesla 0.22.01 [11-17-13]

Experimental: This version has a lot of changes to the preferences code and a number of other places. Thank you to the adventurous of you who try this version out. I will remove the experimental label once I get enough feedback to let me know that this release is working. Otherwise I'll make the required fixes and the next version won't be marked as experimental. Note that one of the new features in this version is that the auto-update mechanism can look for and either ignore or offer experimental versions based on your preferences.

• User-Visible Changes
  • General
    • There have been major changes to the way that preferences work under the covers. As a result, you may find that one or two of your old settings may need to be manually reset. I tried to catch all of the cases where changes may lead to this, but I can't guarantee that I did. For example, if you have the Graph Load Period set to "7 Days", please go check that it didn't get reset to antoher value (like "All"). I apologize for any inconvenience.
    • When checking for updates the app will test whether an available update is an experimental version. If it is, it will only be offered for download if the "Offer Experimental Versions" checkbox is selected in the General preferences.
    • Now that I have a vehicle with version 5.8, I can start testing more of the sleep-related areas. Several changes have been made to better accomodate waking from sleep mode. I'm sure more will be necessary.
  • Login
  • Overview
  • HVAC
  • Location
    • Changes to the "loading" screen to display a little "radar blip" while the actual location is being determined and the Google map is loading. This was more for my amusement than anything practical.
    • The heading for a car that is coming out of sleep mode is not accurate. I do what I can to choose an accurate value, but ultimately Tesla needs to address this since it affects them also.
  • Charge
  • Graphs
  • Scheduler
  • Preferences
    • General: Added a checkbox that lets the user determine whether clicking on a tab should cause a refresh and consequently wake up the car if it is sleeping. If this box is unchecked, clicking on a tab while in sleep mode will not refresh the data (meaning it will be stale). This allows the user to look at the last data displayed in a tab without waking the car up.
    • General: Added a slider to allow the user to set the Idle Threshold. This determines how long the app will look for inactivity before entering Sleep or Daydream mode. The default is 15 minutes. It can be set to anywhere between 1 and 90 minutes.
    • General: Added a checkbox labeled "Offer Experimental Versions". It is unchecked by default. If it is checked, then the app will offer experimental versions as part of the normal process of checking for updates.
    • General (Advanced): Rearranged the UI a little and added a warning. No change in functionality, just presentation.
    • Graphs: Added a "None" option to the "Time Period to Load" preference. In this case none of your existing data will be loaded. The graph will stsart out empty and then will fill with new data as it becomes available.
    • Scheduler: Added checkboxes that allow the user to determine what "Safe?" means when it it selected in the Scheduler UI. In the past it meant that the battery must have a minimum charge remaining for the command to execute. Now users can select "Minimum Battery Power" or "Vehicle Plugged-In" or both.
• Under-the-covers
  • Major refactoring of the way preferences work in the code. This will allow changes to be visible immediately rather than after a restart. For some things this doesn't make sense and a notice will be given if a restart is necessary. This also makes it much easier to add preferences in the future.
• Known problems
  • Cars with version 5.8 (perhaps earlier versions of 5 also) will report inaccurate heading information after being asleep. NOTE: The in-car map also displays faulty heading information after sleep mode. This is something Tesla needs to fix.

 

[Ole]

I have a possible bug:

When I start HVAC from VisibleTesla, it's because I want to get into a nice warm car on a cold autumn day. Last Friday the blower was going full out with the temperature set to "LO".
I tried again today, same thing happened.

With the Android app, it warms correctly to 19°C.

Could it be that VisibleTesla reads any entered temperature as F?

 

[MichaelS]

Joe,
That is exactly my wish. Thank you for being so accommodating.

Michael

Hi MichaelS. I'm glad you're enjoying the app.

