Two questions about the Summon feature

David29 said:

First -- The instructions say that you must first park the car into its parking space before you can use Summon to remove it. I have been thinking about how there might be scenarios in which you do not plan to use Summon, and you park the car yourself. But then you come back to the car and discover someone has parked real close to you on one side or the other and you would like to use it. So my question is: Couldn't you use it anyway? After all, the car does not really know whether you are moving it into or out of a space, right? So it would move out as if you were parking it, wouldn't it? Can't see why not myself, but perhaps I am missing something.

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Yes, you can use it anyway.

Second -- What is the phone app supposed to do with or for Summon? I activated Summon in the car settings, and have tried it using the key fob. I also downloaded the update to the Android app. But all I see is that the app will notify you that Summon has occurred. It does not seem to have any controls to initiate or stop the Summon process. Am I correct on this?

Thanks!

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I believe the Summon button appears on the first screen in the app when the fob is in range and the car is not plugged in. I haven't been able to try it myself, but according to the screenshots I've seen, that's where it is.

OP, While I only use Summon as a gimmick around home, yesterday I was with friends 70 miles from home, parked in a stall and when I came back, the :&()/ to my left parked so close I could not get in... So I used Summon to pull my MS back far enough to open my door, got in, and was on my way. My personal view as to why the instructions say what they do is because they are overly-simplified as Tesla always seems to do, and it's what you'd want to do to try and get any Homelink connection with your garage operational with Summon.

On the Tesla App... Yea, you could use Summon with it, but there are limitations, including if you need to halt your car while in action, and something happens with your internet connection, Tesla servers, or cell connectivity, your MS may not stop when you need it to. Read other threads on Summon for that detail. My suggestion is use ONLY your FOB with Summon until you understand very clearly what limitations the App may involve with your MOVING vehicle if an emergency were to arrise.

yea, summons seems somewhat useless for me, but its baby steps....summons will become something cool very soon!

If you park leaving the front wheels not straight ahead, then use Summon to back
out of the space (because it has become too difficult to get into the car), will the
Summon function first straighten the front wheels, before beginning to move
the car?

garygid said:

If you park leaving the front wheels not straight ahead, then use Summon to back
out of the space (because it has become too difficult to get into the car), will the
Summon function first straighten the front wheels, before beginning to move
the car?

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I have seen the Summon adjust its wheel before to avoid walls. So yes, I'd imagine that it does straighten itself out first.

DrumCoder said:

Yes, you can use it anyway.

I believe the Summon button appears on the first screen in the app when the fob is in range and the car is not plugged in. I haven't been able to try it myself, but according to the screenshots I've seen, that's where it is.

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Yes it's on the first screen.

Make sure you have the GPS turned on on your phone. Mine was off and I was going crazy trying to figure out why the summon button would not show up.

DrumCoder said:

... I believe the Summon button appears on the first screen in the app when the fob is in range and the car is not plugged in. I haven't been able to try it myself, but according to the screenshots I've seen, that's where it is.

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I have a "classic" MS, and haven't experienced the sensors/autopilot/summon for real, so forgive me if I sound naive.

Doesn't summon work if the fob is NOT in range? If I am already very close to the car so the fob is in range, before summoning it, then waiting for it seems more time consuming and awkward than walking up to it and driving away. (Except of course for situations when I cannot get into the car as described by others above).

I am assuming "summon" summons the car to where the key fob is. If instead, you can summon the car to any given spot (on private property), I can see it being useful: You are inside home, you summon the car to get out of garage and go to the driveway, while you get ready and come out with the car waiting for you.

iffatall said:

I have a "classic" MS, and haven't experienced the sensors/autopilot/summon for real, so forgive me if I sound naive.

Doesn't summon work if the fob is NOT in range? If I am already very close to the car so the fob is in range, before summoning it, then waiting for it seems more time consuming and awkward than walking up to it and driving away. (Except of course for situations when I cannot get into the car as described by others above).

I am assuming "summon" summons the car to where the key fob is. If instead, you can summon the car to any given spot (on private property), I can see it being useful: You are inside home, you summon the car to get out of garage and go to the driveway, while you get ready and come out with the car waiting for you.

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Nope, fob must be in range for summon to work. The car itself only goes in a straight line for something like 40 feet, and then stops. (Or it stops when it sees an obstruction.) It will do a slight turn around an obstacle (including people) as long as it's basically in front of the headlight. If it's too far in, the car will just stop.

We're about two years and at least one upgraded sensor suite away from summon being able to navigate parking lots to come to a specific location. Right now it is a parlor trick 95% of the time.

You are not naive, what you described is exactly what Tesla described as the end goal, we're just nowhere near that end goal today.

BertL said:

OP, While I only use Summon as a gimmick around home, yesterday I was with friends 70 miles from home, parked in a stall and when I came back, the :&()/ to my left parked so close I could not get in... So I used Summon to pull my MS back far enough to open my door, got in, and was on my way. My personal view as to why the instructions say what they do is because they are overly-simplified as Tesla always seems to do, and it's what you'd want to do to try and get any Homelink connection with your garage operational with Summon.

On the Tesla App... Yea, you could use Summon with it, but there are limitations, including if you need to halt your car while in action, and something happens with your internet connection, Tesla servers, or cell connectivity, your MS may not stop when you need it to. Read other threads on Summon for that detail. My suggestion is use ONLY your FOB with Summon until you understand very clearly what limitations the App may involve with your MOVING vehicle if an emergency were to arrise.

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DITTO:
I almost found this out the hard way. I lost cell phone connection while 'summoning' the car and once it started to move, I realized I didn't have anyway to shut it down.
My cell phone had all errors and the car just kept rolling.
I fumbled the FOB out of my pocket and stopped the car.
On my car, summoning is pretty much a hit or miss proposition.

