# Summon settings - discussion



## RSSFeed

The story of a Tesla Model S crashing into the back of a trailer while the 'summon' feature of the Autopilot was activated has been making the headlines since last week. Tesla placed the blame with the driver, but now the automaker pushes an update to its fleet to add a step to the Summon feature that could potentially have prevented the accident. more…

Filed under: Cars, Tesla Tagged: Autopilot, crash, summon, Tesla, Tesla Autopilot, tesla autopilot accident, tesla summon, update       
















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## garsh

Glad to see this update. I'm a little miffed at Tesla for taking such a hostile position with respect to a customer. I think they're probably correct about the guy lying about the circumstances, but it does make me a bit wary about dealing with them should anything go wrong with the automation capabilities of the car.

I think the more damning case was the lady who didn't believe that autopilot was going to brake in time to avoid a crash:
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/05/16/second-tesla-model-s-driver-blames-autopilot-failure-for-crash/
She decided to hit the brakes herself, but it was too late. Tesla says that *her act of hitting the brakes "disengaged Autopilot's emergency-braking system"*. That is simply insane. That's the *one* case where an emergency braking system _should_ work, regardless of the driver's actions. Tesla should be taking full responsibility for that accident.


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## derotam

I am thinking there is more to the second crash story than what has been reported. The info that we don't have is the time between when she disengaged the autopilot to when the crash occurred. Maybe she tapped the brake pedal enough to disengage the autopilot but not enough that she perceived it, and she catch the car letting her know that autopilot had been engaged??? she even said that she saw the vehicle in front "came to a halt". I would think a reasonable sane individual, even with autopilot would normally have reacted by at least positioning their foot over the brake pedal. I am sure not much pressure has to be placed on the brake pedal for autopilot to disengage. even in my ICE car I can disengage cruise control with an inperceivable amount of pressure.


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## garsh

derotam said:


> Maybe she tapped the brake pedal enough to disengage the autopilot but not enough that she perceived it


And my argument is that emergency braking should always be available, regardless of driver actions. Otherwise, it's not really working in an emergency situation where the driver isn't braking in time. It's a design flaw, and I hope Tesla changes it to be much harder (and more deliberate) to turn off.


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## Topher

garsh said:


> And my argument is that emergency braking should always be available, regardless of driver actions. Otherwise, it's not really working in an emergency situation where the driver isn't braking in time. It's a design flaw, and I hope Tesla changes it to be much harder (and more deliberate) to turn off.


Not clear at all. I can easily imagine emergency situations where braking would get me killed, what I really want to be doing is accelerating and avoiding the problem. Having the car brake with no way to override it is a bad idea.



> Tesla says that *her act of hitting the brakes "disengaged Autopilot's emergency-braking system"*.


This conflicts with what I read they said. Do you have a verified quote?

Thank you kindly.


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## garsh

I tried tracking it down to a quote, but couldn't find a direct one. The most direct source I could find was ArsTechnica:
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/05...topilot-failed-to-brake-tesla-says-otherwise/
_"Simpson's use of the brake also apparently disengaged the automatic emergency braking system, something that's been standard across Tesla's range since it rolled out firmware version 6.2 last year."_


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## Dan Detweiler

One owner's attempt to explain the crash.






Dan


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## Topher

garsh said:


> _"Simpson's use of the brake also apparently disengaged the automatic emergency braking system, something that's been standard across Tesla's range since it rolled out firmware version 6.2 last year."_


Apparently I have confused myself:
I think Tesla said that Simpson was not in Autopilot mode, having stepped on the brakes sometime previously. Whether that was 1 second before, or 1 minute isn't clear.
When Simpson decided to brake manually, that would override the automatic emergency braking (NOTE: NOT the autopilot). Which would happen much later than autopilot braking.

So, your quote is right, but doesn't address the question of autopilot mode. Sorry for any confusion. I still think that this is correct behavior. But the question of alerting on autopilot mode deactivation needs to be addressed.

Thank you kindly.


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## garsh

Topher said:


> I can easily imagine emergency situations where braking would get me killed


Volvo has emergency braking that is activated whenever the driver quickly pushes the brake pedal hard. In that situation, it will produce full-braking effect, even if the driver is not pushing the brake pedal hard enough themselves. It's a simple system that doesn't require outside sensors.

Nissan's system uses a camera to detect an impending collision and activate whether or not the brake pedal is pushed.

I still think that Tesla having their system deactivate when the brake pedal is pushed is a design mistake.

References:
Volvo Emergency Brake Assist
Nissan Forward Emergency Braking


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## TeslaPod

Completely agree Garsh, deactivating emergency braking when you depress the brake pedal is counter intuitive to how we have been trained to drive our entire lives. The movement to stomp on the brake pedal is reflexural, and a camera based system which is already factory installed by Tesla, should over ride the driver, ensuring safety, and preventing another wave of unwanted publicity.


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## Topher

TeslaPod said:


> Completely agree Garsh, deactivating emergency braking when you depress the brake pedal is counter intuitive to how we have been trained to drive our entire lives. The movement to stomp on the brake pedal is reflexural, and a camera based system which is already factory installed by Tesla, should over ride the driver, ensuring safety, and preventing another wave of unwanted publicity.


How could that possibly be? You have never driven with car initiated braking before, why would you have any training with it. The reflex is to brake hard when you think you are going to hit something, and have no way to avoid it. The system here does nothing to counter that. In fact, there shouldn't even be any way to tell. However, if you decide that you DO want to avoid it, having the car brake instead is going to cause you to be in more danger than either just braking, or just avoiding. A ship can't have two captains in an emergency.

Thank you kindly.


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## MelindaV

the Tesla software does react like @Topher described. That if a hazard is identified, and the driver has already stepped on the brake, it will leave the braking to the driver. If the driver fails to step on the brake, the computer would instead. 
here's the section from the Model X manual:
Automatic Emergency Braking 
The forward looking camera and the radar sensor are designed to determine the distance from any object (vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, or pedestrian) traveling in front of Model X. When a frontal collision is considered unavoidable, Automatic Emergency Braking is designed to automatically apply the brakes to reduce the severity of the impact. 
When Automatic Emergency Braking applies the brakes, the instrument panel displays a visual warning and you'll hear a chime. You may also notice abrupt downward movement of the brake pedal. The brake lights turn on to alert other road users that you are slowing down. 
When Automatic Emergency Braking has reduced the driving speed by 25 mph (40 km/h), the brakes are released. For example, if Automatic Emergency Braking applies braking when driving at 56 mph (90 km/h), it releases the brakes when the speed has been reduced to 31 mph (50 km/h). 
Automatic Emergency Braking operates only when driving between 8 km/h and 140 km/h. 
Automatic Emergency Braking does not apply the brakes, or stops applying the brakes, in situations where you are taking action to avoid a potential collision. For example: 

You turn the steering wheel sharply. 
You press the accelerator pedal. 
You press and release the brake pedal. 
A vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, or pedestrian, is no longer detected ahead.
Automatic Emergency Braking is always enabled when you start Model X. To disable it for your current drive, touch Controls > Settings > Driver Assistance > Automatic Emergency Braking > Disable. ​This is followed by another full column of warnings and disclaimers that the driver is still to be alert and in control of the car at all times.


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## InElonWeTrust

Does anyone know if you can use the summon feature to park backwards in your garage. For visibility of pulling out, I always park backwards in my garage and parking spots. I hope so.


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## RSSFeed

*Tesla's 'Summon' feature tested on Autopilot 2.0 with latest 8.1 software update*










While Tesla's Autopilot is very much a driver assist system and not a 'self-driving car' as it is often reported in the mainstream media, its 'Summon' feature is probably the closest thing to "self-driving" today.

It has been available for first generation Autopilot cars since January 2016, but the new 8.1 update brought the feature to second generation Autopilot cars last week and it is now being tested by owners. more…

Filed under: Uncategorized       
















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## Jay in Richmond VA

InElonWeTrust said:


> Does anyone know if you can use the summon feature to park backwards in your garage. For visibility of pulling out, I always park backwards in my garage and parking spots. I hope so.


Would love to know the answer to this question before deciding where to place the wall charger in my garage.


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## KennethK

I do know that summon can work in forward and reverse. But I would only be guessing if I said it can do it in the garage too for auto parking. YouTube might have your answer.


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## KennethK

Results of my YouTube search...


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## Juergen

Which option do I have to buy to get the summon function? Is the simple autopilot enough or does it have to be autonomous driving?


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## TrevP

EAP (enhanced auto pilot) is required for summon


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## Bokonon

Juergen said:


> Which option do I have to buy to get the summon function? Is the simple autopilot enough or does it have to be autonomous driving?


You only need Enhanced Autopilot to enable the Summon feature for driveways, parking spaces, and other short-range scenarios, where the car is essentially just parking/unparking itself in a specific place of your choosing, as you stand nearby and watch.

From what Tesla has written on their Autopilot page, it sounds like you will need Full Self Driving to tell the car to autonomously *search *for a parking space, and to summon the car back to your current location from anywhere, regardless of where it is currently parked. Of course, in order for that to be possible, Tesla will need to actually add Full Self Driving capabilities to their software first.

Prior to the arrival of FSD, Tesla plans to add the "Smart Summon" feature to EAP, which gives Summon the ability to "navigate more complex environments and parking spaces, maneuvering around objects as necessary to come find you."


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## Juergen

Thank you! I was afraid of it. $5,000 is a lot of money. The question is, do I buy it now or later? For a small surcharge I can buy it later, if I really need it.


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## SoFlaModel3

Juergen said:


> Thank you! I was afraid of it. $5,000 is a lot of money. The question is, do I buy it now or later? For a small surcharge I can buy it later, if I really need it.


I want EAP but I won't get enough value at $5k to justify it when I've already maxed my budget


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## tivoboy

Bokonon said:


> From what Tesla has written on their Autopilot page, it sounds like you will need Full Self Driving to tell the car to autonomously *search *for a parking space, and to summon the car back to your current location from anywhere, regardless of where it is currently parked. Of course, in order for that to be possible, Tesla will need to actually add Full Self Driving capabilities to their software first.


I gotta say, I'm dreading the day that there is FSD for the car to be able to run off and park itself in a parking garage.. Can you imagine the lines this is going to make as these cars SLOWLY (and no doubt it will be much slower than a human) try and figure out where there is a spot, how best to get into the spot, adjusting, etc. garages will probably need to have a lane JUST for self parking cars. I know many garages have their EV CHARGING stations on the ground floor, easy to access, but there will be so many more EV's at the future point when FSD goes live that they won't all be able to park there.


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## SoFlaModel3

tivoboy said:


> I gotta say, I'm dreading the day that there is FSD for the car to be able to run off and park itself in a parking garage.. Can you imagine the lines this is going to make as these cars SLOWLY (and no doubt it will be much slower than a human) try and figure out where there is a spot, how best to get into the spot, adjusting, etc. garages will probably need to have a lane JUST for self parking cars. I know many garages have their EV CHARGING stations on the ground floor, easy to access, but there will be so many more EV's at the future point when FSD goes live that they won't all be able to park there.


You must not spend time in Florida 

Watching people park is a spectator sport here


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## tivoboy

SoFlaModel3 said:


> You must not spend time in Florida
> 
> Watching people park is a spectator sport here


... technically I have lived in Florida and Im very familiar.. but at least in that case I could tell what I was dealing with and find a quick way around or they would waive you by. And, we have a similar (several) different demos out here just not based on age.


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## Inochi

Elon posted on Twitter a comment about self parking summon on the Model 3. He references a video with a model 3 in the garage, he stated no one controlling it remotely. 

Does anyone have this feature? I have the forward/reverse option for summon, but nothing to self park in a garage.


