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Tesla Companion App

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Hi folks,

For the last 8 months I have been working on "Tesla Companion" App for Windows.

The app is supported on Windows Phone 8.0/8.1 and Windows 8.1 (Desktop and Tablets)


Windows Phone 8.0/8.1
Provide same functionality as the official app plus
Scheduling climate and charging
Email alerts
Notifications
Live tiles
Roaming profiles
Localized on 8 different languages (English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Norwegian, French and Swedish)
Automatic updates (Windows Phone 8.1)
All extra functionalities runs on the cloud, so you don't need to leave the app running to get your car warm in the morning, the cloud service takes care of that

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Windows 8.1 Beta (Desktop and Tablets, x86/x64/ARM processors)
Provide same functionality as the official app plus
Scheduling climate and charging
Email alerts
Notifications
Live tiles
Roaming profiles
Localized on 8 different languages (English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Norwegian, French and Swedish)
Automatic updates (Windows 8.1)
Cloud services coming in the next release
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Wordpress website
Important news, documentation and policies
http://www.teslacompanion.com/


Facebook
Screenshots, videos and cool stuff to share
https://www.facebook.com/teslacompanion


Enjoy,
Castor.
 
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Looking good Caster, are you taking into consideration of the 'responsiveness' of the various screen types? I am not a developer but this may wise to start off with.
Great work.

Do you mean the UI experience? my tablet is a Surface 1 which has a Tegra 3 CPU/GPU which is not great and runs very smooth at 60FPS. I would expect Desktops to run great as well, however the real deal will be on tablets with a Snapdragon chip, however I don't expect to run into problems since the app is very similar to what I'm running on Windows Phone and it runs very smooth even on the Lumia 520 which is a low end device.
 
Very cool stuff, thanks so much for putting it together.

Is there any functionality in the scheduling settings that you can calculate when to start charging to be finished at a set time? For us cold weather folks, it'd be great to tell it "I'm leaving the house at 7:30, so start charging as early as you need to be finished by 7:30) It helps us with preheating the battery pack and whatnot.

Thanks again!

-m
 
Very cool stuff, thanks so much for putting it together.

Is there any functionality in the scheduling settings that you can calculate when to start charging to be finished at a set time? For us cold weather folks, it'd be great to tell it "I'm leaving the house at 7:30, so start charging as early as you need to be finished by 7:30) It helps us with preheating the battery pack and whatnot.

Thanks again!

-m

That is the goal of the schedule charge, still doesn't work that way because I didn't have time to finish the implementation, however the service knows the Amps and Volts so it could estimate fairly close when the charge needs to start. That is on my TODO list that hopefully soon will be updated.
 
That is the goal of the schedule charge, still doesn't work that way because I didn't have time to finish the implementation, however the service knows the Amps and Volts so it could estimate fairly close when the charge needs to start. That is on my TODO list that hopefully soon will be updated.

Awesome... that will be sooo nice. Shouldn't snow here again for another couple of months, so we have time :)

I also offer myself as a tester if you need one. I work in IT so I have various Windows 7/8 and Windows Phone devices I'd be happy to test on for you. Message me directly if you want me to do anything for you.

Thanks.

-m
 
Tesla Companion was finally certified by Microsoft and now is on the Windows Store as well.

Tesla Companion is currently offered to:

Windows Phone 8.0, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 8.1 (Desktop/Tables for x86/ARM/x64 processors)

There is a small issue and the App was released as "Tesla Companion Universal", next release will be fixed to just "Tesla Companion"

The desktop/tablet version still is in Beta and doesn't support cloud services yet (scheduling, email alerts, notifications, live tiles), however now on the store new functionality will be added quickly.

On Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 apps, the updates are done automatically so you don't need to worry about it.

