Vendor TesLender - A service designed for owners renting out their Tesla - Feedback thread

[mda]

@SeBsZ one feature I think would be great is to be able to control the media (radio, streaming) and have permissions to allow only that for a particular user. That would make it possible to put the app on passengers' phones who you to not want to give access to any other features except music control (for children, as an example).

My family is on iPhone with three different models of devices that we could beta test with if you decide to add that feature. Thanks!

 

[SeBsZ]

That is a fantastic idea, and in fact I actually had put this on my to-do list when I first saw about the media controls in V9. I don't have V9 just yet, won't take much longer now, so when I do I'll see if I can add this ASAP. Thanks so much for your suggestion.

I need iOS testers first though!

 

[Gwgan]

The website could use some date and time formatting assistance when creating a share code.

 

[Tozz]

Any suggestions? Maybe I should rebrand the app and add features to appeal to more users?

A possible solution for the credential sharing could be a small self-hosted part? For example a small PHP script somewhere that does the relay between Tesla.com and your portal and has the actual Tesla credentials.

That way you can still use your own portal and App without the difficulty of changing URLs in the App itself.

So then it would be something like:
- Sign up on your site
- Upload the PHP on a private server that I as a Tesla owner that lends out his vehicle owns. I edit the PHP to add my credentials
- I select 'Use own relay' instead of 'Add Tesla credentials' and input the URL of my private server's PHP relay thingie

 

[Gwgan]

Unsuccessful at making a code on the website (errors some times, other times no feedback). App does not accept code.

 

[SeBsZ]

Unsuccessful at making a code on the website (errors some times, other times no feedback). App does not accept code.

@Gwgan, the reason your codes were not created is because the dates you entered are in the past. When you use the date picker to pick a date, the date should be in the correct format.

I have added the format on the webpage to make it clear. The format is YYYY-MM-DD , so today would be 2018-10-29.

 

[Gwgan]

Code generation works with the right date format.
App initially shows stale data, maybe best to not to show that until there is fresh data with some indication that there will be good data soon.

 

[SeBsZ]

@Tozz, I have implemented your alternative login solution. I'm a little doubtful whether someone will use it though. Someone who has the knowledge to modify and upload a PHP script to their own server, probably has the knowledge to use cURL or Postman to manually get the tokens. Just in case someone does want this, I've published a script on Github that is free for anyone to use. It needs to be downloaded, the username and password can then be modified and uploaded to your own server. Then on TesLender.com when registering you can use Option 3 and enter the URL to your script!

@Gwgan, definitely a good idea.

 

[Tozz]

@Tozz, I have implemented your alternative login solution. I'm a little doubtful whether someone will use it though. Someone who has the knowledge to modify and upload a PHP script to their own server, probably has the knowledge to use cURL or Postman to manually get the tokens. Just in case someone does want this, I've published a script on Github that is free for anyone to use. It needs to be downloaded, the username and password can then be modified and uploaded to your own server. Then on TesLender.com when registering you can use Option 3 and enter the URL to your script!

I've tested your feature but it's not really what I had in mind The PHP script now generates a token which your application uses. The tesla_auth.php is only called to request a token. Now you still, in some way, have access to my Tesla account (you have a valid token, so you have access to tesla.com/account)

My idea was that only the tesla_auth.php has a token and that your portal has no knowledge of any Tesla credentials or tokens and every request to and from teslamotors.com is done thru the tesla_auth.php script.

With your solution as it is now I need to change my MyTesla password if I want the access revoked. With how I thought of it I could just remove tesla_auth.php and be done with it. Seems "safer" to me.

 

[SeBsZ]

I see what you mean. More of a self-hosted Tesla "gateway" of sorts. All communication passes through your server, and I never see a Tesla token or passwords. Sounds good! Problem is this is more advanced, as it would need to do much more work than the simple auth script I have now. (Local storage for tokens, and refreshing the tokens). I like this idea though.

 

[Gwgan]

Model X controls page initially shows the Model S roof vent control as an option and then it disappears and the other buttons re-organize. Best not to draw the whole set first since it just adds a delay to the user experience

 

[Gwgan]

Apps says the car is sleeping and the controls to not wake it but instead given a pop up notice. Logging into the actual Tesla app there’s wake the car after a few moments. Need more time?

 

[SeBsZ]

@SeBsZ one feature I think would be great is to be able to control the media (radio, streaming) and have permissions to allow only that for a particular user. That would make it possible to put the app on passengers' phones who you to not want to give access to any other features except music control (for children, as an example).

My family is on iPhone with three different models of devices that we could beta test with if you decide to add that feature. Thanks!

I just released version 0.2.0 to TestFlight that contains the ability to control media on V9 cars! Would you like to beta test that for us? I haven't added the ability to the website yet to set per-user permissions which would prevent access to the other controls - this is coming soon. The UI is very basic, but so is Tesla's official UI and I expect Tesla will eventually expand this feature to hopefully allow searching for music as well.



Of course, like the official app, the Media menu option only appears when you are in your car and you're on V9.

I also added the ability to set a charge limit through the app. I've also fixed some bugs, such as the bug reported by @Gwgan where the controls jump when your vehicle does not have a vent roof capabilty.

Apps says the car is sleeping and the controls to not wake it but instead given a pop up notice. Logging into the actual Tesla app there’s wake the car after a few moments. Need more time?

When your car is sleeping it should wake up when you enable tracking on the website. It is possible sending commands to a sleeping car might not wake it first. Can you clarify the issue for me and how I can reproduce it?

 

[Gwgan]

It is possible sending commands to a sleeping car might not wake it first.

That is probably it. Will test.

 

[SeBsZ]

I wanted to share the good news that TesLender got approved by Apple for the iOS store. For now I'm not releasing it yet until we get the bugs ironed out. Currently a grand total of 1 beta tester is testing the iOS app for me. Can I entice anyone else to give it a try? Anyone can join the test program using this link: Join the TesLender beta . No need to ask me to add you first.

 

[Gwgan]

Real world test by a renter using Amdroid. Expire set for 1706 but user said access ended early. Website recorded last data at “2136”. DST ended last night here on the east coast; related? Can the website time be localized?

 

[SeBsZ]

Oh crap, I forgot to mention on the website that we're using UTC/GMT times since this is going to be used all over the world. I can localize the time for sure, yeah. Sorry about that!

I've also added a "Start Time" on the website, so you can create and hand out a code before the rental starts. They will only be able to log in once the Start Time has passed. Remember these are all in UTC time zone.

The Media Only permission won't work until you get the latest iOS beta, tomorrow or the day after hopefully.

 

[Gwgan]

How about notifications when accessed starts and stops?

 

[SeBsZ]

Real world test by a renter using Amdroid. Expire set for 1706 but user said access ended early. Website recorded last data at “2136”. DST ended last night here on the east coast; related? Can the website time be localized?

I have replaced the date/time pickers on the website. If someone could try these? They let you pick a start and end time in your LOCAL timezone. Once you create the code, the times are displayed in UTC though, because the server runs on UTC time. I will soon translate this back to local times as well though. Can you or someone give this a try?

 

[NewTMSMan]

Great idea. Not to ruin the enthusiasm, but you can easily add a secondary email on your Tesla account for the car and use that for rental purposes. Simply have the person load the Tesla App on their phone and give them the password that you create for the date their rental initiates. This works well for multi-Tesla owners as well as you can set an email address for just one of your cars. Then when the rental date is over just change the password for your rental account. Just need to request a secondary email log in from Tesla.