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## SoFlaModel3

Inochi said:


> Elon posted on Twitter a comment about self parking summon on the Model 3. He references a video with a model 3 in the garage, he stated no one controlling it remotely.
> 
> Does anyone have this feature? I have the forward/reverse option for summon, but nothing to self park in a garage.


In that Tweet, I thought he was just stating no one in the car not no one controlling it.


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## tivoboy

Yeah, we're a LONG way from self parking. remote assisted IN and OUT of a garage is about all we can hope for till more of the true FSD becomes available.


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## MelindaV

Link to tweet


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1014812681499365376


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## SoFlaModel3

MelindaV said:


> Link to tweet
> 
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1014812681499365376


Hmmm -- I think he typo'ed for sure well either that or it's just an interpretation.

For instance there is someone controlling it from the app, but the car is maneuvering the wheel and correcting on it's own, so...


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## Kizzy

Isn't there an option to select self-park, exit the vehicle and then let the car complete the parking job?

I swear I've seen an X do that.


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## Ryan Ballantyne

Kizzy said:


> Isn't there an option to select self-park, exit the vehicle and then let the car complete the parking job?
> 
> I swear I've seen an X do that.


The support video about the Model 3's auto park feature instructs the driver to pay close attention and be ready to prevent the vehicle from damaging itself or others. Not sure if that's a legal CYA or a vote of no-confidence on the system's safety. Either way, I'm not sure I would trust it to park without me in the driver's seat.


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## Inochi

Ryan Ballantyne said:


> The support video about the Model 3's auto park feature instructs the driver to pay close attention and be ready to prevent the vehicle from damaging itself or others. Not sure if that's a legal CYA or a vote of no-confidence on the system's safety. Either way, I'm not sure I would trust it to park without me in the driver's seat.


Good point, I'm sure it's a CYA


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## Jaspal

I picked up my car today from Fremont and to my surprise no summon yet  When will I get the update?


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## Inochi

Jaspal said:


> I picked up my car today from Fremont and to my surprise no summon yet  When will I get the update?


Congrats! My summon activated once my autopilot started working... About 15-20 miles on the freeway from Fremont on the way home.


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## Jaspal

Inochi said:


> Congrats! My summon activated once my autopilot started working... About 15-20 miles on the freeway from Fremont on the way home.


Thank you! I love the feel of the car. Blows all my expectations out of the water. My car is still in version 2018.21.19 what about yours?


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## Inochi

Jaspal said:


> Thank you! I love the feel of the car. Blows all my expectations out of the water. My car is still in version 2018.21.19 what about yours?


Oh I wonder why it wasn't updated. Mine came with 2018.24.1, I picked up the car on 6/30. That's why you don't have summon, you need the updated software.


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## Jaspal

Inochi said:


> Oh I wonder why it wasn't updated. Mine came with 2018.24.1, I picked up the car on 6/30. That's why you don't have summon, you need the updated software.


How long do you think it will take to get the update?


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## Inochi

Jaspal said:


> How long do you think it will take to get the update?


Not really sure, I've been reading up on the thread in the software section of this forum and not a lot of Model 3s are getting the update. Though some have been successful going to a service center to get it.


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## jewlick

I picked my car up Tuesday and realized i didn’t have update when i got home (5 hours away from service center). So I emailed the service center and they said they would forward to a tech. Next day I had the update. No idea if they did something or just got lucky getting update but might not hurt to check with your service center.


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## SoFlaModel3

Jaspal said:


> How long do you think it will take to get the update?


If you look in the software sub forum we have threads dedicated to tracking the latest releases and what's included in them.

2018.24.1 is still not on wide release and it can take weeks to months for the entire fleet to get an update.


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## Jaspal

jewlick said:


> I picked my car up Tuesday and realized i didn't have update when i got home (5 hours away from service center). So I emailed the service center and they said they would forward to a tech. Next day I had the update. No idea if they did something or just got lucky getting update but might not hurt to check with your service center.


What email was it? I want to do the same as well!
Thanks!


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## jewlick

Jaspal said:


> What email was it? I want to do the same as well!
> Thanks!


It was on the Tesla website with the contact info for the service center. Sorry can't check it this second but you will find it there.


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## CleanEV

Took delivery on 7/7 and here are my observations using summon. Fortunately the M3 came with latest software update so summon was already there. Tested it after returning home. My setup is to have to keep the button pressed for forward or reverse motion while I get comfortable on what the car does.
- summon starts to start moving the car out of garage and within less than a foot it shuts down
- reinitiate reverse summon and it works for yet another foot
- reintiate it third time and the car is on the driveway

Exact same thing happens when pulling it into the garage.

I have cleaned out all the obstacles and they are at least 18-24 inches away when I am parking manually. Wonder what others have observed.


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## pacific dunes

CleanEV said:


> Took delivery on 7/7 and here are my observations using summon. Fortunately the M3 came with latest software update so summon was already there. Tested it after returning home. My setup is to have to keep the button pressed for forward or reverse motion while I get comfortable on what the car does.
> - summon starts to start moving the car out of garage and within less than a foot it shuts down
> - reinitiate reverse summon and it works for yet another foot
> - reintiate it third time and the car is on the driveway
> 
> Exact same thing happens when pulling it into the garage.
> 
> I have cleaned out all the obstacles and they are at least 18-24 inches away when I am parking manually. Wonder what others have observed.


I'm having no issues reversing out from the garage but having the same issues trying to go forward into the garage with a vehicle on one side and the wall on the other. I haven't tried repeating 3 times yet


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## reallove

Now that "summon" is being rolled out, what are the recommendations for distance and clearance? 
Why would one increase/reduce the distance? And what would best work in terms of clearance?


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## 3V Pilot

reallove said:


> Now that "summon" is being rolled out, what are the recommendations for distance and clearance?
> Why would one increase/reduce the distance? And what would best work in terms of clearance?


This will all depend on personal preferences and situations. How tight is the space you want to park in and what is your comfort level with the car driving itself close to other objects. I have the distance set at the max of 40 feet and the clearance set at the minimum of 8 inches. I also have the side clearance set to "Tight". So, I guess you can say I trust the car as much as possible and watch it to make sure.

To increase/reduce the distance it's all controlled on the screen in settings, not from the app.


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## reallove

Would love to be able to control the "tightness" from the app, in case someone parks really close to you - closer than you've anticipated someone's jerkiness


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## Fishn4life

Did auto pilot need to be purchased for this to work? I received the update and “summon” features show on my app but still not sure what I have access to.


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## GDN

Correct, I believe Summon only works with EAP and either 24.1 or 24.7 software.


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## Jaspal

Fishn4life said:


> Did auto pilot need to be purchased for this to work? I received the update and "summon" features show on my app but still not sure what I have access to.


Yes.


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## byee

Been getting this for the last two days. Previously everything was working and I was able to pull the car in and out of my garage but now I get this error message and also noticed Homelink stopped working. Going to try and delete my Homelink settings and start over to see if that helps but wondered if anyone else experienced this.


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## GDN

If Homelink was working, you might just try the two button reboot before having to set up Homelink again. There have been reports of a reboot fixing a non working Homelink issue.


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## Rye3

Summon will not work for me when my phone and car are connected to WiFi. If I disable WiFi on my phone summon will immediately work.


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## Derik

Summon doesn't work for me either.. No matter what I do I can't get it to work. I look all over the app and there just isn't anything I can do.

But then again I'm still on 21.9


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## byee

GDN said:


> If Homelink was working, you might just try the two button reboot before having to set up Homelink again. There have been reports of a reboot fixing a non working Homelink issue.


That fixed Homelink, thanks for the tip!

Trying to get Summon working again, tried disabling wifi on my phone but still no luck...


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## RIP_OPEC

*Update: After further testing, I realized I'm in an awkward situation where Summon will always abort entering the garage if it's set to "standard", but when leaving the garage, it will sometimes improperly back up towards another car on the driveway and abort as well, if it's set to "Tight". I think it's funny that my Model 3 always tries to hit non-Tesla cars when Summon is reversing, but if it's another Tesla, it always backs up perfectly, almost as if it is sentient.*

----

Before I mastered Summon, I changed the mode to "Tight", falsely believing my garage was narrow. However, that setting is really for super narrow garages where you can't store decent size crates on each side.

So here's my warning from experience: Using the "Tight" summon setting when it is unnecessary may cause the Model 3 to swerve towards a parked vehicle on your driveway even if there is a ton of space on the other side, as it is confused*.* (It came within an inch or two of hitting the other car.)

I tested this twice to ensure it wasn't a fluke, and it once again came alarmingly close to the other car on the right side of the driveway. After switching to "Standard" it was able to perfectly back out, leaving plenty of space between the other car.


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## rareohs

Just got car back today after the drive unit died (!) and got replaced. While in shop got updated firmware, now on 26.3 be4b11e.... first time I had summon!

But it works for ****. Homelink at least. No matter what I do, when pulling *into* garage (nose first) it will work perfectly, parks itself and then closes door. 

When doing the opposite, however, it doesn’t open the door, it just starts backing out and I have to manually stop to keep it from ramming the garage door....

Tried the 2 button reboot and taking both car and phone off WiFi, no luck...

Any ideas?


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## SoFlaModel3

At first Summon feels like a novelty. I do actually use it most days to get the car out of the garage and on to the driveway to give the kids more room to get into the car without door dings, but it's unecessary and thus still a novelty.

That is until this happened this evening and takes owning a Tesla to another level...


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## Derik

Would love to try it out, but still on 21.9!

I’ve got to move my car out of the garage and my moms into my spot on these crazy hot days when she comes over to watch my kid while I go to work. Summon would allow me to back out my car and just move her car. Been waiting to try it... but no updates for me so far.


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## LUXMAN

SoFlaModel3 said:


> At first Summon feels like a novelty. I do actually use it most days to get the car out of the garage and on to the driveway to give the kids more room to get into the car without door dings, but it's unecessary and thus still a novelty.
> 
> That is until this happened this evening and takes owning a Tesla to another level...


Love it. I find it interesting how it did that big correction when it was parking the first time half way through


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## SoFlaModel3

LUXMAN said:


> Love it. I find it interesting how it did that big correction when it was parking the first time half way through


Yeah I thought that was interesting as well. It's why I paused and walked around the car to make sure everything was ok. I guess the deeper disrupted the sensors.


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## Tesla Newbie

This is the first practical example of Summon I’ve seen. I’ve been struggling to understand how I’d use the feature. My space at the gym does flood when it rains.

Does Summon only work in cases like this; ie when a space is clearly marked and the car is moving straight ahead or back? Or will it also work if the car is parallel parked? (Sorry, I’m sure this has already been asked and answered, but I can’t find a general summon thread.)


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## GDN

For the most part also think Summon is almost a novelty, but last weekend, went to Costco and parked about as far away as we could from everybody. Backed in to a spot with a wall behind us, wasn't thinking. I drive a pickup most days and have for years backed in to almost 95% of all parking spots, it's just easier. To say the least, out of Costco with a buggy full and not enough room to get in to the trunk. Grabbed the phone, 10 seconds later the car was about 5' forward and the trunk loaded up. Summon could not have been more perfect and saved me from jumping in the car and the buggy rolling away somewhere. 

Could I have gotten away without it? Yep. Would it have been near as much fun? Nope. I'll find more ways to have to get to use it, but the puddle of water may become one of the most useful.


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## SoFlaModel3

Tesla Newbie said:


> This is the first practical example of Summon I've seen. I've been struggling to understand how I'd use the feature. My space at the gym does flood when it rains.
> 
> Does Summon only work in cases like this; ie when a space is clearly marked and the car is moving straight ahead or back? Or will it also work if the car is parallel parked? (Sorry, I'm sure this has already been asked and answered, but I can't find a general summon thread.)


The car will only go in a straight line (with minor adjustments), but you can use it in any case unless the car detects a hazard.


