Does this include the "double-park and get out" feature this guy went through? I know it works that way with the key fob, but I'd never heard about this way of activating Summon before, and I'm not sure how a dead man's switch would work in this case.
According to the release notes introducing the feature there's also no way of activating Summon from the key fob or anything other than the mobile app in that firmware version unless you disable dead man's switch operation, which enables the double-press Park feature. Hopefully they've changed it since but it's like Tesla designed it with only two modes - safe but impractical (get out your mobile, unlock it, launch Tesla app, hold down button) and convenient but unsafe (all activation methods enabled, no dead man's switch). See http://electrek.co/2016/02/17/tesla-new-update-autopark-summ... and https://youtu.be/Cg7V0gnW1Us
I don't think using the phone app is particularly impractical. It's usually as convenient to access as the key fob is, and unlocking it and launching the app isn't that hard.
I will admit that the first thing I did when I got the update that defaulted to dead-man's-switch operation was to put it back the way it was. But I was careful to understand the implications of what I was doing, at least.
> I don't think using the phone app is particularly impractical.
In Australia, we don't have the option of disabling the dead man's switch, so we're forced to use the phone app to control Summon.
There are no words in the English language that can begin to describe how frustratingly unreliable it is. Most of the time it simply doesn't work (will say something like "failed to communicate with car"), and even when it does work it tends to lose connection half way and abort. I don't think I've ever managed to complete a Summon without it aborting. This is exacerbated by the fact that the places where I actually need to use Summon tend to be places with poor cell phone reception, e.g. underground car parks.
I can't wait for the key fob-controlled Summon to be enabled in Australia. Summon in its current state is basically useless.
Good points, I wasn't thinking of the communications problems.
It's too bad the phone app can't communicate directly with the car using local radio, like Bluetooth or peer-to-peer WiFi. That would solve this problem and others besides.
Agreed. Unfortunately it seems Tesla requires all control commands for the car to come from their servers through their VPN for security reasons, so the phone can't control the car directly.