There was a lot of work involved on developing the Phone and Desktop/Tablet apps, please let me know any problem you have and write a review if you feel like it,

Enjoy,
Castor
 
Amazing work, thanks a lot, my Tesla won't come until August , but I have both apps installed (Phone & Tablet) just without the account just to be prepared early and show it to folks every now and then.

It seems that with the cloud service, the Windows platform has a unique advantage over the others, which would be very special.
If that is really the case we should advertise that a lot more. There are very few cases today where an app or solution on Windows phones and tablets provide more functionality than on Android and IOS, I won't shy away from telling everyone :)

Is the account to be used the true Tesla account (which I can't create until I have my car), or does the cloud service require a separate/special account?
 
Just downloaded, thanks. Encountered a minor issue though. Once it downloaded, I got the typical popup that the app install was complete just as I was clicking in that general area for something else. The app launched, and I saw a login pane slide in just as I was clicking minimize to get it out of my way. When I went back into the app, there was no login pane and no right-clicking brought it up.

I was able to reproduce this when I closed and reopened the app. The pane asked for login and there was a "Create Account" button. Since you mentioned something about cloud services and it didn't say login with your tesla account, I thought I'd see where that button led before popping in my credentials. As expected, it led to Tesla to make an account. Going back into the app presented no visible way to login once again.

Easy enough fix to close the app and log in again, but thought I'd point out that user experience issue. It might be more common on desktops where folks multitask.
 
Just downloaded, thanks. Encountered a minor issue though. Once it downloaded, I got the typical popup that the app install was complete just as I was clicking in that general area for something else. The app launched, and I saw a login pane slide in just as I was clicking minimize to get it out of my way. When I went back into the app, there was no login pane and no right-clicking brought it up.

I was able to reproduce this when I closed and reopened the app. The pane asked for login and there was a "Create Account" button. Since you mentioned something about cloud services and it didn't say login with your tesla account, I thought I'd see where that button led before popping in my credentials. As expected, it led to Tesla to make an account. Going back into the app presented no visible way to login once again.

Easy enough fix to close the app and log in again, but thought I'd point out that user experience issue. It might be more common on desktops where folks multitask.

Thanks for report the issue, I'll fix it and your app will be automatically updated in a few days, still is in Beta since only me was testing the app, however I'll fix all the issues as reported.

Feel free to keep sending bugs, suggestions or feedback.

Thanks.
 
Thanks for report the issue, I'll fix it and your app will be automatically updated in a few days, still is in Beta since only me was testing the app, however I'll fix all the issues as reported.

Feel free to keep sending bugs, suggestions or feedback.

Thanks.

By the way, you don't need to close and reopen the app, just swipe with your finger from the right edge of the screen to the left (or move the mouse in the top-right corner and move the pointer down if there is no touch), that will bring the charm menu with all options, settings is where the account parameters are

All windows 8.1 apps have the charm menu that can be accessed that way, charm menu is standard for all apps.
 
By the way, you don't need to close and reopen the app, just swipe with your finger from the right edge of the screen to the left (or move the mouse in the top-right corner and move the pointer down if there is no touch), that will bring the charm menu with all options, settings is where the account parameters are

All windows 8.1 apps have the charm menu that can be accessed that way, charm menu is standard for all apps.

Ah gotcha. I'm aware of that, but thought it was another type of menu. Many apps you swipe from the top or bottom to bring up options. You replicate this on a non-touch device by right-clicking (which is why I was trying that).

Thanks for the clarification!
 
Thanks castor for making this app! I have been waiting for Tesla to enable my mobile functionality, and today they finally did that. So I tried to use Tesla Companion, but for some strange reason it always just crashes after attempting to contact my car for a little while.

I removed and reinstalled Tesla Companion, but that did not help.

I also installed Tesla Connect, and that app works fine on my phone. I have also tested the iPad app, Android app and the Chrome Browser extension, and all of those work fine (in their respective devices), it is only Tesla Companion that I have problems with.