Regarding your request, keeping separate files might be problematic (I need to think about it a little more), but there may be an alternative. Right now you can choose how much data to load. Take a look at the Graph Preferences. The choices are:

• Last 7 Days
• Last 14 Days
• Last 30 Days
• This week
• This month
• All

Are you already using "Last 7 Days"? If that is still too much distracting data, I could consider adding another option: "None". It would load no historical data so the only thing you'd see in the graph is data from the current session.

It would still keep accumulating the data into the stats file so if you ever did want to look further back you could, but from a visual perspective, you'd just see the current data. Would that meet your needs?

 

[Techlead]

Just tried your expermental version. The scheduler has stopped working when scheduling the charge percent. Tried several times to get the scheduler to change the charge percent from low to standard w/o any luck.

 

[jpasqua]

Just tried your expermental version. The scheduler has stopped working when scheduling the charge percent. Tried several times to get the scheduler to change the charge percent from low to standard w/o any luck.

Techlead, would you please look at the "Recent Activity" drop down on the Scheduler Tab and tell me what it says. It should have a message for each scheduled event say if it succeeded or failed, and if it failed, why it failed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE: Scratch that. It was a cut and paste problem I introduced at the last minute. I'll get you a new version tonight.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a possible bug:

When I start HVAC from VisibleTesla, it's because I want to get into a nice warm car on a cold autumn day. Last Friday the blower was going full out with the temperature set to "LO".
I tried again today, same thing happened.

With the Android app, it warms correctly to 19°C.

Could it be that VisibleTesla reads any entered temperature as F?

Hi Ole,

I'll look into this ASAP and get back to you.

UPDATE: Ole, I switched my car to celsius units and tried to reproduce the problem unsuccessfully. When I set the temperature using VisibleTesla, I see the same temperature reported by the iPhone app and in the actual vehicle. When I turn on the HVAC system it correctly starts at the temperature selected. Can you tell me which version of VT you are using and which software release is on your car?

Joe

 

[Jello]

I cannot connect to the Tesla servers in your software while using a proxy - can you have a place to input proxy info in the Options, perhaps?

 

[jpasqua]

I cannot connect to the Tesla servers in your software while using a proxy - can you have a place to input proxy info in the Options, perhaps?

Hello Jello,

Is it a socks proxy or an http proxy? Do you need to provide credentials to it (username/password) or just proxy host and port?

If you are comfortable in the shell on Mac/Linux or the CMD prompt on Windows, you can try the following experiment:

1. Navigate (cd) into the VisibleTesla folder
2. Type the following command and then press enter:
   
   • java -jar VisibleTesla.jar
     
   • This will launch VisibleTesla and it will be unable to connect to the network just as if you had double-clicked it. This is just a test to establish you're in the right place.
3. Quit that version of VT
4. Type the following command and then press enter:
   
   • java -Dhttp.proxyHost=10.0.0.100 -Dhttp.proxyPort=8800 -jar VisibleTesla.jar
     
   • Substitute your actual proxy host and port
5. ​This will launch VisibleTesla and should connect to the network through your proxy. If this works, then I can pretty easily add it to VisibleTesla and give you a place to configure the host and port in the General preferences.

Let me know how it goes.

 

[Ole]

UPDATE: Ole, I switched my car to celsius units and tried to reproduce the problem unsuccessfully. When I set the temperature using VisibleTesla, I see the same temperature reported by the iPhone app and in the actual vehicle. When I turn on the HVAC system it correctly starts at the temperature selected. Can you tell me which version of VT you are using and which software release is on your car?

Joe

It happened both before and after upgrading from 5.6 to 5.8. With VisibleTesla 0.21.01.

It's cold today, so I'll use the Android app today.

 

[Meursault]

First, thanks again for this incredible application. I am living in France part-time while my Model S resides still in the US. It is wonderful to be able to connect remotely and have more control as compared to the Tesla app on the iPhone. Second, I am not sure if this function is available, but would it be possible to trigger a firmware update for the car (or see if one is available)? I am still on 4.5 and would love to do the update before I get back to the US so I can drive the car right away (rather than waiting for the update to complete). Many thanks again.