If the fob must be near by, what is the value of having the ability to summon from the phone? Especially if there are not fail safes if there are app issues or network issues.

chargeshare said:

If the fob must be near by, what is the value of having the ability to summon from the phone? Especially if there are not fail safes if there are app issues or network issues.

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I summed my car forward for the hell of it from my apt which is about 100 feet away and up 4 stories. It was cool....pointless but cool.

DrumCoder said:

Nope, fob must be in range for summon to work. The car itself only goes in a straight line for something like 40 feet, and then stops. (Or it stops when it sees an obstruction.) It will do a slight turn around an obstacle (including people) as long as it's basically in front of the headlight. If it's too far in, the car will just stop.

We're about two years and at least one upgraded sensor suite away from summon being able to navigate parking lots to come to a specific location. Right now it is a parlor trick 95% of the time.

You are not naive, what you described is exactly what Tesla described as the end goal, we're just nowhere near that end goal today.

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Thanks for the detailed clarification. It seems I have had a completely wrong idea about what was already possible. No wonder I could not find any summon video on youtube more complicated than opening the garage door and moving a few feet in a straight line.

What's the point of releasing this, and advertising it as it is! If I, a MS owner can get the wrong idea, I am sure a significant number of aspiring owners would too. This borders on misleading people, and is very unlike what I expect of Tesla. I know it is a baby step towards something incredible, but they could just demo this rather then releasing it just to make headlines.

If Tesla had simply demoed Summon but not released it, some people would complain that Tesla was teasing us and would demand it be released.
Now some people are complaining that Summon isn't useful. Well, there have been posts on TMC by people who do find it useful for getting their car out of narrow spaces. Yes, it is a "baby step" at this point, but I'm sure that within the year it will improve significantly and become more useful to more people.

Any idea why Summon rolls up to within several inches of the garage door
before stopping to open it?

After using Home Link to command the door to move, the car probably just waits
some fixed time for the door to open fully, with no other feedback, right?

Then, if the Sonar detects that the door has moved enough to no longer sense it,
the car starts to move again, possibly crashing into a partially open stalled door?

Likewise, since the car could stop for an obstruction when not all the way into
or out of the garage, but not really know where it is with respect to the door,
might it try to close the door, damaging the car?

Yes, my garage is too full to test, and the driveway is likely too steep.

garygid said:

Any idea why Summon rolls up to within several inches of the garage door
before stopping to open it?

After using Home Link to command the door to move, the car probably just waits
some fixed time for the door to open fully, with no other feedback, right?

Then, if the Sonar detects that the door has moved enough to no longer sense it,
the car starts to move again, possibly crashing into a partially open stalled door?

Likewise, since the car could stop for an obstruction when not all the way into
or out of the garage, but not really know where it is with respect to the door,
might it try to close the door, damaging the car?

Yes, my garage is too full to test, and the driveway is likely too steep.

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One of numerous scenarios where Summon will run into something.

Here's another one: Start with the car parked within 6" of the garage. Summon. Car will roll forward into the door. Bump.

Regarding this, I discovered something interesting in the latest owner's manual. The "tight" spaces option comes with a warning about not being able to detect objects very close to the car. This appears to be caused by a limitation of the ultrasonic sensors. From my experience (I'm no expert here), once something gets very close to the sensor, it essentially becomes invisible. Summon only knows about the object if it already knew about it before getting close. At that point it just uses dead reckoning to track the object.

Here's another example that I fortunately aborted in time. Doing a forward summon into the garage, it gave up moving over the garage lip, as happens from time to time. At this point, it was close to both sides of the door opening, with a solid wall on the left side and the open 2nd bay on the right. I then summoned again. Seeing it was close to the left wall, but apparently not seeing the side of the opening on the right, the wheels turned significantly to the right and the car started moving forward. By the time I got it stopped, there was less than an inch between the pax door and the opening. Whew.

Understanding the system's limitations, I am very impressed with what summon can do. But I believe it is close to it's limitations. I can't see any way, with the current hardware, to support an "unattended" summon or for it to make significant turns during a summon. There will be some very disgruntled customers when this comes to light. I hope I am wrong.

I learned a good lesson on the summon feature yesterday. I was parked at work, with the nose of my car too close to a wall to allow me access to the frunk. I initiated summon with my phone and the car started to back away. As I walked back the few feet with my car I must have moved out of wi-fi range, and the car would not respond to my stop command. It is amazing how such a simple situation can trigger a panic reaction, and it took me a moment, and maybe two feet of travel toward a coworker's car, to clear my head, juggle the stuff in my arms that I had intended to put in the frunk and remember that I could use the key fob. The fob worked perfectly and the car stopped, but lesson learned. The phone app is fun, but in tight situations the fob is probably the "right tool."

Re: Summon. Recently had to stop car as it was headed toward a post off to the side in my garage.It was literally 1 inch away by the time I got it stopped with FOB. In the process it ran over a grocery bag (paper) full of recyclable paper and plastic. Thank goodness no harm done! I will be very hesitant to use the Summon feature until refined. (i know this is a beta and I did report the incident to Tesla.)

So far I've had good results with summon command in a garage with two vehicles. In order to keep my Tesla from angling a bit toward the other vehicle (Tesla wants equal amount of free space on both sides) I came upon a plan to influence parking with two 18 gallon rubbermaid bins stacked one on the other. The Tesla now consistently recognizes this bin condo as an obstacle and by moving the bins a bit here and there I could get the Tesla to park nearly exactly where I wanted, every time. As far as fore and aft positioning of the bins in the garage, I placed them a few inches behind the arc of my driver's door as it opens.