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Can you control Cold Weather Settings via API or apps?

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wayner

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,294
1,787
Toronto
Can you control things like seat heaters and steering wheel heater via the API or apps (which I guess is really the same thing). If not is there any good reason why you can't do this when you can control climate? Or is this a case of they didn't bother adding it to the UI when they added this functionality.

It would be very nice to get in your car and have the seat and wheel warm - especially when it is -13C as it was here this morning.
 
There are a number of functions that folks would like added to the App. You might try Visible Tesla or one of the other unofficial control utilities.
 
Can you control things like seat heaters and steering wheel heater via the API or apps (which I guess is really the same thing). If not is there any good reason why you can't do this when you can control climate? Or is this a case of they didn't bother adding it to the UI when they added this functionality.

It would be very nice to get in your car and have the seat and wheel warm - especially when it is -13C as it was here this morning.
You can not control those from outside, nor is there any good reason to honestly. The seats and wheel heat up almost instantly. Additionally, even leaving the seats "on" doesn't really heat them much if you aren't sitting in them to compress the insulation above the heater coils.
 
You can not control those from outside, nor is there any good reason to honestly. The seats and wheel heat up almost instantly. Additionally, even leaving the seats "on" doesn't really heat them much if you aren't sitting in them to compress the insulation above the heater coils.
The seats take a few minutes to warm up - I definitely would prefer them being on and preheated when I get in the car. Us "Eastern Bastards" have sensitive backsides when we are freezing in the dark:biggrin:
 
The seats take a few minutes to warm up - I definitely would prefer them being on and preheated when I get in the car. Us "Eastern Bastards" have sensitive backsides when we are freezing in the dark:biggrin:
Thing is, they don't warm up unoccupied, heated seats never do. the coils do, but they heat up almost instantly anyway, but the seat has a lot of insulation between you and the coils, without you sitting on it to compress it you're just wasting the electricity and not heating the surface of the seat much.

I've run heated seats in my previous vehicle on the passenger side for hours on end (unintentionally) and when placing my hand on it it still didn't feel warm, it needs you actively compressing the foam before you get any heat through, running the coils without a person in them is just a waste of electricity.
 
Thing is, they don't warm up unoccupied, heated seats never do. the coils do, but they heat up almost instantly anyway, but the seat has a lot of insulation between you and the coils, without you sitting on it to compress it you're just wasting the electricity and not heating the surface of the seat much.

I've run heated seats in my previous vehicle on the passenger side for hours on end (unintentionally) and when placing my hand on it it still didn't feel warm, it needs you actively compressing the foam before you get any heat through, running the coils without a person in them is just a waste of electricity.

I always thought Tesla used the seat occupancy sensor to determine whether the coils even heat up, meaning that I can leave my wife's passenger seat on her preferred setting of "nuclear destruction" even when I'm the only one in the car.
 
Seats don't seem to heat at all if no one is sitting in them. Not sure if they use the airbag sensor to determine if anyone is sitting there or not, but seats seem cool even when they are on maximum setting with no one sitting there.
 
I always thought Tesla used the seat occupancy sensor to determine whether the coils even heat up, meaning that I can leave my wife's passenger seat on her preferred setting of "nuclear destruction" even when I'm the only one in the car.
Considering the FLIR videos we've seen, I suspect they're always on, but you don't notice it putting your hand on it because of the insulation.
 
Seats don't seem to heat at all if no one is sitting in them. Not sure if they use the airbag sensor to determine if anyone is sitting there or not, but seats seem cool even when they are on maximum setting with no one sitting there.

Apparently they do if you see this thermal cam video: Tesla Model S Heated Seats Subzero Weather Package [Infrared] - YouTube

But, I know that when I leave mine on, sit down after its been on with the car preheating in AM, it is still cold for a few minutes at least. Seems like it is on, but needs the pressure to really heat up faster, and even then, eek, hate that the sides and not all areas are heated well.

I'd really like to be able to turn on the rear defroster, wiper defroster (even though sucks), and definitely heated steering wheel as well as put car in defrost max mode for front. It sucks that can not do all this from the app until you get physically to the car and then have to wait.
 
