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Is there a way to "forward" the iPhone app notifications?

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Andyw2100

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2014
6,547
2,448
Ithaca, NY
My wife uses an iPhone, so she has the Tesla iPhone app installed and can get the notifications. I use an android phone, and since the android app does not yet have the ability to send notifications I do not receive any.

I am wondering if there is an iPhone app available that we could install on my wife's non-jail-broken iPhone that would automatically send me via e-mail or text message a copy of any notification that she receives from the Tesla app.

A quick Google search turns up products that almost do this, but aren't quite going to work for my needs. Notifyr is one, but it works via Bluetooth only, and only from iPhone to Mac, so that one is out for both reasons. Pushbullet is another that seems to have similar limitations.

It just seems like there must be something out there.

Anyone have any suggestions?
 
I didn't realize that IFTTT was push only. You might also want to look at pushbullet. I've heard good things, but don't use it myself.

I mentioned Pushbullet in my initial post. From what I've read, it doesn't look like it will work. I really don't want to ask my wife to try a lot of things just to find out they aren't going to work as she was already pretty "Tesla'd -Out" from all my talk about the car and constant use of the forum and that was BEFORE I started asking her to toggle range mode on and off every time she got in the car, reset her trip B trip meter, take pictures of the trip screen and report to me on wind speed, cabin temperature, and outdoor temperature for every trip to and from work. So the last thing I want to do is have her install something on her phone and then fool around with it just to find that it doesn't work, for a goal that she sees as ridiculous anyway.


Assuming you can authenticate on the Tesla's servers would Visible Tesla do the trick, albeit not using the iPhone.

It might, but I don't know, and for now it's a moot point, as I can't use Visible Tesla. Based on JPasqua's most recent post on the topic about his testers being negatively impacted, I'm not sure when or even if Visible Tesla is going to be an option.
 
It might, but I don't know, and for now it's a moot point, as I can't use Visible Tesla. Based on JPasqua's most recent post on the topic about his testers being negatively impacted, I'm not sure when or even if Visible Tesla is going to be an option.
I thought that the most recent posts were somewhat positive in that he is using a new method that seems much more reliable and that works for those unable to use VT before. Here's hoping it pans out.

This is from post 1619 of the VT thread:
This version uses the new APIs (just like the version that's on github now) and allows me to log in reliably. There are massive changes to the code base so please consider it very experimental.
...
FYI, I was locked out again for a few days and couldn't use VT or the iPhone app. Once I was able to get back in, my throttling was effectively gone and I was seeing almost perfect behaviors from Tesla's servers. Over time, the throttling began again. Right now I'm hovering at around an 85% success rate of requests to Tesla's servers. They are throttling me, but not as badly as before. With automatic retries, I'm seeing about a 95% effective success rate. I expect that the longer I use the app, the more I'll be throttled.

Sorry - you would know all of that since it was you and I having that discussion in the VT thread. Except we seem to have changed roles as then you were optimistic about using VT and I was pessimistic:redface:
 
I thought that the most recent posts were somewhat positive in that he is using a new method that seems much more reliable and that works for those unable to use VT before. Here's hoping it pans out.

This is from post 1619 of the VT thread:


Sorry - you would know all of that since it was you and I having that discussion in the VT thread. Except we seem to have changed roles as then you were optimistic about using VT and I was pessimistic:redface:

Yes, I've been staying on top of that thread. I'll go find the relevant threads and come back and edit this post with the post numbers for you to read. I am less optimistic now than I was then. There is still hope, but I'm not counting on anything.

Edit: I guess my pessimism is based on how long he has had people testing the new version without releasing it, and on post number 1667:

VisibleTesla - Page 167
 
Right. You're kind of out of luck, at least for now:

* IFFT: Can generate Notifications, but can't act on another App's notifications.
* Pushbullet: Can only forward Notifications from iOS -> Mac, not iOS -> Android
* VisibleTesla: If you can't login to use 0.28/0.29, for now you're stuck. New versions will work, but they negatively impact ALL API accesses, including those from the stock iOS app.

Guess you have to buy an iPhone. :biggrin:

But more seriously, there's not much you can do. Presumably notifications will come to the Tesla Android app eventually, but all app development is way down Tesla's priority list.

The ONLY chance I see of making it work is if you use Pushbullet to forward the notification to your Mac, and then have the Mac take action on the notification in a way that allows IFTTT send a notification to your Android phone. Who knows how well something like that would work, and I'm not aware of any Mac apps that can perform actions based on notifications, but they might exist.
 
Right. You're kind of out of luck, at least for now:

* IFFT: Can generate Notifications, but can't act on another App's notifications.
* Pushbullet: Can only forward Notifications from iOS -> Mac, not iOS -> Android
* VisibleTesla: If you can't login to use 0.28/0.29, for now you're stuck. New versions will work, but they negatively impact ALL API accesses, including those from the stock iOS app.