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## LUXMAN

Tesla Newbie said:


> This is the first practical example of Summon I've seen. I've been struggling to understand how I'd use the feature. My space at the gym does flood when it rains.
> 
> Does Summon only work in cases like this; ie when a space is clearly marked and the car is moving straight ahead or back? Or will it also work if the car is parallel parked? (Sorry, I'm sure this has already been asked and answered, but I can't find a general summon thread.)


WAIT.....you have your own space at the gym? LOL! You the man


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## Tesla Newbie

LUXMAN said:


> WAIT.....you have your own space at the gym? LOL! You the man


Ha! Let me reword that. "The one space I like to use because the location and distance from other cars reduces the chances of parking lot dings."


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## Love

Tesla Newbie said:


> Ha! Let me reword that. "The one space I like to use because the location and distance from other cars reduces the chances of parking lot dings."


Oh you mean the normal Tesla spots. Gotcha


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## LUXMAN

Tesla Newbie said:


> Ha! Let me reword that. "The one space I like to use because the location and distance from other cars reduces the chances of parking lot dings."


I hear that! 

I actually still take my Leaf (that my son now drives) to the gym since I don't wanna chance it. But even that car gets parked in a special spot or far away.


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## John

Tesla Newbie said:


> This is the first practical example of Summon I've seen. I've been struggling to understand how I'd use the feature. My space at the gym does flood when it rains.
> 
> Does Summon only work in cases like this; ie when a space is clearly marked and the car is moving straight ahead or back? Or will it also work if the car is parallel parked? (Sorry, I'm sure this has already been asked and answered, but I can't find a general summon thread.)


If you have a car in your driveway and you stop your Model 3 in the road pointed so that it half overlaps the car in the driveway, when you summon it forward it will steer around the car in front of it. But not in reverse. Summon doesn't (yet) steer around obstacles in reverse.So one could imagine-at least in theory-someone summoning forward into a curvy spot and then being unable to summon it back straight out.


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## John

After writing the above my boys and I went out for pizza. After I parked and was walking away, I noticed that I was parallel parked a little close to the car behind me, who was also close the car behind them. I noticed I had a few feet in front of me I could use. I whipped out my phone, summoned my car forward a few feet, then walked into the restaurant.

As opposed to when you are in the driver's seat, when you are standing on the sidewalk you can see EXACTLY how much space you have to park in front of and behind your car.


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## smak

I had a model S rental 4 months ago, and I feel it had something else for this situation, where you'd pull half way in, put it in park, hit a button (auto park), and then it would do the rest for you, when you closed the door.

Is that right?


----------



## John

smak said:


> I had a model S rental 4 months ago, and I feel it had something else for this situation, where you'd pull half way in, put it in park, hit a button (auto park), and then it would do the rest for you, when you closed the door.
> 
> Is that right?


Eesh. 
Too soon after losing my favorite character in the new Star Trek movies...


----------



## Twiglett

This weekend I parked under a tree for shade and struggled for ages keeping the low beaches out of the way gettin out and back in.
Only remembered summon AFTER I'd managed to get in without trapping bits of twig in the windows


----------



## Dr. J

Twiglett said:


> I'd managed to get in without trapping bits of twig in the windows


twigletts?


----------



## John

We park three cars side by side in our driveway. On garbage night—which happens to be tonight—there’s never room to roll our trash cans between the cars to the curb for pickup.

This afternoon instead of pulling into my center spot, I left it in the street, rolled the cans out, then summoned it forward into its spot.

Not really a *reason* to use summon, but a damn solid excuse, if I do say so.


----------



## Dr. J

John said:


> We park three cars side by side in our driveway. On garbage night-which happens to be tonight-there's never room to roll our trash cans between the cars to the curb for pickup.
> 
> This afternoon instead of pulling into my center spot, I left it in the street, rolled the cans out, then summoned it forward into its spot.
> 
> Not really a *reason* to use summon, but a damn solid excuse, if I do say so.


A way to summon the garbage cans to and from the street would be GREAT!


----------



## raptor

I miss the my 360" cameras in my LEAF, since it's a tight fit in my garage. But Summon has made up for this big time, especially since this is a new vehicle, and I'm not comfortable parking it in tight spots yet.

It's also interesting how you can steer the car a little by knowing where you can/can't walk in front of the ultrasonics, without triggering a summon abort.


----------



## Jayviator

Exactly how close are you letting it get to the garage?
I noticed that my 3 would get close, stop, then use homelink to open the door. continue out.
First thing you need to do - as the 3 is moving backwards, look at the screen and confirm if the sensors are detecting the door. Also your app should indicate that it is operating homelink.
Alternatively - you can grab a big cardboard box, open the garage door, and place the box a few feet behind the bumper. Activate summon and see how it reacts to the box. It should stop before hitting the box, and then activate the garage door. After a few seconds the car should continue out after you've move the box.
**Make sure you or the box is in the way of the garage safety beam so the door doesn't come down. You should just get the garage door light flashes that indicate the signal was received but something was blocking the path. THEN move the box completely so the car will continue out.


----------



## scaots

I backed it out of the garage to get the mower out and then back in so it's not in the way or any danger while cutting along the driveway. 

Also let my daughter "drive" it. She loved it (and is old enough to not touch anything that she shouldn't). Sent the video to wife who hadn't seen summon yet. 

After I pulled it out and in the garage a couple times, it was getting way too close to the other car (single door so they are close already). I actually had to get into the car to park it!


----------



## woodisgood

My understanding is that Summon currently only works on relatively level ground. Is this true?

I've been too chicken to try to use Summon to pull into and out of our narrow garage, but this is a feature that would be really welcome if it is workable. Our driveway is only a few feet longer than the M3 (yay urban living) and slopes upward. So the M3 would be driving up this slope into the garage and reversing downhill coming out. The part that makes me scared to just try it is that we live on a very busy street, so if the car were to roll backwards for some reason (I've read reports of rolling during Summon operations) it would quickly cross the sidewalk and be in the street, likely causing death and destruction.

Am I correct that this is a scenario which Summon would not currently be able to handle and even more so, be dangerous? And beyond that, do you think Summon will eventually be able to handle this use case?


----------



## zjz

i tried using summon on a hill and it just says that summon is unavailable when you press the forward/reverse button


----------



## Derik

I tried it over the weekend from my driveway. It isn't flat by any means and it worked on that. I did get a couple failed attempts or it started then instantly aborted. I just tried again and it worked going up the driveway.

Now I can't figure out how to keep it to hug one wall when there isn't a 2nd car in the garage. But then again, that's not really the point of summon.


----------



## pacific dunes

i have the same issue going into my garage. The garage is flat, the driveway has a slight angle up. Summons works fine once the front wheels are in the garage.


----------



## ER1C8

I use summon to pull in and out of my garage which is so narrow that it is difficult to get out of the car once it is parked in there. It does a better job at parking in the garage then I do . I also have a sloped driveway but it is a gentle slop so I am not worried about rolling. My car always seems to be very cautious and in contorol when using summon. Now if I could get the phone to connect reliably that would be wonderful.


----------



## L. David Roper

I set up Summons with update 26.3, but cannot get Summons to connect the Android Tesla app to my TM3LR. I am not including Homelink in the setup.


----------



## Silver Streak 3

woodisgood said:


> My understanding is that Summon currently only works on relatively level ground. Is this true?
> 
> I've been too chicken to try to use Summon to pull into and out of our narrow garage, but this is a feature that would be really welcome if it is workable. Our driveway is only a few feet longer than the M3 (yay urban living) and slopes upward. So the M3 would be driving up this slope into the garage and reversing downhill coming out. The part that makes me scared to just try it is that we live on a very busy street, so if the car were to roll backwards for some reason (I've read reports of rolling during Summon operations) it would quickly cross the sidewalk and be in the street, likely causing death and destruction.
> 
> Am I correct that this is a scenario which Summon would not currently be able to handle and even more so, be dangerous? And beyond that, do you think Summon will eventually be able to handle this use case?


My driveway is a 10% grade down to the street. I summon out of garage and down that grade. It stops at my setting of 28 feet. Then I summon up the drive into the garage and it stops 20" from front of garage, another setting.


----------



## FF35

Why does summon and turning on the AC require LTE or WiFi? I’m in an area where the car can not get LTE (my Verizon service on the phone works perfectly) and The only thing I can do is lock and unlock the car with my phone.

The Bolt, which uses Bluetooth, could still use all of the functions whether or not the Bolt has WiFi or LTE.

What gives?


----------



## Ed Woodrick

The app uses LTE for to control anything that you control in the app. Just because it does.


----------



## FF35

Two things.

The app doesn’t need LTE to control everything as stated in the initial post. It does exclusively use Bluetooth for the locks, trunk and frunk if you’re within range.

The fact that Tesla excludes the use of AC and summon from using Bluetooth exclusively is really strange. Why would the car need LTE to turn on the AC when I’m 20 feet away is a bit strange.

Just “because” isn’t a good reason. They should change it.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

Just because is an answer that you should get used to. There is a lot of things that people are wanting, some are getting delivered, but I suspect that many are in queue behind the FSD features. There's a LOT of things that the car stops doing when it doesn't have cellular service. 
Summon is a brand new feature, only been available for weeks. For me, summon and parking are so slow, that they are rarely useful, most demo items.


----------



## FF35

Seems like a bug to me.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

Absolutely in no case would this be considered a bug. A bug is something that is working in manner inconsistent for how it was designed. At this point, it is worked that way that it is designed. The design may change in the future, as so many pieces of the car are expected to.


----------



## garsh

FF35 said:


> The fact that Tesla excludes the use of AC and summon from using Bluetooth exclusively is really strange. Why would the car need LTE to turn on the AC when I'm 20 feet away is a bit strange.
> 
> Just "because" isn't a good reason.


Well, how about: because the S & X didn't have bluetooth?

Not saying they shouldn't change it. Just providing a possible "why".


----------



## SoFlaModel3

FF35 said:


> Seems like a bug to me.


It's not a bug. Perhaps it's just not developed all the way (other priorities) or there is an underlying reason. Best to submit an enhancement request and see where it goes!


----------



## FF35

SoFlaModel3 said:


> It's not a bug. Perhaps it's just not developed all the way (other priorities) or there is an underlying reason. Best to submit an enhancement request and see where it goes!


The battery level requires LTE as well. Not being able to see the battery level via Bluetooth is strange too. It's hard to imagine this was purposely done by Tesla.


----------



## Rich M

FF35 said:


> the car can not get LTE


If you want to dm me an intersection near you I can see if something can be done about the LTE situation.


----------



## FF35

Rich M said:


> If you want to dm me an intersection near you I can see if something can be done about the LTE situation.


I'm camping at Lake George.

I think this has less to do with LTE and more to do with Bluetooth and why certain things don't work without LTE. It's not a huge deal but was trying to show some friends summon and it won't work here.

Don't understand why Tesla will only allow the locks, trunk and frunk to work but nothing else, including something simple like the battery level. Is there a good explanation?


----------



## garsh

FF35 said:


> Is there a good explanation?


Momentum, lack of foresight, limited engineering time and too many other things to do.

The original Model S cars didn't have bluetooth, so mobile network was the only way to accomplish those things.

You should suggest such a change to them!

Tesla starts shipping new key fob with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)


----------



## FF35

I saw the keyfob report yesterday. I was excited to see that report.

How do you submit a request?


----------



## garsh

FF35 said:


> I saw the keyfob report yesterday. I was excited to see that report.


Actually, the article I linked was from 2016. That's when Tesla switched the S/X keyfob from radio frequency to bluetooth. I was just providing proof that the old S/X vehicles didn't have bluetooth at all.


> How do you submit a request?


I believe there's a way to do it from inside the vehicle. @SoFlaModel3 ?