It'd be nice to be able to turn on\off the steering wheel heater from the app... It'd also be nice if there was a shortcut button to it on the bottom of the display like there is with the seats so I didn't have to hit like three things each time I want to turn it on or off...

Jeff
 
...

In Winter I'd really like to be able to turn on the rear defroster, wiper defroster (even though sucks), and definitely heated steering wheel as well as put car in defrost max mode for front. It sucks that can not do all this from the app until you get physically to the car and then have to wait.

+1

Remote activation of the steering wheel and seat heaters is available in my Nissan LEAF and makes a noticeable difference on mornings when it's below zero F (as in everday last Winter.)

Also in those conditions the normal Model S pre-heating melts snow and ice on the upper windshield which runs down and refreezes around the wipers, a most irritating "feature." If California experienced Northeastern Winters, I reckon this would have been corrected by now simply allowing us to turn on the wiper heaters in the app.

Thanks to el nino, this Winter is much warmer, but there's more occasion for freezing rain and sleet. This too leads to ice build-up around the lower windshield that no amount of preheating can clear without help from the wiper heaters.

Not having the rear-defroster in the app is an inconvenience that Bjorn has mentioned. I can preheat for 1/2 hour and melt two inches of snow off the pano roof, but still have to manually clear snow and scrape ice from the rear since there are no heating vents back there (1st-world problem, I know.) I believe the X is lacking remote activation of the rear-defroster as well, but its 3rd-row heating vents may make up for the deficiency.

Here is a photo of the wipers following a sleet storm and 20 minutes of preheating. (Note that leaving the wipers in service mode before Winter storms is the way to go, but I sometimes forget.)

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Since my 7.0 was updated to 2.9.40 we can't even activate the rear heated seats from within the car. Everything else cold weather settings wise work perfectly but the option to turn on our rear seat heaters vanished from the controls app. "Supposedly" it will be fixed in 7.1 but when it that? Our past few mornings of 25 degree F have been pretty cold for the kids ride to school. Have been pre-warming the car to hi to make sure they stay warm until the "fix" is in.
 
I'd settle for the car remembering to turn on the steering wheel heater like the drivers seat heater... should be obvious to any developer even if he's never left California, no?

- - - Updated - - -

Here is a photo of the wipers following a sleet storm and 20 minutes of preheating. (Note that leaving the wipers in service mode before Winter storms is the way to go, but I sometimes forget.)
This is what the heated windshield is for, so you don't have to bother...

Somewhat related, my mirrors heat up automatically when it's cold. But this is almost never required, it's just a waste of energy. Why heat up the mirrors automatically and not the steering wheel? Trying to rationalize the Tesla thought process...
 
The tesla app remains a mystery to me. There is so much functionality that could be added, some of which 3rd party apps cover, some of which require tesla to implement some things. Most glaring among these are the lack of any cold weather package features. I have no idea why you can activate climate, but there's no way to turn on seat heaters or defrosters!

Alas, tesla can't even bother to update the app to properly support higher iPhone screen resolutions, which have been out for well over a year. It's one of the only apps left on my phone that hasn't touched their UI in such a long time.

For such a technologically advanced vehicle, it's frustrating to see such glaring omissions go unresolved for such a long time, particularly when other far lesser vehicles offer the features. And given that tesla owners probably skew towards tech savvy, even more disappointing that they'd ignore an app that many owners likely use on a daily basis.

/rant
 
Another (earlier) thread...
Access cold weather package features remotely via ios app???

If seat heaters make heat regardless and the IR cam vid shows that then the heat goes somewhere right... law of thermosomething, I think. So unless it's outside the cabin it would not be "wasted."

Under my ideal shore power deep freeze pre-heat, turn them all ON along with the rear defrost and other Cold Climate heaters.. especially the front windshield wiper one. What possible good is that thing if it's not allowed to melt the wipers out ???

The rear de-icer should be able to run at least 20 minutes before driving because that's how long mine seems to take to get working.

If we're worried about waste, people run their gas cars for minutes / hours to preheat in the cold. Freezing cold shows no mercy. The car is perfectly capable of drawing shore power to keep things running based on what its own meter reports...so c'mon Tesla why don't we have some more appreciation for cold weather drivers eh, didn't Elon spend time in Canada :cool: