VisibleTesla

[jpasqua]

Joe,

This may be a stupid question, but I am new to your program (and the car) and am trying out the different things. I set a notification to tell me if the the car is unplugged at 10 pm, so that I can be sure to get it plugged in prior to the start of charging which I have scheduled on my Telsa at midnight.

View attachment 38699

I got these two text messages which I think are triggered from that notification but am not sure.

First text, just after 10 pm "(VisibleTesla Notification) 2013-12-19 22:00:56 Input Power is less than 1.0"
and then this text at 4:22 am "(VisibleTesla Notification) 2013-12-20 04:22:28 Input Power is less than 1.0" - which is when I would estimate the car would have completed the charge for the night. My question - is it the "Unplugged at time:" notification that is sending these messages and what do they mean, because the car was plugged in and I got a full charge or is it something else that is triggering these notifications that I don't understand?

Hello Snosrep. Not a stupid question at all. Yes, when you get a notification that says "Input Power is less than 1.0" that means the car is unplugged (no input power). The first notification you received at 10PM is what you should expect. The second notification the next morning is a bug. This bug was reported by another user (dlmorgan999) and is fixed in an as-yet unreleased version of the code.

- - - Reply to scaesare - - -

So I had a chance to play with notifications this evening. I have all of the notifications enabled, but so far the only ones that should have triggered are:

Unplugged at time: I had this set for 11pm (and left the car unplugged for this test). That time came and went with no notification. However, I am allowing both the car to sleep as well as the app to sleep after inactivity. It appears that app will not wake the car up to specifically test for being unplugged?

That's right. The Notify tab never wakes up the car by sending it a query. In fact, the Notify tab never actually talks to the car at all. It just monitors what the other tabs are doing and when it sees interesting data wander past, it checks it against the notifications. This minimizes extra traffic to Tesla's servers but may result in a notification being triggered up to 2 minutes after the actual event occurs.

Charge State Becomes: I plugged the car in and got two notifications- 1) Charge State took on a new value: Disconnected, and shortly thereafter, 2) Charge State took on a new value: Unknown. These appear to coincide with the time that I popped the charge port door and then plugged the cable in.. so perhaps those are the two events represented?

Yes, that's the correct interpretation. The value returned for Charge State is a little squirrelly. There is no "Connected" state so Unknown gets used at times when you think it might say Connected.

So my question: is there a combination of settings that will allow Visible Tesla to run on my machine, and yet allow the car to sleep (for power savings), and be woken ONLY for the specific events that require it, such as checking the plug state at a set time?

No, not at the moment.

For that matter, if the car is sleeping, to I have to explicitly schedule an Awake command prior to an HVAC: On command in the scheduler if the car will likely have fallen asleep prior?

Technically the "HVAC: On" command should wake the car up. I always wake my car up first, so I would be interested in hearing from other users that do this on a regular basis if this works reliably without a prior wakeup.

Thanks for the development on this, and any answers to my questions.

Thanks for the ongoing testing.

 

[Snosrep]

Hello Snosrep. Not a stupid question at all. Yes, when you get a notification that says "Input Power is less than 1.0" that means the car is unplugged (no input power). The first notification you received at 10PM is what you should expect. The second notification the next morning is a bug. This bug was reported by another user (dlmorgan999) and is fixed in an as-yet unreleased version of the code.

Except the car was plugged in at 10pm as is evidenced by the fact that it charged.

I also got a text that says "Charge state took on a new value: Disconnected" each time I unplugged the car and I don't know what I have set to request this notification. It sent this at 7:44 this morning when I unplugged it to go to work and again at 19:04 when I unplugged it this evening to go back out to dinner.

 

[jpasqua]

So there is more confusion here, not just naming.

If you have a concrete proposal for what to name the fields from the API I'm willing to consider it. Please fill in the blanks:
battery_range: ______________
est_battery_range: ___________
ideal_battery_range: __________

If other European users agree then I'll update the names used in the UI. If there is no agreement then I'll leave them as is.

...Now with regard to indications, then the car itself shows a 3 next to the amps...

I'll do the same when I see charger_phases==3. I'll wait until someone does the experiment you suggest (plugging the car into single phase) before I do anything.

Joe

- - - Reply to Snosrep - - -

Except the car was plugged in at 10pm as is evidenced by the fact that it charged.

Sorry, I misread your original note. This sounds like a different bug. Sometimes the car reports that it is not connected (pilot current == 0) and then if you ask again, it gives the correct answer (pilot current > 0). I may have to ask twice before issuing this notification.

I also got a text that says "Charge state took on a new value: Disconnected" each time I unplugged the car and I don't know what I have set to request this notification. It sent this at 7:44 this morning when I unplugged it to go to work and again at 19:04 when I unplugged it this evening to go back out to dinner.

Please send me a screenshot of your Notify tab and I'll take a look.