----------



## SoFlaModel3

garsh said:


> Actually, the article I linked was from 2016. That's when Tesla switched the S/X keyfob from radio frequency to bluetooth. I was just providing proof that the old S/X vehicles didn't have bluetooth at all.
> I believe there's a way to do it from inside the vehicle. @SoFlaModel3 ?


Inside the car you can only do a "bug report" using the voice control. I think an enhancement could be submitted that way as well.

I would email [email protected] as well though.


----------



## Rich M

FF35 said:


> I'm camping at Lake George.


Lake George is huge and covered by 6 cell sites, so it depends where on the lake you are.



FF35 said:


> Don't understand why Tesla will only allow the locks, trunk and frunk to work but nothing else, including something simple like the battery level. Is there a good explanation?


It looks like the bluetooth utilization is 1 way only, phone to car. Is anything reported from the car back to the phone when the only connection is BT?


----------



## FF35

Rich M said:


> Lake George is huge and covered by 6 cell sites, so it depends where on the lake you are.
> 
> It looks like the bluetooth utilization is 1 way only, phone to car. Is anything reported from the car back to the phone when the only connection is BT?


The app can see the status of the locks so it can definitely do 2 way via Bluetooth. For whatever reason the other functions are excluded.

I'm at Rogers Rock campground.


----------



## L. David Roper

I had to turn Bluetooth off to get Summons to work.


----------



## Rich M

Gotcha. If you still want to try summon, best shot is to get as east as you can in the parking lot in the pink box, with the car facing south.
It's just happenstance that the closest ATT site is on the same side of the lake as Rogers Rock, but blocked by terrain and foliage, so the site that serves Rogers rock is actually 10mi south on Huletts landing with an unobstructed, albeit weak shot up the lake. Verizon is on the other side with a better viewshed.


----------



## tipton

I like to use summon to back out of the garage, but I'm having problems each time i try it. right where the garage closes there is a small lip or bump that the car has to go over. this lip is essentially where the garage seals so that no water can come in from the pavement. its about a 3 inch raise or so. 

what keeps happening is the car first stops at that bump backing up. then i tell it to keep going and the back wheels get out of the garage, but no matter how many times i try the front wheels won't go over that small lip.

other than this little lip the driveway is flat. 

anyone else have similar problems?


----------



## Rupesh

Its a hit or miss with summons on my galaxy s7 phone. When it connects it backs out of the garage fine but most often it cannot push it over the 2 inch lip into the garage. It did a couple of times but most of the time it tries and then quites. I am going to try and see if holding down the forward button will make it in the garage. I have no other issues with homelink. It opens and closes just fine.

I have a two car garage with one door. We only park the tesla in it in the middle. The settings on the summons are set to defaults. Am wondering if I change the narrow space to normal will it make it into the garage since it doesnt have to deal with other car parked in the garage? Will post results tonight..


----------



## tipton

ok so after some research into the garage lip problem it seems quite widespread. This YouTube video helped fix the problem for me:






I spent around $14 and it took two small door molding boards but this works almost every time now.


----------



## MelindaV

the manual does specify it only works on flat pavement, crossing a garage slab difference of no more than 1".


----------



## Rupesh

Thanks for the video. After playing with it for a while, it now seems like it's making over the lip into the garage. I will try the molding approach if I have problems with it. Thanks.


----------



## NOGA$4ME

Is it just me (or my software) or is summon really as bad as it is for me? (I'm at 26.3 BTW...back level, but not tremendously so).

Summon works extremely unreliably for me. I'll go to the app, go to summon, wait for it to connect, and most of the times it just sits there trying to connect to the car (I'm standing right next to it BTW). Back out of summon, back in. Same thing. Kill the Tesla app, get back in, go to Summon again, okay, now it connects to the car and I have the FORWARD and REVERSE. Click the appropriate button. Parking brake comes off, lights blink, STOP button appears. Car doesn't move. And then it says something along the lines of disconnected from the vehicle and the RECONNECT button appears. Click RECONNECT, wait for the car to reconnect...sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. When it does I get FORWARD and REVERSE again. Click the appropriate one. Car disconnected and RECONNECT button appears again. Eventually if I am very persistent I can get it to work eventually after several minutes, but seriously, at that point, what's the point?

And that's just trying to get it to work at all. I've noticed that when I am outside my garage and my wife's car is in the garage I have to have the Tesla lined up PERFECTLY or it chickens out once I do get it to actually start backing in the garage. If I'm aimed even slightly off center towards her car, the Model 3 refuses to go more than a couple of inches. This kind of defeats the main reason I want to use summon, which is to back the car into the garage so I can charge it (my charging cable is not quite long enough to reach the front of the garage--charging station is located on the interior wall).

I am very disappointed with the operation of summon, particularly getting the app to consistently connect to the car quickly and robustly. Is anyone else having as much difficulty as me? Is there a particular side of the car (or front or back) that I need to be standing? Any other advice?


----------



## iChris93

This has been my experience mostly too. Though when it finally connects, it normally works okay. I think it worked better when I first got the car, than on 26.3.


----------



## 3V Pilot

I believe the summon feature communicates with the car over the LTE connection. I'd guess it has to have a bluetooth connection to the car as well so it knows you are there but standing close should not make a difference. How strong is the LTE at your house and have you tried it in other locations? I have trouble with it in some places but not in others. I also find that if I wake the car up first by pulling a door open then closing it that it helps the app to connect quicker. Sometimes it works perfect for me, other times more like what you describe above. Would be great if it were more reliable.


----------



## Bernard

NOGA$4ME said:


> Is it just me (or my software) or is summon really as bad as it is for me? (I'm at 26.3 BTW...back level, but not tremendously so).
> 
> Summon works extremely unreliably for me. I'll go to the app, go to summon, wait for it to connect, and most of the times it just sits there trying to connect to the car (I'm standing right next to it BTW). Back out of summon, back in. Same thing. Kill the Tesla app, get back in, go to Summon again, okay, now it connects to the car and I have the FORWARD and REVERSE. Click the appropriate button. Parking brake comes off, lights blink, STOP button appears. Car doesn't move. And then it says something along the lines of disconnected from the vehicle and the RECONNECT button appears. Click RECONNECT, wait for the car to reconnect...sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. When it does I get FORWARD and REVERSE again. Click the appropriate one. Car disconnected and RECONNECT button appears again. Eventually if I am very persistent I can get it to work eventually after several minutes, but seriously, at that point, what's the point?
> 
> And that's just trying to get it to work at all. I've noticed that when I am outside my garage and my wife's car is in the garage I have to have the Tesla lined up PERFECTLY or it chickens out once I do get it to actually start backing in the garage. If I'm aimed even slightly off center towards her car, the Model 3 refuses to go more than a couple of inches. This kind of defeats the main reason I want to use summon, which is to back the car into the garage so I can charge it (my charging cable is not quite long enough to reach the front of the garage--charging station is located on the interior wall).
> 
> I am very disappointed with the operation of summon, particularly getting the app to consistently connect to the car quickly and robustly. Is anyone else having as much difficulty as me? Is there a particular side of the car (or front or back) that I need to be standing? Any other advice?


Same, well, actually worse, here. Best duration so far between reconnect and disconnect is under one second, no change to the screen, nothing. That's standing next to the front door of the car -- just back-and-forth reconnect-disconnect-reconnect-disconnect... Have not seen the command screen so far. (I am on 26.3 as well.)
Do we know what it uses for connection? LTE? Wifi? Bluetooth? if more than one of these is possible, in which order does it try them?


----------



## Bernard

SoFlaModel3 said:


> It's not a bug. Perhaps it's just not developed all the way (other priorities) or there is an underlying reason. Best to submit an enhancement request and see where it goes!


I agree it's not a bug -- but in a sense it's worse: it's a design flaw. I assume it's because all Tesla engineers and designers are urban types, who never suffer from spotty LTE coverage ;-) That so many functions in the car depend on non-stop LTE connectivity I think supports that interpretation.
Fortunately, it's all software and thus easily fixable -- we just need the Tesla engineers to realize that some of their customers live in the boondocks ;-)
(Some of the software already exists: in Google maps, you can download the maps for your trip, so that you can still use the maps offline -- the navigation system should offer that option, but even better, should automatically buffer the next 15-20miles without having to be asked and seamlessly switch between the buffered version and the real-time version as needed.)


----------



## inspron

Sometimes I could connect to the car and ready for summoning in under 10 seconds. 

In the morning, 100% of the time it takes 5 minutes + to wait for summon be ready for use. Tried disabling wifi to see if it's more reliable on LTE only but that didn't help. Still can't figure it out. 

Also on 26.3


----------



## aronth5

inspron said:


> Sometimes I could connect to the car and ready for summoning in under 10 seconds.
> 
> In the morning, 100% of the time it takes 5 minutes + to wait for summon be ready for use. Tried disabling wifi to see if it's more reliable on LTE only but that didn't help. Still can't figure it out.
> 
> Also on 26.3


I have the same behavior and also on 26.3


----------



## ng0

Wow. I'm so relieved that I'm not the only one this is happening to. I figured it was my phone or something but I get the exact same issues and I'm on version 28.1. I feel like when I first got summon mode it connected very consistently but now it's not even usable.


----------



## hayesb2

I have the exact same problems. My M3 is on 28.2 and 50% of the time I can't get it to connect. There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason as to why it works one time and not another time.

When it does work, even then its disappointing. Like you said it has to be lined up EXACTLY perfect for it to park into my garage, and even then a few times out of the blue it turned the wheels and started heading straight for my kids power wheel toys even though the path to the parking spot in the garage was open and it was aligned, all it had to do was literally go straight.

I've about given up on Summon which is unfortunate because my garage is tight and the ability to summon would have been very convenient.


----------



## dannyskim

NOGA$4ME said:


> Is it just me (or my software) or is summon really as bad as it is for me? (I'm at 26.3 BTW...back level, but not tremendously so).
> 
> Summon works extremely unreliably for me. I'll go to the app, go to summon, wait for it to connect, and most of the times it just sits there trying to connect to the car (I'm standing right next to it BTW). Back out of summon, back in. Same thing. Kill the Tesla app, get back in, go to Summon again, okay, now it connects to the car and I have the FORWARD and REVERSE. Click the appropriate button. Parking brake comes off, lights blink, STOP button appears. Car doesn't move. And then it says something along the lines of disconnected from the vehicle and the RECONNECT button appears. Click RECONNECT, wait for the car to reconnect...sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. When it does I get FORWARD and REVERSE again. Click the appropriate one. Car disconnected and RECONNECT button appears again. Eventually if I am very persistent I can get it to work eventually after several minutes, but seriously, at that point, what's the point?
> 
> And that's just trying to get it to work at all. I've noticed that when I am outside my garage and my wife's car is in the garage I have to have the Tesla lined up PERFECTLY or it chickf yens out once I do get it to actually start backing in the garage. If I'm aimed even slightly off center towards her car, the Model 3 refuses to go more than a couple of inches. This kind of defeats the main reason I want to use summon, which is t io back the car into the garage so I can charge it (my charging cable is not quite long enough to reach the front of the garage--charging station is located on the interior wall).
> 
> I am very disappointed with the operation of summon, particularly getting the app to consistently connect to the car quickly and robustly. Is anyone else having as much difficulty as me? Is there a particular side of the car (or front or back) that I need to be standing? Any other advice?


Pretty much same experience on my end as well. It's virtually useless to me at this point in time.
The only place where I have found it useful was when I parked at a charging port and wasn't close enough, so I used summon to back the car up a bit more rather than getting in.

BTW, if you go into the car and go to Driving -> Autopilot -> Customize Summon you'll be able to set:

Bumper Clearance down to 8"
Summon Distance up to 40ft
Side Clearance
Require Continuous Press
Use Auto Homelink


----------



## Dangermouse

Similar for me.

I rarely use it for it's function (usually only to get out of a tight parking space); more often I use it as a parlor trick for folks. That's actually worse IMO...you don't want your "hey check this out" moment to fail and look buggy, it only hurts the perception of the car.


