WiFi, again.

[f205v]

Hi ppl,
I just found a solution to the lack of WiFi coverage in my garage: I took out an old cell phone from my "discarded" drawer, put a data SIM in it and I'm going to use it as a mobile hot-spot inside the car.
So I gave it a try today, connect the old phone via USB cable in the car, activated WiFi Router on the phone, connected the car WiFi to the hot-spot, and Bingo! - the car is now under WiFi.
Now the problem: whenever I shift to neutral or to park, the moment I shift back to gear (forward or backward, doesn't matter) the car loses the WiFi connection to the phone and goes back to LTE. I have to manually open the settings/wifi panel and force re-connection to the phone, because the car will not automatically re-connect.
Is there a way to make the connection permanent? Any suggestion?
TIA

 

[Jan Fiala]

This is "feature" to prevent weak internet via WIFI when departing home.

 

[f205v]

So there is no solution?!?
I have to manually re-connect each time I get in the car?

 

[ewoodrick]

No, it will reconnect, as long as the phone is still sharing.
You may want to look at Amazon or Ebay for some cheap hotspots that you can put the data sim in. Then you don't have to pay for the phone updating itself and apps

 

[f205v]

Thank you @ewoodrick
I only did a short test, the phone was sharing but after 3-4 minutes the car had not yet re-connected.
I'll give it a longer time and see what happens.

 

[whitex]

Forget the network, then associate again while the car in in "Drive" rather than in "Park". As mentioned earlier, this is a feature which was added a couple of years ago IRRC. Not sure whether this still works, but it did a while back when Tesla first added the feature to disconnect on shifting out of park.

 

[Jan Fiala]

No, it will reconnect, as long as the phone is still sharing.
You may want to look at Amazon or Ebay for some cheap hotspots that you can put the data sim in. Then you don't have to pay for the phone updating itself and apps

No it will reconnect only after setting the vehicle into Park and being on the original GPS location, where the wifi was paired.

 

[f205v]

Thank you @whitex I'll try it and let you know the result.

The question now is: why oh why did Tesla decided to disconnect from wifi shifting into gear? what is the rational behind it?

 

[f205v]

So, I took some time to make more tests, and can confirm that @Jan Fiala is right.
The Tesla car WiFi is tailored for an home/office (fixed place) connection, and requires manual action EACH DRIVE for a mobile hot-spot.
Basically, it automatically connects to a saved WiFi network ONLY if the car is at the same location where the WiFi was setup and ONLY if gear is in park. Both conditions must be true at the same time.
So, if you have a mobile hot-spot (always on in the car), you MUST manually search for available WiFis and force reconnection EACH time you drive.
A possible solution would be for Tesla to ask for every WiFi connection you set up if it is a "fixed place" or "mobile" WiFi, and act accordingly: in the first option keep things as they are now, in the second option simply leave it always on, regardless of place or gear shift.

 

[brkaus]

Thank you @whitex I'll try it and let you know the result.

The question now is: why oh why did Tesla decided to disconnect from wifi shifting into gear? what is the rational behind it?

This change came after some "research" was published about controlling the car using the WiFi while following it. I assumed it was related.

I think this was around the time: Car hackers demonstrate wireless attack on Tesla Model S

 

[Galve2000]

Forget the network, then associate again while the car in in "Drive" rather than in "Park"

so if the car is in park when the hotspot is connected it will drop the connection once the car is in drive. But if you are in drive, but stoped (at a red light for example) with your foot on the break and you connect, it will maintain the connection until you are in park again? I have had a 50/50 success rate in keeping my phone tethered to my car while driving and am trying to diagnose what's going on. sometimes it will last my entire drive, sometimes it will disconnect after a few minutes.

I had assumed that as long as you keep downloading/uploading stuff with the tethered connection it will stay connected, but if you took an "extended" break, it would disconnect to save battery or for some security-related reason. I will troubleshoot this on my next drive but any advice you guys could provide about this would be very helpful.

 

[Jan Fiala]

BTW, why do you want your Tesla to use tethered Wifi instead of the cars own mobile connection?

 

[Galve2000]

BTW, why do you want your Tesla to use tethered Wifi instead of the cars own mobile connection?

yes.. this is my intention.

 

[Chaserr]

The question now is: why oh why did Tesla decided to disconnect from wifi shifting into gear? what is the rational behind it?

