VisibleTesla

[jpasqua]

Thanks for the update. Great work on the app. Have you thought about running it as a webapp for multiple users so people can turn their machines off without losing data?

Hi maxwells. I'm glad you're liking the app.

Yes, the idea of running this as a service has come up a number of times. It would make data collection, notifications, and schedules all more robust. Unfortunately, given the way Tesla's authorization system works, the service would need to know the username/password of each user in order to make this possible. Most users would not feel comfortable turning over their login information to a third party. Also, the third party would be assuming a much bigger responsibility to keep that information safe. It would be a great target for hackers.

If that problem could be dealt with, it would just be a SMOP (small matter of programming) to convert this thick client application into a web app. Actually it would be a lot of work, but probably kind of fun.

If Tesla decided to host this sort of service themselves, it could be absolutely AWESOME. There are a ton of cool things they could do that would be hard to do from the outside.

Joe

 

[maxwells]

Hi maxwells. I'm glad you're liking the app.

Yes, the idea of running this as a service has come up a number of times. It would make data collection, notifications, and schedules all more robust. Unfortunately, given the way Tesla's authorization system works, the service would need to know the username/password of each user in order to make this possible. Most users would not feel comfortable turning over their login information to a third party. Also, the third party would be assuming a much bigger responsibility to keep that information safe. It would be a great target for hackers.

If that problem could be dealt with, it would just be a SMOP (small matter of programming) to convert this thick client application into a web app. Actually it would be a lot of work, but probably kind of fun.

If Tesla decided to host this sort of service themselves, it could be absolutely AWESOME. There are a ton of cool things they could do that would be hard to do from the outside.

Joe

The third party problem could perhaps be solved by creating a custom image for a VisibleTesla server (maybe using Docker) for installation to a new DigitalOcean instance?

 

[jpasqua]

@ jpasqua, fyi the link to download from the VisibleTesla 0.28.00 release notes (linked from Checking for Updates' in 0.27.03) resulted in Chrome blocking the downloaded file VisibleTesla.zip noting it is malicious.

I am updating to v0.28.00 from the download linked from this thread.

Well, that's new. I use Chrome for testing on Windows and did not see this behavior yesterday. I did just see it now. As a precaution I downloaded the file using IE and then uploaded it to VirusTotal to scan it. It went through 20 different malware scanners and it is as clean as a whistle. I'm not sure why Chrome is saying that it appears malicious. In the mean time you can download it using IE or Firefox (or even curl or wget). If you want to be extra sure that it is clean, run your AV software on it or test it through virustotal or a similar service.

I apologize for the inconvenience and I'll see what I can do to get it corrected.

--- UPDATE ---

I just tried this again as part of my investigation and Chrome is no longer complaining about the file being malicious. I haven't changed a thing yet. I just started the investigation. Something changed that is outside of my control. My guess is that they did a reputation look up on the file and it was unknown so it was marked as potentially malicious. That's just a guess through.

All: Please let me know if you have a problem downloading through Chrome (or any browser).

Joe

 

[dsm363]

This is probably a simple question but is there a way to 'hide' the Mac app where it doesn't quit but you don't need to move the window down to the dock? I assume the app has to be open for the scheduler to work. Thanks!

 

[jpasqua]

This is probably a simple question but is there a way to 'hide' the Mac app where it doesn't quit but you don't need to move the window down to the dock? I assume the app has to be open for the scheduler to work. Thanks!

You're right about the scheduler. Unless VT is running it can't perform scheduled tasks, notifications, or collect data.

Are you asking whether the app can start minimized in the dock, or whether it can run without a dock icon? Actually the answer is currently no to both, but I want to understand what you'd find useful.

I hope to see you at TMC Connect.

Joe

 

[dsm363]

You're right about the scheduler. Unless VT is running it can't perform scheduled tasks, notifications, or collect data.

Are you asking whether the app can start minimized in the dock, or whether it can run without a dock icon? Actually the answer is currently no to both, but I want to understand what you'd find useful.

I hope to see you at TMC Connect.

Joe

Thanks. Love the app.

I'm asking when it is running if you can 'hide' the window without shifting it down to the right part of the dock (the window moves down there). I believe it is just a common Mac feature where you hit Apple function and H and it makes the app disappear. The icon still has the triangle below it so it is on. With Visible Tesla you can only click on the yellow button and it shifts the window down into the dock. This is super minor UI thing I'm likely wrong about anyway but thought I'd ask. Thanks!

 

[jpasqua]

Thanks. Love the app.