----------



## PNWmisty

Yes, it's odd because my phone works perfectly 100% of the time as a key but when using summon I only have a slightly better than 50% success on the first try. It often just hangs there saying "connecting" but eventually gives up. This is in an area with decent cell reception. Of course the "phone as key" doesn't require any network connection so maybe it's not too surprising I'm only having problems with the cellular 

The only sense I can make of this is that, due to the greater consequences of a dropped connection, the app won't connect and allow functionality unless it tests the network latency and signal strength and finds it robust. 

The other issue I've identified is that when a successful summon command has been issued, and I get in the car to drive, the mirrors are still folded and I must manually enter a menu command to unfold them. My self-folding mirrors are set to never fold (except on my wife's driver profile).


----------



## JWM3

I don't have connection problem but the summon isn't very useful.
I have 3 car garage with 2 garage doors. I park model 3 in the one car part for the garage. I can not summon the car to drive inside of garage, even though there is enough space.


----------



## PNWmisty

JWM3 said:


> I don't have connection problem but the summon isn't very useful.
> I have 3 car garage with 2 garage doors. I park model 3 in the one car part for the garage. I can not summon the car to drive inside of garage, even though there is enough space.


Did you try adjusting the default summon clearance parameters in your phone app from the default distances to smaller distances?


----------



## aronth5

PNWmisty said:


> The other issue I've identified is that when a successful summon command has been issued, and I get in the car to drive, the mirrors are still folded and I must manually enter a menu command to unfold them. My self-folding mirrors are set to never fold (except on my wife's driver profile).


I have the same mirror settings and they fold when I initiate summon and stay folded until I reach a certain speed. The mirrors then unfold automatically. I haven't tried to determine the exact speed yet but somewhere between 15-20mph.


----------



## PNWmisty

EDH said:


> I have the same mirror settings and they fold when I initiate summon and stay folded until I reach a certain speed. The mirrors then unfold automatically. I haven't tried to determine the exact speed yet but somewhere between 15-20mph.


That's helpful, thank-you! I think I have always folded them out manually before I reached 15 or 20 mph. Next time I'll wait to see if they unfold themselves. If that's the way it works, I can (maybe) see why they did it (to prevent them folding out when it was still too narrow?) but it does seem (to me at least) like they should unfold automatically when the car is manually put in drive.


----------



## PNWmisty

FF35 said:


> The fact that Tesla excludes the use of AC and summon from using Bluetooth exclusively is really strange. Why would the car need LTE to turn on the AC when I'm 20 feet away is a bit strange.


I agree with you on something as simple as turning on the A/C but when it comes to summoning, I totally understand why they might not want to use Bluetooth. Because moving a car is serious enough business that you want to exclude the possibility that it could drive itself out of Bluetooth range considering that Bluetooth is a very short range technology. And I think thats why summon isn't always reliable, even with cell service one would think was good enough. Because it takes a little while to determine if the cell signal is steady and reliable enough to count on.


----------



## RichEV

PNWmisty said:


> ... it does seem (to me at least) like they should unfold automatically when the car is manually put in drive.


I, for one, need them to stay folded until I get past the narrow carport support posts.


----------



## LUXMAN

Dr. J said:


> A way to summon the garbage cans to and from the street would be GREAT!


There is....they are called TEENAGERS


----------



## suprteck

Used summons to park in this spot at work, no room to open the doors on both sides also no chance or getting door dings!


----------



## Dr. J

suprteck said:


> Used summons to park in this spot at work, no room to open the doors on both sides also no chance or getting door dings!
> View attachment 13685


Did Summon bring the car back out of the spot?


----------



## suprteck

yes worked great


----------



## Silver Streak 3

suprteck said:


> Used summons to park in this spot at work, no room to open the doors on both sides also no chance or getting door dings!
> View attachment 13685


SWEET!


----------



## Bokonon

Just tried it on my sloped driveway for kicks. The driveway slopes downward from street level at an even ~12% grade. 

With the car facing uphill, summoning in reverse (downhill) consistently works without issue. Summoning forward (uphill) moves the car forward about 2-3 inches before aborting with the message "Summon is stopping". 

So, based on the other observations made in this thread, it would seem that the maximum slope that Summon can handle is somewhere around 10%....?


----------



## ateslik

Yesterday was not a good day. You may have seen images like this:










or this:










or even this, and thought that your car can detect obstacles and avoid them.










These features are not used by summon.



















I'm embarrassed this happened. I feel stupid. But I think it's important to share my experience so that it doesn't happen to anyone else.

I park my car in a tight carport. When my car is in there I have less than a foot on either side of the car. The carport angles out at the end to allow the driver to exit the vehicle. About three weeks ago I got summon in an update, so I was happy to use it because it meant now my car hood would not poke out in the sun and I could exit in the driveway and just summon my car in and out as needed.










Yesterday I was standing behind the car to summon it out as normal. But this time it was later in the day than usual because it was a Saturday. This time the sun was cutting harshly across the driveway. I pushed the forward button and heard the whirr of the drive system engage. Since I was standing behind the car I didn't see the front wheel turn sharply though. And then the car lurched forward in a sharp turn directly into the wall.










the car travelled mabye two feet. I let off the forward button immediately, but it was too late.










I don't know why it decided to turn today when on other days it went straight, but this is definitely a problem. I went to the dealership and reported it yesterday morning, but I'm not sure the girl there knew how to escalate this as an issue. I got a rough quote from the Tesla official body shop in my area. They will sand the panels, get the dents out or cover them - the car is aluminum so the process is different than steel they said, and then paint it. They say it will look like new when they are done, and it will be about $2000. I'm pretty unhappy about that.

I'm more disturbed by the fact that this incredibly advanced car, which has a self driving system that is supposed to keep you safe at 55 Mph cannot avoid a stationary object when traveling at 1 Mph. I would have thought that given all the sensors, the many many sensors, there would be no way something like this could happen. Obstacle avoidance is literally one of the very first things taught in robotics, and yet this car will readily impact a stationary object without hesitation.

So please be careful out there. Summon does not use the sensors.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

Ahhh... I’m so sorry to see that


----------



## GDN

Ouch - not pretty. Very sorry to see. Definitely in Beta and unfortunately I don't think uses the cameras yet. In fact, nothing is using the side cameras yet on the 3 I don't believe. Is is way too late to see this, yes, but we should only be hours or days from the next BETA software, version 9, which should start to include more of cameras in the car.


----------



## agastya

Sorry to see this happen.

We have small 1-2" lip at the entrance of the garage, and have seen the steering try to rotate (maybe try to get traction) almost everytime the car has been pulled forward into the garage, even at times when there is enough space on both sides. 

The S never used to get over the lip - it used to keep trying and then just stop there at the lip. While the model 3 does, the way it gets over it doesn't truly inspire confidence. 

Wish summon was just moving the car in front/reverse in straight lines.


----------



## ateslik

I don't appreciate that the mods changed the title of this thread from "Summon is not safe" to a much softer "Be cautious using Summon (BETA)".

Summon is not safe. When a child or pet gets crushed by the vehicle turning unexpectantly that will be obvious. I have faith that Tesla will solve this, hopefully before that happens, but for now my title is fact not an opinion. Watering it down because it doesn't sound as nice among the faithful here is not right. We're not brand stewards or protectors, so I'd rather have uncensored straight dialogue about the realities of this vehicle and its functionality.

Turns out this turning thing is not a new issue, even though mine did stop when I took my finger off:


__
https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252Fteslamotors%252Fcomments%252F7k58h6%252F

and I did all the things in the beta warning screen:










The only thing I could have done differently was stand in front of the vehicle to see the tires turn beforehand.


----------



## MelindaV

Your title was fud clickbait and the feature is in beta, requiring the user to be in complete control. By posting here, you agree to the terms of this site that permit moderators to correct titles to be useful


----------



## raptor

Sorry to hear about the damage, that's always painful to see.

Just out of curiosity (and to better understand summon behavior) ...

Did you change the settings so you don't have to keep pressing the button?

How was summon configured in the vehicle?


----------



## ateslik

Your title is tacit collusion.

It's not possible to be in complete control of this feature and we should be honest about that.


----------



## ateslik

raptor said:


> Sorry to hear about the damage, that's always painful to see.
> 
> Just out of curiosity (and to better understand summon behavior) ...
> 
> Did you change the settings so you don't have to keep pressing the button?
> 
> How was summon configured in the vehicle?


No, the setting to keep pressing the button is turned on. The operating distance setting is increased and the tight setting is turned on. It has to be to fit in that space.


----------



## garsh

ateslik said:


> Your title is tacit collusion.


We're moderating a forum for Model 3 owners. We often update/change titles for various reasons, from making them more clear, to removing "clickbait". Our goal is to make this site enjoyable to use by our members.


> It's not possible to be in complete control of this feature and we should be honest about that.


We're glad that you're sharing your experience. We believe it's very useful and informative to do so. We just don't want clickbait or FUD in our titles. Please don't be offended.


----------



## ateslik

garsh said:


> We're moderating a forum for Model 3 owners. We often update/change titles for various reasons, from making them more clear, to removing "clickbait". Our goal is to make this site enjoyable to use by our members.
> 
> We're glad that you're sharing your experience. We believe it's very useful and informative to do so. We just don't want clickbait or FUD in our titles. Please don't be offended.


I understand and appreciate the time you guys spend keeping the site running smoothly. I can still be annoyed by it and disagree with it, but I'm not offended and appreciate the explanation.

Congrats on the new car btw - great name


----------



## scaots

suprteck said:


> Used summons to park in this spot at work, no room to open the doors on both sides also no chance or getting door dings!
> View attachment 13685


Great spot! That's awesome, until summon won't connect. I've had several occasions when it just won't work for me until I get in and move the car myself, then it starts working again. I only use it when cutting grass to get the mower out and back in front of the car.


----------



## sdbyrd79

Thanks ateslik for sharing your (sad) story using summon. The first few times I summoned mine in/out of my garage it "seemed" to be navigating around as needed, but the other day I had some items on both sides of the entrance and could tell it was not going to avoid them. I'll definitely be holding off using it when it's a close call until all of the sensors/cameras are in use.


----------



## woodisgood

Oh dear that photo literally turned my insides. I'm sorry this happened to you, but thank you for the warning!!


----------



## AlohaBob

Thanks for posting. Very sorry to see this. 

I back my car into the left side of a 2 car garage by hand. I have used summon to pull my car out of the garage 4 or 5 times. The first couple of times it came straight out and all was good. The time before last it turned the wheels a large amount (toward the center of the driveway; to the left if looking at the car from inside the garage) and moved forward and then turned the wheels back a bit. I wasn't quite sure why it did that and thought that maybe it was just retracing what I had done in backing the car into the garage. It left the car at about a 5 to 10 degree angle down the driveway. Fortunately no big deal because the driveway is empty

The last time I parked the car in the garage, I was careful to pull straight back with no wheel turns. When I summoned it, it did the exact same large wheel turn to the left to start and left the car at a 5 to 10 degree angle down the driveway. I'm not quite sure the algorithm it uses to summon the car. I was thinking that maybe it was doing the turn to avoid the garage door frame. Probably not from reading what others have to say. As the OP says, I would use Summon with a great deal of caution if you have a tight space.


----------



## theishu

Thanks to my cautious significant other, we also park in far-off corner spots to avoid dings. We tend to keep especially close to the walls/hedges instead of right in the middle of the parking spot. Summon came in useful the other day, when the wall blocked the doors and we 'pulled' the car out, so the family could get in. Our first time leveraging the utility of that feature.


----------



## Radio Rex

scaots said:


> Great spot! That's awesome, until summon won't connect. I've had several occasions when it just won't work for me until I get in and move the car myself, then it starts working again. I only use it when cutting grass to get the mower out and back in front of the car.