 

[dsmith2189]

Thanks fmda. It is suspicious that the values are set to 50,50,8AM,50. These are the values set in the User Interface template and should be overridden by other default values when you start the app. Would you please run the app again and then send me the file visibletesla.log which is in the same directory as VisibleTesla.jar? If it's small, you can send it to me by PM. Otherwise PM me and I'll send you my email address. Also, what version of Java do you have installed in Windows?

I was just thinking. What if you put a "Test eMail" button with the notification email address. that way someone can test the email function without having to play with the scheduler/notifications setting too much. and be able to isolate the issue from being a network email issue or an actual s/w bug.

 

[jpasqua]

I was just thinking. What if you put a "Test eMail" button with the notification email address. that way someone can test the email function without having to play with the scheduler/notifications setting too much. and be able to isolate the issue from being a network email issue or an actual s/w bug.

I like that idea. I'll put a "Test Delivery" button in the Prefs right next to the place where you enter your email address. Thank you.

--- Update ---

Done. It will be in 0.25.01. I also added a note saying that if you are sending to a text message address, normal charges may apply.

 

[scaesare]

So I had a chance to play with notifications this evening. I have all of the notifications enabled, but so far the only ones that should have triggered are:

Unplugged at time: I had this set for 11pm (and left the car unplugged for this test). That time came and went with no notification. However, I am allowing both the car to sleep as well as the app to sleep after inactivity. It appears that app will not wake the car up to specifically test for being unplugged?

Charge State Becomes: I plugged the car in and got two notifications- 1) Charge State took on a new value: Disconnected, and shortly thereafter, 2) Charge State took on a new value: Unknown. These appear to coincide with the time that I popped the charge port door and then plugged the cable in.. so perhaps those are the two events represented?

I should be able to trigger the rest of the events tomorrow to test.

So my question: is there a combination of settings that will allow Visible Tesla to run on my machine, and yet allow the car to sleep (for power savings), and be woken ONLY for the specific events that require it, such as checking the plug state at a set time?

For that matter, if the car is sleeping, to I have to explicitly schedule an Awake command prior to an HVAC: On command in the scheduler if the car will likely have fallen asleep prior?

Thanks for the development on this, and any answers to my questions.

So the clarification that the app will not wake up the car to test against notification criteria explains why I did not get notified on several of my other events .

One other that did initially surprise me though is that the the charging related events (Charge state becomes, SOC Hits or Exceeds, etc...) didn't fire off notifications over night either, despite the car waking up for a scheduled charge. Upon consideration, I realize that's because althought the CAR awoke, the APP was sleeping.

So I really appreciate the direction the app is going with notifications... however I think for it to be really valuable for those who would like the power-savings advntages of allowing the car to sleep, is a mode for the app that does two things:

1) Implicitly wakes the car for any scheduled event or notification (it appears this is already the case for scheduled events)

2) Polls the car in some fashion that determines if it is awake or asleep, and if awake, grabs the current status so as to be abel to evaulate against notification criteria.

I assume #2 is the tricky part, as I believe that the mere act of polling the car for current state is enough to reset the "time-to-sleep counter", and thus polling too often will effectively prevent the car from going to sleep.

But given that you can detect if the car has already gone to sleep, and you can choose to avoid waking it... is it perhaps possible to modify the day-dreaming mode such that the polling interval exceeds the car's "sleep timer", and thus allow the car to sleep? For example if the car will sleep in 15 minutes after you park it, perhaps poll every 20 minutes? Once the car goes to sleep, don't wake it yest keep actively polling at 5 minute intervals in case an event (scheduled car charge in the middle of the night, etc...) wakes the car, and then you can grab status.

Does that make sense?

 

[jpasqua]

@scaesare: Yes, it makes sense. I can't do all of it, but it makes sense.

Without going into the gory details, some things are a pain due to the way the API works (and doesn't work at times).

I'm heading down this path:

1. "Unplugged at time" will move from the Notify tab to the Scheduler Tab where it will be a new command: Unplugged? It will test the same predicate as it does now, but it will wake up the vehicle if necessary before doing the test. The Scheduler tab will be the home for any timed triggers that might be added in the future.
2. I will do something akin to your suggestion (and similar suggestions by others) when the app is in "Allow Sleep" mode
   • It will test whether the car is awake in a way that will not wake it up if it's sleeping.
   • If the car is sleeping, it will check again in a short period (around 5 minutes)
   • If the car is awake, it will:
     • Grab a couple of sets of stats (probably two sets separated by 30 seconds)
     • Test whether the car is charging
       • If it is, it will repeat this process fairly soon (~2 minutes)
       • If it's not, it will make a note not to collect stats again for a long period (~30 minutes) to give the car a chance to fall asleep
   • If at any time the app leaves "Allow Sleep" mode (e.g. user interaction or a checked event), probing the car will resume it's normal non-sleep schedule.

Joe

 

[brianman]

Nitpick: Watts should be abbreviated as W not w.

 

[jpasqua]

Nitpick: Watts should be abbreviated as W not w.

Thanks brianman. Let me know where you see instances of it and I'll change them when I have a moment.