I'm asking when it is running if you can 'hide' the window without shifting it down to the right part of the dock (the window moves down there). I believe it is just a common Mac feature where you hit Apple function and H and it makes the app disappear. The icon still have the triangle below it so it is on. With Visible Tesla you can only click on the yellow button and it shifts the window down into the dock. This is super minor UI thing I'm likely wrong about anyway but thought I'd ask. Thanks!

Got it. Yes, that should be fairly easy to add. I'll look into it.

Joe

 

[dsm363]

Got it. Yes, that should be fairly easy to add. I'll look into it.

Joe

Thank you. I said the wrong button combo before. It is Command or ⌘ H.

 

[jpasqua]

Thank you. I said the wrong button combo before. It is Command or ⌘ H.

I just added it. It will be in the next release. BTW, the Windows Key combo for minimizing (⊞+↓) already works.

Joe

 

[jpasqua]

Traffic Quotient

Last night I was toying with the notion of a Traffic Quotient. I'm using the word quotient here in the sense of "a degree or amount of a specified quality or characteristic." Take a look at this graph which represents a trip:

What would you say about the traffic during this trip? It looks like it wasn't bad at first, but then it became stop and go. Or perhaps the first part was on the freeway and the second part was city driving. Is there a sensible way of creating a Traffic Quotient that can be used to characterize the type of driving you're doing? Is that interesting at all? Can you use this to quantify whether the traffic is getting better or worse on your normal commute? Would it be interesting to compare with others? What metric would you use to compute a Traffic Quotient for a trip?

I'm not sure there is anything of use here, but I'm interested in your thoughts. BTW, this could be applied to any of the tools that collect trip data, not just VisibleTesla. For example, if we had a good definition then VisibleTesla could use it and so could teslams.

Joe

 

[brianman]

What's the Y axis plotting? And what's the (generally speaking) scale of the X-axis (I presume it's probably an hour or so)?

 

[jkliu47]

Well, that's new. I use Chrome for testing on Windows and did not see this behavior yesterday. I did just see it now. As a precaution I downloaded the file using IE and then uploaded it to VirusTotal to scan it. It went through 20 different malware scanners and it is as clean as a whistle. I'm not sure why Chrome is saying that it appears malicious. In the mean time you can download it using IE or Firefox (or even curl or wget). If you want to be extra sure that it is clean, run your AV software on it or test it through virustotal or a similar service.

I apologize for the inconvenience and I'll see what I can do to get it corrected.

--- UPDATE ---

I just tried this again as part of my investigation and Chrome is no longer complaining about the file being malicious. I haven't changed a thing yet. I just started the investigation. Something changed that is outside of my control. My guess is that they did a reputation look up on the file and it was unknown so it was marked as potentially malicious. That's just a guess through.

All: Please let me know if you have a problem downloading through Chrome (or any browser).

Joe

Actually I was able to download successfully from the link you had in your post #1257 in this thread using Chrome. Glad the problem seems to have gone away. Thanks for the followup.

 

[Xander]

Joe, thanks for all your great work on VisibleTesla!

I was looking at the notifications and thought it would be cool to be able to get the notifications as a text message (SMS) instead of just an email. I created an account at MessageBird and setup an endpoint on my server to receive the request from VisibleTesla and make the API call to MessageBird. That way, when on a trip, I could get a text message when charging was complete. It works fine but it would be nice if the variables worked in the email field, when an URL is entered instead of an email address. That way, I could include more information.

While testing, I noticed that I could fill in an URL in the Email field of a scheduled message. This resulted in a POST to my URL that was "www-form-urlencoded" encoded. It included the message in several parameters such as "body-plain", "stripped-html" and "stripped-text". I was thinking it would be great if the Notify messages worked that way as well. A POST instead of GET. That way, we could build the message as a JSON object or just send the stripped-text as the text message. It would also already include any variables needed.

Note: In the scheduled message POST, the "subject" parameter appears twice which caused an error for me the first time I tried to parse it.

Any thoughts?

 

[TXjak]

Joe, Nice Tool.

I apologize if this has been answered before, but could the scheduler take a "ready time" input and deduct the "time left" as indicated by the car to derive a start time for charging so that the car is ready to go at the ready time?

Thanks,

John Kingman

 

[ken830]

I have been having some issues where VT stops recording. I thought I was the only one. It seems to have started happening spontaneously when I got the car back from Tesla Service center a few weeks ago with an updated v5.11 firmware. If it's useful, where/how do I send a log?

 

[dsm363]

One notification feature I thought might be cool is based on mileage (basically a 'rotate tires' reminder). You could set it to e-mail you every 6,000 miles as a reminder to rotate your tires for example or whatever distance you wanted. Thanks again for such a great program.

