Why would you not want remote cellular monitoring/control

[SByer]

I want the features, and I've got a tattler, but it's sat on a shelf for a couple of months now, waiting for me to get time to put the latest stuff on it.

- Can't get a decent plan from AT&T. And certainly not in a decent way. Our family plan is on a corporate discount, which means most of the web tools for changing account level and features work. Which is a royal friggin pain in the ass. It's 2012 for #&^$ sake! Hire some non-moronic web monkeys! They want me to call?!?! I don't have a phone at my desk, why would I?

- At work, most parking is underground. No signal. At home, it's in the garage, and it's in an AT&T near-dead spot. So, flaky in the places where the car spends 99% of it's time. In both places, WiFi would work.

- At work, charging is ChargePoint. I can pretty much tell how far along charging is from the Android ChargePoint app.

I do believe the OVMS architecture is more correct (put as much server-side as possible!), and have thought about getting one, but just haven't gotten to the point where it's worth it considering yet - I'm about 5 months of projects behind at home. I would if AT&T and futzing with the plan wasn't such a royal pain in the ass. All cell phone companies hate on their customers, sigh. I hope somebody comes up with a disruptive technology to end them.

[NigelM]

All cell phone companies hate on their customers, sigh. I hope somebody comes up with a disruptive technology to end them.

Pssst, hey Elon......

[augkuo]

Pssst, hey Elon......

How does Tesla get our data logs without a cellphone plan?

[smoothoperator]

How does Tesla get our data logs without a cellphone plan?

Tesla does have a cell phone plan for Roadsters and communicates via GSM...This is why the official Tesla App will not require a separate cell phone plan.

[vfx]

Tesla does have a cell phone plan for Roadsters and communicates via GSM...This is why the official Tesla App will not require a separate cell phone plan.

Starting with car #501

[cinergi]

I would but am no longer investing in the Roadster as it will be replaced with the Model S.

[markwj]

I would but am no longer investing in the Roadster as it will be replaced with the Model S.

I think you've just nicely paraphrased Tesla's position as well

[tennis_trs]

I think you've just nicely paraphrased Tesla's position as well

Except, since a small number of motivated owners was able to very quickly create such a cool tool/toy for the car, it seems stupid that Tesla didn't bother throwing a couple people and "a few bucks" at it and do it long ago. [In "very quickly" I'm not counting the time for reverse engineering commands/status, but Tesla wouldn't have had that hurdle to deal with.]

[markwj]

I'd summarise the results as:

#1 Cellular issues (either too much money or too much hassle) - about 67% of responders listed this.
#2 Just don't need this - about 24% presumably consumer cars
#3 Waiting for the Tesla solution - about 19% here

(P.S. I know these don't add up - it is a multi-choice poll so these are percentages of voters not percentages of votes - but you get the idea)

Privacy, warranty and complexity concerns made up the rest - and were surprisingly (to me, at least) low.

There were zero concerns about the initial cost of the system.

Putting out a wild guestimate, based on the number of roadster owners who responded to the other poll on roadster ownership, and that numbers I know, I'd guess perhaps 50% of the people here have OVMS/Tattler, and 50% don't. If that is to be believed, perhaps 30% to 40% of all owners don't see a need or sufficient value for cellular connectivity in their cars, and 60% to 70% do. That is for TMC users, and I really have no idea how that could be extrapolated to the wider ownership community. Fair summary?

Assuming a hassle-free cellular plan could be provided (something like the Tesla plan where you pay up-front and don't even know about it), it would be interesting to know where that threshold was. Obviously, at US$1/year ongoing cost concerns would evaporate, but how about US$10/year, US$100/year, US$1000/year, etc?

Anyway, thanks to everyone who responded to this. It really has been most enlightening.

[hcsharp]

I'm a lot like SByer. I want one but no cell phone access at my house or work (too many mountains in the way). I know how to build/program these kind of things so it would be fun to add wifi but I have too many irons in the fire right now. A higher priority is to build a 7-segment speed display to install above the steering wheel. OVMS almost does this with the LCD but I can't read that very well.

I want the features, and I've got a tattler, but it's sat on a shelf for a couple of months now, waiting for me to get time to put the latest stuff on it.

- Can't get a decent plan from AT&T. And certainly not in a decent way. Our family plan is on a corporate discount, which means most of the web tools for changing account level and features work. Which is a royal friggin pain in the ass. It's 2012 for #&^$ sake! Hire some non-moronic web monkeys! They want me to call?!?! I don't have a phone at my desk, why would I?

- At work, most parking is underground. No signal. At home, it's in the garage, and it's in an AT&T near-dead spot. So, flaky in the places where the car spends 99% of it's time. In both places, WiFi would work.

- At work, charging is ChargePoint. I can pretty much tell how far along charging is from the Android ChargePoint app.

I do believe the OVMS architecture is more correct (put as much server-side as possible!), and have thought about getting one, but just haven't gotten to the point where it's worth it considering yet - I'm about 5 months of projects behind at home. I would if AT&T and futzing with the plan wasn't such a royal pain in the ass. All cell phone companies hate on their customers, sigh. I hope somebody comes up with a disruptive technology to end them.