If it remains connected to Wifi when put into Drive, you can't use the internet radio / other internet functions as you drive away from home. The interruption is pretty long too, it has a fading signal, getting weaker and weaker, but not clearly off so the wifi system keeps trying to reconnect. Eventually it would time out and switch to phone towers, but for the first minute or two you of your drive maps, music, etc wouldn't work. Switching to a clean cutoff fixed this.

 

[whitex]

so if the car is in park when the hotspot is connected it will drop the connection once the car is in drive. But if you are in drive, but stoped (at a red light for example) with your foot on the break and you connect, it will maintain the connection until you are in park again? I have had a 50/50 success rate in keeping my phone tethered to my car while driving and am trying to diagnose what's going on. sometimes it will last my entire drive, sometimes it will disconnect after a few minutes.

I had assumed that as long as you keep downloading/uploading stuff with the tethered connection it will stay connected, but if you took an "extended" break, it would disconnect to save battery or for some security-related reason. I will troubleshoot this on my next drive but any advice you guys could provide about this would be very helpful.

Tesla keeps a flag for each known network which tells the software whether to disconnect from it when switching to Drive. When they first implemented it, my old network would not disconnect, which caused interruptions in streaming and maps not loading as the car got farther from the house and could still receive but it was unable to send sucessfully. Forgetting the network and associating again while in Park fixed it for me (opposite what the OP wants) and back then associating while in Drive set that flag to not disconnect when shifting oil out if Park. Whether or not is disconnects due to idle or some other reasons I don't know, it's separate from the disconnect when shifting out of Park.

 

[f205v]

@whitex I tried your suggested method of setting the WiFi form the hot-spot while driving, but it doesn't keep the connection on, it will keep it for a random time while you are driving (sometimes it disconnects after a couple of minutes, sometimes it disconnects after half an hour), but as soon as you put the car in park and shift again to drive it will disconnect.
So, at the end it doesn't matter if you set the WiFi in motion or parked, it will disconnect as soon as you shift into gear.

@Jan Fiala there are 2 reasons for me to use a mobile hot-spot:
1) I have no possibility to connect to WiFi at home or at office. And updates only get downloaded via WiFi.
2) Recently a Tesla ranger changed my SIM card from a Swisscom one to a Sunrise one. This makes no difference as long as I stay in Switzerland (rather small nation TBH), but it becomes a nightmare of continuously loosing connection as soon as I cross border into Italy or Germany or France. With the old Swisscom SIM there NEVER was a problem, but with the Sunrise one when travelling abroad (which for me represents more than 60% of my travels) I can seldom get connection in the centre of the big towns, and nothing at all in the countrysides.

 

[whitex]

@whitex
So, at the end it doesn't matter if you set the WiFi in motion or parked, it will disconnect as soon as you shift into gear.

Sorry to hear it doesn't work anymore. Likely got removed as part of v9 as a rarely used and/or undocumented feature. Even some documented features (e.g. executive seats ability to independently control parts of the seats) got lost in v9 because it doesn't seem Tesla actually keeps track of features in an organized way.

 

[Jan Fiala]

@Jan Fiala there are 2 reasons for me to use a mobile hot-spot:
1) I have no possibility to connect to WiFi at home or at office. And updates only get downloaded via WiFi.
2) Recently a Tesla ranger changed my SIM card from a Swisscom one to a Sunrise one. This makes no difference as long as I stay in Switzerland (rather small nation TBH), but it becomes a nightmare of continuously loosing connection as soon as I cross border into Italy or Germany or France. With the old Swisscom SIM there NEVER was a problem, but with the Sunrise one when travelling abroad (which for me represents more than 60% of my travels) I can seldom get connection in the centre of the big towns, and nothing at all in the countrysides.

1. SW updates (when triggered for one) are about 14 days waiting for wifi and then downloaded over the cars gsm connection. Map updates (when triggered) are updated via wifi only. From this point of view it's sufficient to create a hotspot for the car when arriving home and wait few minutes to see, if any update was pending or not You don't need permanent access to wifi.

2. In roaming, any sim will use any other service when the preferred one is not available. Have you tried MCU reset when experiencing this issue?

 

[Jan Fiala]

And loosing connection when crossing borders is absolutely normal. Even your phone does it.

 

[PatrickCH4313]

Is there a way to make the connection permanent? Any suggestion?
TIA

Are your using Swisscom Internet-Box 2 at home ?