 

[jpasqua]

What's the Y axis plotting? And what's the (generally speaking) scale of the X-axis (I presume it's probably an hour or so)?

I should have included the axes. This is a plot of speed over time. The peak on the y axis is about 75 mph. The total duration is about 20 minutes. It is just meant to be representative of the notion that there is data that can be used to characterize a trip including things like speed, total distance traveled, etc.

Joe

- - - Updated - - -

Actually I was able to download successfully from the link you had in your post #1257 in this thread using Chrome. Glad the problem seems to have gone away. Thanks for the followup.

Great. Glad to hear it.

- - - Updated - - -

One notification feature I thought might be cool is based on mileage (basically a 'rotate tires' reminder). You could set it to e-mail you every 6,000 miles as a reminder to rotate your tires for example or whatever distance you wanted. Thanks again for such a great program.

Yeah, that one has been on the enhancement list on github for a while but I've been procrastinating. It doesn't fit well with the way I've implemented the current notification mechanism. It's not hard per se, just different.

How would you imagine that this works? Would you just set the # of miles and it would notify you any time the odometer hits a multiple of that number? In your example you'd get notifications at 6000, 12000, 18000, etc. What if you didn't get around to rotating your tires until 13000 for some reason. Would you want your next notification at 18,000 or 19,000?

Thanks for your input.

 

[dsm363]

Jerry33 and others know a lot more about tires but I think having the user set the number of miles until the first reminder. Then if you user doesn't click 'I rotated the tires, remind me in X miles' then it would default to another user defined mileage reminder. Maybe every 1,000 miles until the user checks the rotated tire button.

That may be too complex or maybe a simple 'every 6,000 mile reminder' would be easier.

 

[jpasqua]

I have been having some issues where VT stops recording. I thought I was the only one. It seems to have started happening spontaneously when I got the car back from Tesla Service center a few weeks ago with an updated v5.11 firmware. If it's useful, where/how do I send a log?

Hi ken830,

I'd definitely appreciate getting a log file from you. Check out the troubleshooting section of the FAQ for where to find the it and where to send it: FAQ

Here's what would help to know/get:

• The time when you took the trip that was not recorded
• A log file that covers that time period
• A screen shot of the Graphs Tab covering that time period (with the Speed variable selected - the green line)

Thanks,
Joe

- - - Updated - - -

Joe, Nice Tool.

I apologize if this has been answered before, but could the scheduler take a "ready time" input and deduct the "time left" as indicated by the car to derive a start time for charging so that the car is ready to go at the ready time?

Thanks,

John Kingman

Hi John. This has been requested a few times previously and I think we had a discussion on this thread a while back about the problems with implementing that approach accurately. Right now I don't know of a completely reliable way of doing it. Some other developers (don't remember who at the moment) who pointed out the potential problems. Perhaps I'll get a chance to discuss this with other devs at TMC Connect and see if there are any ideas about this.

 

[dsmith2189]

Yeah, that one has been on the enhancement list on github for a while but I've been procrastinating. It doesn't fit well with the way I've implemented the current notification mechanism. It's not hard per se, just different.
How would you imagine that this works? Would you just set the # of miles and it would notify you any time the odometer hits a multiple of that number? In your example you'd get notifications at 6000, 12000, 18000, etc. What if you didn't get around to rotating your tires until 13000 for some reason. Would you want your next notification at 18,000 or 19,000?
Thanks for your input.

Jerry33 and others know a lot more about tires but I think having the user set the number of miles until the first reminder. Then if you user doesn't click 'I rotated the tires, remind me in X miles' then it would default to another user defined mileage reminder. Maybe every 1,000 miles until the user checks the rotated tire button.
That may be too complex or maybe a simple 'every 6,000 mile reminder' would be easier.

Dare I say it? another tab with maintenance reminders.
different tires wear at different rates so this should be an owner defined number. enter the estimated mileage on the maintenance tab. send the message when the mileage is hit.
on the maintenance tab show the user set value and estimated date the mileage will be hit (done by using past mileage history in VT). A count down to that date. "You need to check your tires within the next XXX days" or something like "based on your driving history (in VT) you should rotate/change your tires in XXX miles"
(for tire wear you could also allow the user to enter their tire make/model or put a list of common tires with their estimated wear in miles and the date/mileage that each of the tires were put into service)
Next "annual service" due date with count down. send the message XXX days prior.
Insurance reminder due date with count down. send the message XXX days prior.
registration reminder due date with count down. send the message XXX days prior.
User defined entry using either date due or mileage due. (or both) if it is a date send the message XXX days prior. if it is mileage based send the message when the mileage is hit.