 

[brianman]

First run note @ 0.25.00:

Missing perf red piping on seats on HVAC tab, even though Details button on Overview tab reports "Signature Performance Trim" and "Seats: Perf Leather with Piping, Black".

 

[ZBB]

First run note @ 0.25.00:

Missing perf red piping on seats on HVAC tab, even though Details button on Overview tab reports "Signature Performance Trim" and "Seats: Perf Leather with Piping, Black".

I think all interiors are just the base black... Tesla's app does the same.

 

[brianman]

I think all interiors are just the base black... Tesla's app does the same.

Probably so, but still an opportunity for improvement.

 

[jpasqua]

Probably so, but still an opportunity for improvement.

Sorry to say, but it is extremely unlikely this will be changed unless a skilled graphic artist is willing to donate lots of time. That's not my forte. Same goes for the wheels on the far side of the vehicle. Of course if Tesla adds the graphics to their app, that would be a different story.

 

[brianman]

Sorry to say, but it is extremely unlikely this will be changed unless a skilled graphic artist is willing to donate lots of time. That's not my forte. Same goes for the wheels on the far side of the vehicle. Of course if Tesla adds the graphics to their app, that would be a different story.

Art problem. Got it. Hopefully we can get that fixed for you.

Note: Your mailbox is full.

As a workaround for now:

How do I get to the art files in the release files? Are they packed into a jar file or somesuch?

 

[jpasqua]

How do I get to the art files in the release files? Are they packed into a jar file or somesuch?

There are a number of ways to get at the images:
1. Get them from github: VisibleTesla/src/org/noroomattheinn/TeslaResources at master · jpasqua/VisibleTesla · GitHub
2. Copy the jar file, rename it to end with .zip instead of .jar, and unzip it. You'll find all the images in org/noroomattheinn/TeslaResources
3. Extract them directly from the iPhone or Android app using a tool like Crunch on the Mac

Joe

 

[jpasqua]

Completely Off Topic - Holiday fun with a Raspberry Pi

As you many of you know, VisibleTesla is a fun side project for me. I wanted to share another side project that is relevant for this time of year. It has nothing to do with VisibleTesla or Tesla in general, so you may want to just skip this post.

My uncle built an 8' x 2' sign with hundreds of LEDs arranged to spell out "Merry Christmas" on one line and "Joy to the world" on a line below that. He wired each letter and a border of lights to a bank of MOSFET transistors that act as solid state switches. This was an incredible amount of work. I did the easy part. I connected that to a Raspberry Pi via a daughter card and wrote a little java app to animate the letters.

You can see a video of the final product on youtube: http://youtu.be/XXGjUGOQQTk

Here are some pics of the inside of the sign. The first one shows the whole thing and the second is a close up of the Raspberry Pi.

Happy Holidays!

Joe

 

[znino]

As you many of you know, VisibleTesla is a fun side project for me. I wanted to share another side project that is relevant for this time of year. It has nothing to do with VisibleTesla or Tesla in general, so you may want to just skip this post.

My uncle built an 8' x 2' sign with hundreds of LEDs arranged to spell out "Merry Christmas" on one line and "Joy to the world" on a line below that. He wired each letter and a border of lights to a bank of MOSFET transistors that act as solid state switches. This was an incredible amount of work. I did the easy part. I connected that to a Raspberry Pi via a daughter card and wrote a little java app to animate the letters.

You can see a video of the final product here. Note that this is a 39MB file.

Here are some pics of the inside of the sign. The first one shows the whole thing and the second is a close up of the Raspberry Pi.

Happy Holidays!

Joe

Very cool indeed

 

[Musterion]

As you many of you know, VisibleTesla is a fun side project for me. I wanted to share another side project that is relevant for this time of year. It has nothing to do with VisibleTesla or Tesla in general, so you may want to just skip this post.

Very nice Joe! So on VT 0.25.00 I notice that when I am at some SOC less than 100%, say ~80%, when I press the "Jump to: Max" link on the Charge tab, the green battery suddenly jumps up to completely full and the SOC in the graph has a blip that goes up to 100%. Subsequent readings are correct and back at the correct lower value. If relevant, this is all with the car plugged in but not charging.

 

[jpasqua]

Very nice Joe! So on VT 0.25.00 I notice that when I am at some SOC less than 100%, say ~80%, when I press the "Jump to: Max" link on the Charge tab, the green battery suddenly jumps up to completely full and the SOC in the graph has a blip that goes up to 100%. Subsequent readings are correct and back at the correct lower value. If relevant, this is all with the car plugged in but not charging.

Thanks for the report. I added this to the bug list on github and will look into it.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

Btw the additional trips showed up later. initially the app showed only the first trip of the day, but when I clicked on today again later in the evening all of my trips showed up. When I then went on yesterday I had also that days trips there so it seems to have been some odd lag. Still don't get notifications, but I guess a test notification button will help debugging if that might actually be a problem with the e-mail service.

Feature request: for EU cars can we have the calendar in EU format as well. For us the week starts on Monday, not Sunday