I try to use it on my Nokia Lumia 520 phone, running Windows Phone 8.0, with Finnish language, using WiFi networking. What other information you might need? Do you have any ideas what might cause this problem and what I could test?

Thanks!
 
geofencing?

Coming soon,

The priorities are first on the global user experience and then new features will start to be added to all clients.

With the introduction of the Tablet/Desktop version the cloud settings as scheduling won't work properly across the devices unless roaming profiles are implemented.

For some time I was working on this and last night I released a new version of the Windows Phone version, with the new version now the Windows Phone supports roaming profiles.

This is needed for services running on the cloud, this means for example that now the user can set a schedule climate on one device and when he open a second device he will see the same settings.

There are devices settings (roam per each device) and account settings (roam for any device for a specific account) both device/account settings support roaming, which means even if you reinstall the app the settings will be honored.

Settings scoped to a device
- Live Tiles
- Notifications
- Email alerts

Settings scoped to an account/car
- Schedule Climate
- Schedule Charge

Next in line is for the Tablet/Desktop version to bring parity with the Windows Phone, then new features will be added across the devices.

Geofencing is in the line but will take some time.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks castor for making this app! I have been waiting for Tesla to enable my mobile functionality, and today they finally did that. So I tried to use Tesla Companion, but for some strange reason it always just crashes after attempting to contact my car for a little while.

I removed and reinstalled Tesla Companion, but that did not help.

I also installed Tesla Connect, and that app works fine on my phone. I have also tested the iPad app, Android app and the Chrome Browser extension, and all of those work fine (in their respective devices), it is only Tesla Companion that I have problems with.

I try to use it on my Nokia Lumia 520 phone, running Windows Phone 8.0, with Finnish language, using WiFi networking. What other information you might need? Do you have any ideas what might cause this problem and what I could test?

Thanks!

Hi Pete,

Is the Windows Phone version that you are having problems?

If the application crashes it will generate a report and will be stored on the phone automatically, next time you open the app it will display a message like

"Oops, Sorry something went wrong last time, do you want to send the report to be analyzed?"

If you tap on the OK button it will send the report to us, I haven't seen any crash report from you, are you sending the report?

Crash reporting was implemented around 1.0.6.0, current version is 1.0.7.3, if you have a old version the app may be crashing on you.

if you don't know what version you have, can you try to reinstall the app?

I haven't see a crash when the apps opens in ages, for that reason I suspect you may have an older version.

I have many users on 520, so the device is not the problem.
 
Amazing work, thanks a lot, my Tesla won't come until August , but I have both apps installed (Phone & Tablet) just without the account just to be prepared early  and show it to folks every now and then.

It seems that with the cloud service, the Windows platform has a unique advantage over the others, which would be very special.
If that is really the case we should advertise that a lot more. There are very few cases today where an app or solution on Windows phones and tablets provide more functionality than on Android and IOS, I won't shy away from telling everyone :)

Is the account to be used the true Tesla account (which I can't create until I have my car), or does the cloud service require a separate/special account?

That is the goal of the cloud service, devices like Phone and Tablets are not suitable to run background operations efficiently since they will consume the battery, On Android can be done however that's one of the problem why Android users seems to run out of batteries because applications don't make good use of the hardware resources, on the Windows ecosystem background tasks don't have the freedom to do whatever they want, it imposes the right behaviors to the apps, by the other hand Desktop can do it but then implies that the machine cannot go to sleep consuming electricity all the time.

Here is where Tesla Companion drives to, all the heavy lifting is offloaded to a cloud service, Phones/Tablets/Desktop are just apps to interactive directly with the car, things that need monitored are delegated to the cloud, when both things are in place then you have the best of both worlds.

However because the system is much more complex than just implementing features on a client application things take longer to be implemented, however is not my main concern how long it takes to implement everything in my waiting list, I want to make sure every step provides the best experience for the end user.

The cloud service uses your Tesla account, however your credentials are never stored on the cloud service.