When it won't connect try turning Bluetooth off and then back on in your phone. Reconnects every time for me.


----------



## scaots

Radio Rex said:


> When it won't connect try turning Bluetooth off and then back on in your phone. Reconnects every time for me.


That works for me when it isn't connected as a key, but did nothing to make summon work. I just heard of someone force closing the app and restarting to get it to work. Have to try that next time, or maybe the new app and firmware will work better.


----------



## VADawg

I took my 83 year old father for a drive. When we parked, I picked a space against the curb to avoid other drivers and potential door dings. My father struggled to get out, primarily because he had to step onto the raised curb and it would have been easier if he could have stepped onto the parking lot instead. When we go back to the car, he jokingly said "have it back up for me so I can get in"...I then summoned the car and he declared it his favorite feature!!


----------



## Hkyplyr26

I have no cell service at my house I have manual garage doors. It would be awesome to open my doors summon the car in or out of the garage, it seems exactly why the function was created. But because I have no cell at my house it will not work. I have wifi but it only works over cell. I have complained to service and I call them after each update.


----------



## Bernard

It's yet another example of the urban bias of Tesla developers -- they cannot conceive of being without cell connectivity and so those of us living in out-of-the-way places keep hitting roadblocks. I can understand why they wrote the software so that it checks with Tesla every time someone enters the car and wants to drive, or every time the car is summoned, but it should time out if there is no connection and allow the action in the case of driving the car and switch to wifi (if available) in the case of summon.
Otherwise we are back to the black RFD card for driving and have no summon at all.


----------



## EvanVanVan

Can't find a definitive answer on this...does the car only rely on a cellular signal for the Summon connection or would improving the WiFi in my driveway help the initial connection speed with the app? I'm hoping the fob has Summon compatibility.

Thanks


----------



## NJTesla3

I have strong WiFi in my garage and summon connects about 30% of the time if the car was sitting overnight. It seems like it relies on LTE. My car takes forever to connect to LTE after deep sleep and it seems like summon works great after the car finally connects. Can’t understand the logic behind it though, if Bluetooth is enough to drive the car why isn’t it enough to summon?! 

Hopefully they work this out soon! As of now it’s faster to squeeze into the car when it’s in the garage vs waiting 5-10 minutes for summon. First world problem haha

Long story short, I wouldn’t waste time trying to improve your WiFi signal.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

I thought that summons was available before wifi, but I'm pretty sure depends a lot on Bluetooth


----------



## JD-M3

My garage is under my house and thus the LTE connection in the garage is pretty terrible. Summon has likewise been terrible in my garage. I added a WiFi hotspot in the garage, more so for updates than anything else but also hoping it would help with summon. In short, it wasn't any better at all, making me think that it does in fact rely soley on LTE for some inexplicable reason. Of note, I also have a model x and summon seems to work well with the key fob, but not the app. I'm hoping when the key fob comes out for the model 3 this will at least be a workaround until Tesla (hopefully) fixes the issue.


----------



## NOGA$4ME

Ed Woodrick said:


> I thought that summons was available before wifi, but I'm pretty sure depends a lot on Bluetooth


No, I don't think it depends on Bluetooth. I think they want summon to have a nice reliable connection to the car so that if you release the button, or hit stop, that it's guaranteed the car will "hear" it. I don't think we are anywhere close to that with Bluetooth on a phone.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

The reason why I say Bluetooth, is at least part of it is the location proximity required to the vehicle. There seems to be something more than just Internet connectivity that provides the connectivity. With full summons in the future, I can understand that it will be Internet based, but today there is something that makes you be in the direct proximity of the car. Sometimes it even seems if it may be using the camera.


----------



## Trebonius

For proximity, it is using the GPS on both your phone and car. If one of them is off a bit, it can lead to it thinking you aren't close enough when you are.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

Are you sure?

While GPS can be used as an assist with the final summons, GPS reliability is pretty low in many parking situations. Very few, if any garages allow GPS reception. And many phones use a combination of cellular information combined with GPS to provide location information, this is far from precise.

Most people tend to think that GPS information is highly accurate, it is not. It is not uncommon for GPS information to be off by hundreds of feet or more. Why does your car always tend to show up on the right road and lane? That's the combination of a "pin to road" technology and the cameras.


----------



## Trebonius

Ed Woodrick said:


> Are you sure?
> 
> While GPS can be used as an assist with the final summons, GPS reliability is pretty low in many parking situations. Very few, if any garages allow GPS reception. And many phones use a combination of cellular information combined with GPS to provide location information, this is far from precise.
> 
> Most people tend to think that GPS information is highly accurate, it is not. It is not uncommon for GPS information to be off by hundreds of feet or more. Why does your car always tend to show up on the right road and lane? That's the combination of a "pin to road" technology and the cameras.


I agree with everything you said. I certainly haven't been able to use Summon in a parking garage due to inability to get a gps signal. I was very surprised that it used GPS at all.


----------



## NOGA$4ME

Ed Woodrick said:


> The reason why I say Bluetooth, is at least part of it is the location proximity required to the vehicle.


Yeah, I don't disagree with that. You specifically said it depends a lot on Bluetooth, and I interpreted that to mean that it was primarily using Bluetooth as its communications medium for control of summon. I think at best it makes sure you are in proximity to the car, and then once verified relies on the internet connection for control.


----------



## EvanVanVan

Thanks for the replies, I kind of figured it was an LTE thing..was even considering picking up a $300-400 AT&T LTE network extender but (un)fortunately I have Verizon.

Hopefully the fob is out soon with Summon capabilities!


----------



## Kizzy

When switching out of park, Model 3 turns off wifi. Presumably, Summon mode does the same thing. Has anyone looked inside the car to see what the screen indicates when on a wifi network and then starting Summon?


----------



## BlueMeanie

My WiFi does not turn off when out of Park... it’s signal goes down as I drive away from my house, then LTE pops up in its place.


----------



## GDN

I can summon when not at home and not connected to Wifi - so I think you can remove Wifi from the equation completely. The only way it could even remotely be involved is if the phone and car created a direct wifi link (which devices can do if configured), but since I've never configured either to do something like that I'm pretty certain that wifi isn't required. Maybe it's used if available, but it certainly isn't required.


----------



## JD-M3

GDN said:


> I can summon when not at home and not connected to Wifi - so I think you can remove Wifi from the equation completely. The only way it could even remotely be involved is if the phone and car created a direct wifi link (which devices can do if configured), but since I've never configured either to do something like that I'm pretty certain that wifi isn't required. Maybe it's used if available, but it certainly isn't required.


The question was not if summon relies soley on wifi, it has already been well established that it relies primarily on LTE. The real question is whether wifi can supplement for a bad LTE connection. This wouldn't require a direct wifi link, the car could just theoretically use the WiFi as it's internet connection to receive the summon commands instead of be LTE. But unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case for now...


----------



## Kizzy

BlueMeanie said:


> My WiFi does not turn off when out of Park... it's signal goes down as I drive away from my house, then LTE pops up in its place.


I guess the next question is on this behavior between different wifi signal strengths. Mine is poor and my car immediately switches to the non-existent cellular connection when I switch out of park.


----------



## jsmay311

Assuming you're close enough to your Model 3 for the Phone Key to be connected, does anyone know if there is an even shorter maximum distance that you can be away from your Model 3 to have Summon work?

Last night it was raining and my car was in a rather deep puddle in a parking lot and I tried to use Summon from ~50 ft away (I was standing under an overhang to stay out of the rain). It was close enough for the Phone Key to be "Connected", but the Summon screen on the app just showed "Connecting to your vehicle..." without ever connecting. I eventually gave up and trotted through the puddle and got my shoes soaked.

Fast forward to this morning and I try to replicate this situation in my driveway and test the distance at which it will connect, starting at 50' and taking a few steps closer to the vehicle each time. It failed to connect at ~50 ft, and it finally successfully connected at ~20 ft.

So I'm a bit perplexed. If you're close enough for the Bluetooth phone key to be connected, I'm surprised that wouldn't be sufficient to operate Summon. And the manual makes no mention of any maximum distance.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

jsmay311 said:


> Assuming you're close enough to your Model 3 for the Phone Key to be connected, does anyone know if there is an even shorter maximum distance that you can be away from your Model 3 to have Summon work?
> 
> Last night it was raining and my car was in a rather deep puddle in a parking lot and I tried to use Summon from ~50 ft away (I was standing under an overhang to stay out of the rain). It was close enough for the Phone Key to be "Connected", but the Summon screen on the app just showed "Connecting to your vehicle..." without ever connecting. I eventually gave up and trotted through the puddle and got my shoes soaked.
> 
> Fast forward to this morning and I try to replicate this situation in my driveway and test the distance at which it will connect, starting at 50' and taking a few steps closer to the vehicle each time. It failed to connect at ~50 ft, and it finally successfully connected at ~20 ft.
> 
> So I'm a bit perplexed. If you're close enough for the Bluetooth phone key to be connected, I'm surprised that wouldn't be sufficient to operate Summon. And the manual makes no mention of any maximum distance.


I was showing some co-workers summon yesterday and I prefaced it with - "we're really far away and it might not work from this distance" and to my surprise it worked. I would guesstimate we were 150-200 feet away.


----------



## PNWmisty

SoFlaModel3 said:


> I was showing some co-workers summon yesterday and I prefaced it with - "we're really far away and it might not work from this distance" and to my surprise it worked. I would guesstimate we were 150-200 feet away.


That matches my experience. I think it could even work from thousands of miles away although I haven't tried it (for obvious reasons).


----------



## Franklin L

I the OP’s video, I can see a large concrete block on the ground that one’s wheels would typically bump into if you advance too far forward. Do the car’s sensors detect obstructions this low? One of the things I hate on my old car is having the under side of the bumper get scratched up every time I roll too far forwards.


----------



## Drhalo

Ever since I upgraded to V9 and upgraded the app on my iPhone X, summon has ceased to work. I get the error saying "Summon Cancelled because the proximity sensor on your phone was covered" (See attached File)

Anyone get this problem?


----------



## deadlion

Pre v9 my summon would not connect. After going to v9 today it worked for the first time. However, in one of the tries I also got the same error asserting that one of the sensors was covered - Samsung Galaxy.


----------



## EvanVanVan

I figured out how to get summon to work reliably when I get home...I just open the summon screen 2 blocks from home where the car gets better AT&T service. It connects within 15 seconds when I do that... Unfortunately, I then have to hold my phone as I drive (and worse when I back into my driveway) while hoping the screen doesn't sleep, the camera/proximity sensor doesn't get covered, or screen switches for any reason . Not a great solution but beats sitting in my car for 5 minutes waiting for it to connect lol. I could probably put the phone in the cup holder but once it connects I don't want to risk losing it.

I live across the river from NYC, and get terrible AT&T service. I don't understand it. Of course I didn't get great Verizon service either until I called up and complained and within a few months they fixed it... But I doubt AT&T cares enough about Tesla customers to upgrade their infrastructure.


----------



## PNWmisty

EvanVanVan said:


> I figured out how to get summon to work reliably when I get home...I just open the summon screen 2 blocks from home where the car gets better AT&T service. It connects within 15 seconds when I do that... Unfortunately, I then have to hold my phone as I drive (and worse when I back into my driveway) while hoping the screen doesn't sleep, the camera/proximity sensor doesn't get covered, or screen switches for any reason . Not a great solution but beats sitting in my car for 5 minutes waiting for it to connect lol. I could probably put the phone in the cup holder but once it connects I don't want to risk losing it.
> 
> I live across the river from NYC, and get terrible AT&T service. I don't understand it. Of course I didn't get great Verizon service either until I called up and complained and within a few months they fixed it... But I doubt AT&T cares enough about Tesla customers to upgrade their infrastructure.