Guess you have to buy an iPhone. :biggrin:

But more seriously, there's not much you can do. Presumably notifications will come to the Tesla Android app eventually, but all app development is way down Tesla's priority list.

The ONLY chance I see of making it work is if you use Pushbullet to forward the notification to your Mac, and then have the Mac take action on the notification in a way that allows IFTTT send a notification to your Android phone. Who knows how well something like that would work, and I'm not aware of any Mac apps that can perform actions based on notifications, but they might exist.

Thanks for the detailed and thorough response. I guess I'll just wait. Until there's a better option, I'll probably also install the app on an iPad (I assume the iPhone app works on iPads, right?) and keep the iPad around when my wife isn't using it, so I can check it for notifications once in a while if I want to.

I mainly just want to be able to see how many range miles the car charges to, since by the time we see it in the morning it has lost a few miles of range already, and I also want to be able to check for notifications of new firmware versions, since Tesla has been pushing them out with some regularity.

Thanks!
 
If you only care about notifications when the device is on Home WiFi, pick up a used iPod touch from eBay or similar.

Thanks. I would have liked to have been able to receive notifications all the time, on my phone, but apparently that isn't possible, so I'll settle for via wifi on one of the iPads that we have around anyway. Thanks for the suggestion, though.


The app runs in iPhone resolution, but works on the iPad.

Thanks. I'll go that route, for now.
 
If you only care about notifications when the device is on Home WiFi, pick up a used iPod touch from eBay or similar.

So I did this, kind of, but without any luck.

I knew my daughter had an old iPod Touch somewhere. It took me this long--over a month--to coerce and cajole her into trying to find it and find the charging cable for it. Last night she finally produced the iPod Touch (which, of course, I had bought for her years ago, so since she wasn't using it you wouldn't have thought it would be that hard for me to get it back.) After much messing around with it, creating an Apple ID for myself, entering my credit card information so I could access the app store, etc., etc., I was finally ready, I thought, to install the Tesla app. But apparently the Tesla app requires ios 7.0 or higher. This particular iPod touch was running some version of ios 4, and can't be upgraded beyond some version of ios 4 (I checked.) It sounds like only the very latest iPod Touches--I think just the fifth generation iPod Touches--run ios 7.0.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...-touch-models-full-partial-ios-7-support.html


So unless there is a way to load the app and make it work with ios 4 on a third generation iPod Touch, I am back to the drawing board, and happy I didn't actually purchase an iPod Touch on Ebay.

Is it safe to assume that the Tesla app really does require ios 7? Or is there some way to load the app on to and then force it to run on my daughter's apparently antiquated ipod?

Thanks!
 
I think the solution will be for Tesla to stop prioritizing the iOS app over the Android app and actually get the features to be the same on both. It's not like it's a complicated app... I'm actually pretty confused as to why there is a disparity in the first place.
 
I think the solution will be for Tesla to stop prioritizing the iOS app over the Android app and actually get the features to be the same on both. It's not like it's a complicated app... I'm actually pretty confused as to why there is a disparity in the first place.

Well sure, that would be great, but I have no control over that solution. I just want the ability to get notifications! It shouldn't be this difficult!
 
I'm actually surprised no one has reverse-engineered the iOS app's method for this yet. (I refuse to go near iOS)

It is really not that bad.

Source: I work with, and support, a global fleet of just a tad over 200,000 mobile devices. These are not consumer devices; it is more than an inconvenience when a device malfunctions, it breaks a business process. The fleet consists of a mix of ruggedized specialty devices from Symbol & Intermec (that run WinCE or WinMobile variants, modified and provided by the manufacturer, not MS), and a very large population of iPhone/iPad and Android phone/pad. In the Android area, we allow only Samsung devices on the corporate build & network, because Samsung has extended Android's security model down into the hardware, proprietary to them.

Anyway... iOS ain't so bad. In particular, it absorbs the smallest part of my support budget, on a per device basis.

And, if anyone is looking for a TRUE* cross-platform development tool, check out Xamirin. (Hint, Hint, Tesla. Port your app here and iOS/Android differences go away!)

Danal



*True = A tool that generates native code for all three major mobile OS platforms, and exceeds 85% common code.
 
...
Is it safe to assume that the Tesla app really does require ios 7? Or is there some way to load the app on to and then force it to run on my daughter's apparently antiquated ipod?

Thanks!

If the App Store says the app won't run on an earlier version of iOS then it won't. And it's altogether likely that Tesla made that decision consciously; there were very big changes in iOS 7 which make it relatively difficult to make an app work on releases earlier than that. I think you're out of luck.
 
I'm actually surprised no one has reverse-engineered the iOS app's method for this yet. (I refuse to go near iOS)

I don't think reverse engineering is the problem. It's the way iOS notifications work that is the problem. Tesla's server actually sends the notification to Apple's server, not directly to the phone. All iOS notifications have to go through Apple. There's nothing in the REST API for receiving a notification. There's only a way for the app to send an ID to Tesla, which Tesla then uses to designate the recipient device when talking to Apple.