I'm rather surprised that the Tesla app can't operate in offline mode directly with the car. Due to the nature of a car I would think it's a forgone conclusion that the owner might drive to where the app can't connect with the cloud but should still be an authenticated and trusted issuer of digital commands to the car.
Time to add some use cases to the acceptance testing script...
Even with my phone in Airplane mode (WiFi / Cellular disabled), and only Bluetooth on, I'm still able to get into my Model 3. Internet connection is not required by the car, or the phone, to be able to unlock the car, drive, or operate the frunk / trunk.
It is required if your app hasn't downloaded a new cert. If you're still able to get in via Bluetooth, it's only because the cert on your phone is still valid. Once that cert expires, you'll be locked out.
Model S and X don't have the same bluetooth antennas to do the proximity triangulation is my understanding and rely on the network connection from Car -> Tesla and App -> Tesla to unlock and start so may be different for S and X drivers?
They require Google connectivity to change the temperature through the app. You can always change the temperature using the thermostat itself. Although it is absurd that there is zero local connectivity, this is Google we're talking about. If they allowed that, it would be trivial to just keep the thermostat offline and not allow Google to siphon up your precious data.
I want to know what kind of signals they are getting from your temperature preferences. Something like "wow, this person keeps their house hot, let's send them marketing for vacations in the tropic?"
It tells them what times of which days of week you are at home, which can be used to infer other lifestyle buckets based on age and gender and purchase histories.
I'm wonder if a line of "smart IoT" devices where the assumption is that cloud-down is the primary use case (and cloud-connected is a secondary "nice to have" mode even if that's how it's used 90%+ of the time) would succeed?
If I'm remembering right, if you do have one of those acting as a hub, it should work fine in that capacity on a local network with no internet. This lets you have fully local automation triggers, among other things.
Well I'd love that kind of systems; in my flat, the heating and ventilation is controlled by a central server that is managed by a local startup.
When I lose internet access, or the server is not reachable (and this is super frequent), my floor heating (my only source of heat) stops running, and ventilation starts.
Have to wait for someone to reboot the networked server, but they work only Mon-Fri, 10am to 5pm.
A lot of IOT things go through the internet because it's easier than making network device detection work. Everything going through a single process is also just simpler to test and make sure there are fewer surprises or issues with having two different methods of control.
You can still use it physically, just it won't work over network...which seems absolutely reasonable (its a smart device that has a backup non-smart function)
I'm glad it seems reasonable to you. It does not seem reasonable to me.
This is essentially the Google philosophy, and it stands in contrast to the Apple philosophy. Yes, Nest is ex-Apple people and followed this bad pattern before their acquisition by Google, but still.
Apple HomeKit-certified devices don't communicate with Apple. They establish secure local connections and operate locally. For home devices, this makes good sense to me. It means, however, that HomeKit-certified devices have to be powerful enough to establish secure local connections, which the first couple of generations of IoT devices were not.
I'm willing to wait longer and pay extra to get devices that don't require a third-party corporate intermediary. Anything else seems unreasonable to me.
This isn't a defense, but Nest products worked this way before Google bought them. A lot of smart home stuff works this way, I am guessing because it's easier to setup, manage and troubleshoot.
Unfortunately it makes buying this stuff a pain because you have to research who owns what and what kind of control you have.
I just buyed an air cleaner, and amongst other I looked at the one by Xioami. To operate, requires you to install an app which tracks you locations and sends it to Xiaomi servers. This really troubled me.
I ended up buying one which can be operated without an app, which there seems to be fewer and fewer.
There is definitely some functionality that works when offline. Phones are the primary key for Model 3 and that works fine when unlocking the car in subterranean garages that have no reception.
For Model S and X there is, for Model 3 and Model Y there is a contactless key card that normally sits in the driver's wallet. If the phone key is unavailable, the contactless card is the other option, but unlike the phone it isn't a walk-up-and-use-the-car, it's more like walk-up-and-tag-in.
This is unlikely correct, because in many parking garages there is no Internet connectivity and hence this issue would have been heard of many many years ago.
It's partially correct. The app will still work without internet connectivity if the cert that the app downloaded is still valid. If you close the app and re-open, the app tries to download another cert and would fail without internet connectivity. At that point, you would need to use a backup keycard.
They were supposed to have a Robotaxi network running this year, I wonder how it would have handled it? All cars pull over and wait on further instructions? Return to home base all at once?
Time to add some use cases to the acceptance testing script...