It appears that summon is a feature that is designed to not work unless there is a very solid AT&T signal when initiating the summon. I would say this is obviously by design (due to the possibly very negative consequences if Summon loses connectivity in the middle of a summon). By beginning the Summon process where the signal is stronger than where the summon is actually performed, this built-in safety threshold, designed to avoid the loss of communication mid-summon, is being circumvented. I would be careful about doing that anywhere there could be dangers the car's sensors cannot detect. At the very least, be prepared to manually end the summon command by opening a door handle.


----------



## EvanVanVan

PNWmisty said:


> It appears that summon is a feature that is designed to not work unless there is a very solid AT&T signal when initiating the summon. I would say this is obviously by design (due to the possibly very negative consequences if Summon loses connectivity in the middle of a summon). By beginning the Summon process where the signal is stronger than where the summon is actually performed, this built-in safety threshold, designed to avoid the loss of communication mid-summon, is being circumvented. I would be careful about doing that anywhere there could be dangers the car's sensors cannot detect. At the very least, be prepared to manually end the summon command by opening a door handle.


Thank you for the advice. I get 2-3 bars of LTE service in my driveway, once it connects it works reliably...sometimes it connects right away (restarting the phone helps), sometimes it doesn't. Regardless, I keep a close eye on it (and the surrounding areas) and use continuous press so it stops quickly enough. I'm hoping the fob comes out soon and makes summon significantly more reliable communicating with the car directly.

On a side note though, if you have continuous press set to No...how does the car know when to stop? Does it move until it senses an obstacle (wall/another) or you touch the door handle? I tried it once and didn't like it.


----------



## PNWmisty

EvanVanVan said:


> On a side note though, if you have continuous press set to No...how does the car know when to stop? Does it move until it senses an obstacle (wall/another) or you touch the door handle? I tried it once and didn't like it.


If you set Summon preferences to not require a continuous button press, it will continue until one of the following happens:

1) It detects an obstacle within the parameters you set in the settings menu.
2) It travels the maximum distance you set in the settings menu.
3) You push the "stop summon" button
4) Your phones proximity sensor is covered.
5) The wheels encounter a lip or hill steep enough to end the summon command.


----------



## Brentt

I used the RemoteS app and created a voice command. For some reason it seems to connect better than the Tesla App, plus it's cool


----------



## EvanVanVan

Brentt said:


> I used the RemoteS app and created a voice command. For some reason it seems to connect better than the Tesla App, plus it's cool


Seems to be iPhone only but thank you for the suggestion about 3rd party apps. Dashboard for Tesla (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sg57.tesladashboard&hl=en_US) looks promising, I'll give it a shot..


----------



## AZBMT

For me, Summon seems to be worse now with V9. Previously, it would take a very very long time to connect to the car, if ever, from sleep. Keep in mind I am 3 feet away from the car in my garage. Sometimes, I would have to turn WiFi off on my phone, then it would connect. Also, it would start the summon move and stop on its own, even though I keep the button pressed on the phone. I would occasionally get the "Summon Cancelled because the proximity sensor on your phone was covered" ... I'm close to the car! Needless to say, I'm fairly frustrated with this feature as I really would like to use it more to get the car in and out of a tight space in my garage. I've tried disconnecting the WiFi on the car and the phone to force it to use LTE, but it seems as though the car reverts to WiFi anyways the next time. The signal is fine in the garage. Now I've also tried waking up the car by doing an Unlock, then Summon seems to connect faster.


----------



## AZBMT

Pardon my ignorance, but what the heck is a Phone Proximity sensor? Proximity to what?


----------



## Bokonon

AZBMT said:


> Pardon my ignorance, but what the heck is a Phone Proximity sensor? Proximity to what?


Your phone has a tiny infrared sensor, typically located at the top of the front side, which the phone uses to determine whether you are currently holding it against your ear (as you'd do during a call). This allows the phone to shut off the display and disable touchscreen input during a call, to conserve power and to prevent errant screen-presses. They come in various shapes and sizes, but here's an example:










The Summon feature also uses this proximity sensor in some fashion as a safety precaution... possibly to confirm that you are actually holding your phone in front of you during the summon process, rather than, say, inadvertently butt-summoning your car from your pocket.

If you receive a proximity sensor error during Summon (I see it occasionally), make sure the area near the top-front of your phone is not being partially obstructed by your case, dust, or other debris. If the message persists after cleaning the area, try force-quitting the Tesla app and restarting.


----------



## EvanVanVan

Bokonon said:


> Your phone has a tiny infrared sensor, typically located at the top of the front side, which the phone uses to determine whether you are currently holding it against your ear (as you'd do during a call). This allows the phone to shut off the display and disable touchscreen input during a call, to conserve power and to prevent errant screen-presses. They come in various shapes and sizes, but here's an example:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Summon feature also uses this proximity sensor in some fashion as a safety precaution... possibly to confirm that you are actually holding your phone in front of you during the summon process, rather than, say, inadvertently butt-summoning your car from your pocket.
> 
> If you receive a proximity sensor error during Summon (I see it occasionally), make sure the area near the top-front of your phone is not being partially obstructed by your case, dust, or other debris. If the message persists after cleaning the area, try force-quitting the Tesla app and restarting.


I had also read it possibly used the camera as another proximity sensor/butt-summon pocket checker.



Brentt said:


> I used the RemoteS app and created a voice command. For some reason it seems to connect better than the Tesla App, plus it's cool


Dashboard for Tesla works *so* much better for connecting to Summon on Android. Thank you!


----------



## littlD

For me, with a Pixel 2, it's still a crap shoot for connectivity. But, once I connect, all is good.


----------



## Flashgj

Summon for me has been mostly a fail with V8 or V9, on older Tesla App and even on the newest version of Tesla App. I recently tried using summon on the Remote S app and so far it has worked every time with a reasonably quick connection. I will have to test it more, but I find it kind of ironic that a 3rd party app seems to have it working better than Tesla’s own app.

Remote S appears to only be available for iPhone, but it sounds like something called Dashboard for Android is similar, with users reporting better success with using summon on it also.


----------



## AZBMT

Yesterday, I was trying to figure out why Summon connects erratically. I believe both the Phone and Car WiFi connections have to be at max bars. As soon as this happens, connection is rapid. So, even though the car is about 30 feet from the router, I will have to get a WiFi repeater and set it up in the garage. I'll report back when I get this done and tested.


----------



## coredumperror

I used to have mostly minor connectivity issues with Summon, but ever since installing V9, I essentially can't use it at all if either my phone or car are on WiFi. It seems to work about as good (or bad) as before when both my car and phone are on solid LTE connections, but if either are on a WiFi, it just doesnt work at all. I stay stuck at "Connecting to your vehicle" until it times out. Remote S also fails to connect long enough to perform a Summon.

This was extra frustrating today, because a guy I know from London came by my office today, and I showed him Model 3 (he's got a reservation). I really wanted to show off how cool Remote S is since it lets you do stuff like Summon through Siri, but I utterly failed to get Summon to work for the first few attempts, until I remembered to turn off WiFi in my phone. Then it worked fine.


----------



## aronth5

deadlion said:


> Pre v9 my summon would not connect. After going to v9 today it worked for the first time. However, in one of the tries I also got the same error asserting that one of the sensors was covered - Samsung Galaxy.


I get the same error


----------



## ateslik

It was broken before v9. I stopped using both Summon and Autopilot after my car drove itself into a stationary wall. I won’t use any beta features anymore.


----------



## coredumperror

It worked just fine before V9. And it still works just fine. It just usually refuses to even start.


----------



## AZBMT

OK so I installed a WiFi extender in the garage. When I'm leaving, my phone is already on the extender network, and so is the car, so Summon seems to initialize much more quickly. Now, when I arrive, it's a little different as my phone and car are on LTE, and when I approach the garage door and it opens, it takes a while for the car and phone to connect and move to the WiFi extender network. So by the time I'm out of the car and ready for Summon to drive the car in the garage, both are usually connected to WiFi (full bars) and Summon seems to initialize quickly then. Once I have more time with this setup I'll confirm.


----------



## My "Dragonfly"

I have a new Model 3 also. Summon worked initially and then was unable to connect. I took off my phone cover and it works again!! Try taking off the phone cover...


----------



## coredumperror

It would be so weird to get a WiFi extender when my router is in the room directly above my carport. But if you're getting such great connectivity with one, I may have to do the same. If I can figure out how to plug the damn thing in... I'd probably have to hire an electrician to drill a hole from the roof of my carport to my livingroom to run the cable.


----------



## AZBMT

My extender is wireless and just plugs into a wall outlet, but I suppose you can get a wired one as well.


----------



## coredumperror

Oh, if I had a wall outlet in my carport, I wouldn't have spent thousands of dollars getting a NEMA 14-50 installed.


----------



## EvanVanVan

coredumperror said:


> It worked just fine before V9. And it still works just fine. It just usually refuses to even start.


Do you have an Android? iPhone? I had trouble connecting to Summon (both on v8 and v9). I tried the Dashboard for Tesla app (for Android) on a recommendation in another thread I started regarding Summon. It connects so much more reliably now.... The nice thing is there's a button to force the connection and a description of what's happening (unlike just opening the screen an hoping it connects and doesn't lag out for any number of reasons...). It is $15, but there's a week trial promotion code to see if it works.

If you have an iPhone the poster in the post I linked suggested Remote S for Tesla also connects more reliably.


----------



## Bokonon

My "Dragonfly" said:


> I have a new Model 3 also. Summon worked initially and then was unable to connect. I took off my phone cover and it works again!! Try taking off the phone cover...


Did you get a proximity sensor error message with your case on?


----------



## babula

Actually working better for me in V9 (40.0) vs V8 (36.2).


----------



## coredumperror

I get the same connection reliability issues with Remote S as I do with the Tesla app. Though Remote S at least has a little icon that indicates whether it's connected to the Summon API before you try to use Summon. It almost never fills in to indicate a connection for me any more.


----------



## coredumperror

So here's a head-scratcher and a half. I got a new phone (iPhone XR) on Friday, and every time I've used Summon with it has been flawless. _Instant_ connection, stays connected throughout, works like a dream. I've used it about 5 times so far, so maybe I've just gotten lucky...

But if not, why the heck would having a new phone make a difference? It's just a WiFi connection to an internet API. My car's exactly the same.


----------



## HrdTsk

ateslik said:


> It was broken before v9. I stopped using both Summon and Autopilot after my car drove itself into a stationary wall. I won't use any beta features anymore.


When I read this and my M3 updated to V9, I went to a parking lot to test out summon. I parked in a space somewhat askew with no cars nearby. Activated summon in reverse and the car went straight back. Activated summon forward and car went forward, the wheels turned noticeably and the car straightened itself out in the parking space. I am not sure if this happened by design or just by accident. Be aware that when activating the summon feature the car may not just go straight back or forward.


----------



## Trebonius

Since upgrading to 42.2, my Summon connections have been great. As long as I wait for the connection time to update at the bottom of the screen before I tap Summon, I think it has worked every time on the first try. Anyone else, or is it a coincidence?


----------



## coredumperror

I had my Summon got back to it's "nearly never connect" state a day or so after my last comment about how it had suddenly gotten perfect after getting my new iPhone. I was so frustrated, I tried something that didn't make any sense as a fix, but it somehow worked: I rebooted my phone. The Summon connection went from "impossible to connect" back to "connects immediately every time".

So maybe those of us having trouble connecting with Summon should try rebooting their phones? Hopefully that'll help, even though that doesn't make any obvious sense.


----------



## Bokonon

Bokonon said:


> Just tried it on my sloped driveway for kicks. The driveway slopes downward from street level at an even ~12% grade.
> With the car facing uphill, summoning in reverse (downhill) consistently works without issue. Summoning forward (uphill) moves the car forward about 2-3 inches before aborting with the message "Summon is stopping".


UPDATE: I tried summoning my car up the driveway again today, and this time it actually worked! The car went all the way to the top of the driveway, at which point it stopped moving -- with no message, strangely. The top of the driveway is the point at which the WiFi signal drops down to a single bar, so maybe that was a factor?

At any rate, I found it interesting that it worked where it did not previously. My prior attempt was on firmware 32.5, and I am now running 42.3.


----------



## Toadmanor

While this thread is not about summon, it has been mentioned several times. 

One of the things that I learn earned about summon is that it will not work on an incline. My driveway has an incline. I can back the M3 out of the garage onto the driveway. I can not however EVER summon it back in. That is because my driveway has an incline which the M3 is on when I wish to summon it back in.

FWIIW


----------



## groundlevelpaint

Just backed my baby out of the garage with the summon feature it actually turned the wheel to clear the garage even though I think it could have made it, this is crazy!! this new update must have had something to do with it because last week it wouldn't do it how cool is this!!! Don't think it's using cameras yet in summon but something change! Love Tesla!!!


----------



## woodisgood

Yeah as of 42.3 I still can't fully use Summon. I can reverse it out of the level garage (onto a 13% downward slope) partially; Summon aborts before the front wheels clear the garage threshold. Starting from the incline to go forward into the garage, it won't even move an inch. 

As much as I'm looking forward to an improved Summon when it starts using cameras, I'm concerned the incline thing will remain a limitation for the foreseeable future.


----------



## groundlevelpaint

woodisgood said:


> Yeah as of 42.3 I still can't fully use Summon. I can reverse it out of the level garage (onto a 13% downward slope) partially; Summon aborts before the front wheels clear the garage threshold. Starting from the incline to go forward into the garage, it won't even move an inch.
> 
> As much as I'm looking forward to an improved Summon when it starts using cameras, I'm concerned the incline thing will remain a limitation for the foreseeable future.


I have a bubble app on my phone going to measure my incline today don't believe it's more than 6 to 8% but there is a bit of an incline


----------



## groundlevelpaint

Just checked my driveway incline I have a mild 3% summon works fine.


----------



## MelindaV

groundlevelpaint said:


> Just checked my driveway incline I have a mild 3% summon works fine.


For easy reference on eyeballing a grade %, newly build pedestrian walkways can have up to 2% cross slope (like between a building and a curb), a walkway can slope 5% without a hand rail, and up to 8% with a handrail. So if you picture what you see at a newer shopping center or building for walkways, it should fall into one of these.


----------



## Xmessa

byee said:


> Been getting this for the last two days. Previously everything was working and I was able to pull the car in and out of my garage but now I get this error message and also noticed Homelink stopped working. Going to try and delete my Homelink settings and start over to see if that helps but wondered if anyone else experienced this.


I also am having summon issues as well. Took delivery a month ago and everything worked great the first few weeks. About a week ago (prior to bbn update) it just stopped working. I press the forward button, car lights turn on and sometimes the car budged forward an inch then turns off. Sometimes doesnt budge at all. I trie in an open parking lot as well and same issue. I have an android and heard about issues, so tried it with my work iPhone and exactly the same behavior. I had hoped the new update would fix but no luck.


----------



## Trebonius

Xmessa said:


> I also am having summon issues as well. Took delivery a month ago and everything worked great the first few weeks. About a week ago (prior to bbn update) it just stopped working. I press the forward button, car lights turn on and sometimes the car budged forward an inch then turns off. Sometimes doesnt budge at all. I trie in an open parking lot as well and same issue. I have an android and heard about issues, so tried it with my work iPhone and exactly the same behavior. I had hoped the new update would fix but no luck.


This is completely different than the problems most people have. Your issue sounds like a malfunctioning proximity sensor. You'll have to call the service center to have them take a look.


----------



## Bokonon

Xmessa said:


> I also am having summon issues as well. Took delivery a month ago and everything worked great the first few weeks. About a week ago (prior to bbn update) it just stopped working. I press the forward button, car lights turn on and sometimes the car budged forward an inch then turns off. Sometimes doesnt budge at all. I trie in an open parking lot as well and same issue. I have an android and heard about issues, so tried it with my work iPhone and exactly the same behavior. I had hoped the new update would fix but no luck.


It sounds like the phone is communicating with the car just fine, but the car is making the decision to abort the summon right after it starts. This can happen if you try to summon the car up a slope that's too steep, if the car thinks there's an obstacle in the way, if it loses the connection to the phone, or if it exceeds the maximum summon distance (I think the default is 25 feet).

Just for the sake of completeness: have you tried summoning in reverse as well? Is it the same result? Also, does the phone display any message when summon stops?


----------



## francoisp

Is summon supposed to open the garage door before starting to move the car? Because in my case it did not. It started moving the car backward even though the door was down. The garage door is only 3 feet away from the rear bumper so I would expect the sensors would detect it and either open the door or prevent the car from moving.


----------



## iChris93

I do not use it, so I’m not 100% confident, but I believe you have to turn it on in the settings.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

Simple answer, Summons isn't the trustworthy right now, don't use it.

And while I don't known the specific answer to your question, I suspect not. the absolutely WORST thing that it could do is to send a garage door command. Why? Because if the door happened to be open, it would close it. Not exactly something you would want to happen.


----------



## francoisp

Ed Woodrick said:


> Simple answer, Summons isn't the trustworthy right now, don't use it.
> 
> And while I don't known the specific answer to your question, I suspect not. the absolutely WORST thing that it could do is to send a garage door command. Why? Because if the door happened to be open, it would close it. Not exactly something you would want to happen.


I would think the ultrasonic sensors should detect whether the door is open or closed.

I do agree with you that I am not comfortable using it.


----------



## iChris93

FrancoisP said:


> I understand however I would think the ultrasonic sensors should detect whether the door is open or closed.


This is correct, but I've read cases where it has mistaken other objects for the garage door.


----------



## Kardopin

Assuming you have already configured the car to work with your garage door opener (homelink), you can configure “summon” to open the garage door for you before moving the car. I did this, but have not actually tried it yet. Also, if I remember correctly there is a configuration option in “summon” to tell the car if the space is tight. Within the context of the question, I am interpreting this to mean that the car will not stop if the garage door is closed and if you still have 3ft of distance - if you selected the tight option. So much to learn, so little time.


----------



## FRC

FrancoisP said:


> Is summon supposed to open the garage door before starting to move the car?


I'm confused, does your car open your garage door when you back out normally(not using summon). Mine doesn't, it closes the door as I depart and opens it as I arrive. Therefore, I wouldn't expect it to open the door while using summon. Am I missing something?


----------



## SoFlaModel3

FRC said:


> I'm confused, does your car open your garage door when you back out normally(not using summon). Mine doesn't, it closes the door as I depart and opens it as I arrive. Therefore, I wouldn't expect it to open the door while using summon. Am I missing something?


His point is that if the door was already open then Summon would close the door.

To answer the OPs post ... yes Summon can be configured to open the garage door.

I personally do not have it set to that as it feels like an unnecessary piece of functionality for me.

I do trust Summon (to a point) and it generally does well how I have used it. I've tested standing in front of and behind the car and it always picks me up and stops. I trust it would do the same with a door or wall but won't put it through it's paces on that.


----------



## kort677

FrancoisP said:


> Is summon supposed to open the garage door before starting to move the car? Because in my case it did not. It started moving the car backward even though the door was down. The garage door is only 3 feet away from the rear bumper so I would expect the sensors would detect it and either open the door or prevent the car from moving.


I don't use summons often but on my S it would open the garage door, however like anything else in these cars I wouldn't blindly trust it to be 100%


----------



## MelindaV

The car will begin begin to move with the door closed, then stop just prior to it to open the door before continuing. For those with the luxury of having 3’ between the car and door, it is alarming to see it begin to move toward the closed door, but for those that don’t panic and override summons, it does open the door (assuming it has been set up to do so).


----------



## FRC

MelindaV said:


> it does open the door (assuming it has been set up to do so).


Is this set up specific to the summon function, or is it part of the general garage door function?


----------



## iChris93

FRC said:


> Is this set up specific to the summon function, or is it part of the general garage door function?


Pg 81/82 of the manual.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

FrancoisP said:


> I would think the ultrasonic sensors should detect whether the door is open or closed.
> 
> I do agree with you that I am not comfortable using it.


But the sensors won't detect an closing door coming down on the hood. If you garage door safety sensors are mounted at standard height, they are below the car body and won't see the car moving until the wheels block it. Since the car would generally have to wait for some period of time to assure that the door is open, if closing, it still may be before the door is low enough and the wheels block the sensor, as the door crumples the hood.


----------



## MelindaV

FRC said:


> Is this set up specific to the summon function, or is it part of the general garage door function?


It's in the summon menu on the screen when you set it up


----------



## radio

Works OK for me. The door opens, car rolls out onto the driveway and stops (when I let up on the button) However, I then have to use the on-screen icon to close the door as I drive off. It will auto open when I return. When not using summon, I first open the door, get in and back out. With that routine it does auto-close as I drive off. 

radio


----------



## GDN

If you've configured Homelink there is a button on the upper right corner of the summon screen you can open or close the door if needed.


----------



## 3V Pilot

Here is video proof that it works just fine. I did this months ago.....


----------



## giarC71

When I Summon my Model 3 while in "Continuous Press" mode the car backs up a little, stop within inches of the garage door and then the garage door opens. If I were to set it to "No Continuous Press" will the garage door open 1st before any movement of the car happens?


----------



## Deraillor

giarC71 said:


> When I Summon my Model 3 while in "Continuous Press" mode the car backs up a little, stop within inches of the garage door and then the garage door opens. If I were to set it to "No Continuous Press" will the garage door open 1st before any movement of the car happens?


No, it will stop when it senses the garage door (or what it thinks is the garage door), then issue an RF garage door signal to open the garage door. Once the door is open it will continue on its way until it senses another object, you tell it to stop via the phone app, or it reaches the current linear limit of summon (which I believe is currently 39 feet or so).


----------



## Deraillor

Deraillor said:


> No, it will stop when it senses the garage door (or what it thinks is the garage door), then issue an RF garage door signal to open the garage door. Once the door is open it will continue on its way until it senses another object, you tell it to stop via the phone app, or it reaches the current linear limit of summon (which I believe is currently 39 feet or so).


Interestingly enough it will continue to steer around objects once in the driveway. It doesn't always do a perfect job but in my testing it has never come close to hitting anything.


----------



## Mike Sylvestre

FrancoisP said:


> Is summon supposed to open the garage door before starting to move the car? Because in my case it did not. It started moving the car backward even though the door was down. The garage door is only 3 feet away from the rear bumper so I would expect the sensors would detect it and either open the door or prevent the car from moving.


 I agree with others on not fully trustworthy. My experience it worked coming out of the garage, however, having it go into the garage it stopped short and tried to close door. I had to stop the door or it would have hit the back of the car.


----------



## francoisp

Mike Sylvestre said:


> I agree with others on not fully trustworthy. My experience it worked coming out of the garage, however, having it go into the garage it stopped short and tried to close door. I had to stop the door or it would have hit the back of the car.


Did adjust the Summon parameter for the front distance to allow the car to drive deeper in your garage?


----------



## Ksb466

If you have homelink set , summon can be set in the app to activate the garage door. I’ve done it several times. In the end I turned this off Because often the door was already open, so it would start the process by closing the door. While summon will stop the car from moving in time to not hit anything the homelink setting was more trouble than it was worth. Really just a cool gimmick at this point to impress a friend.


----------



## Rick Steinwand

After watching the recent valentine video that showed a summoned model S opening a garage door, my buddy in Florida was skeptical that a Tesla could open the door.

After work today, I backed in the garage like usual, but did not plug in and closed the garage door behind me.

I opened up the Tesla app, waited for it to connect, then opened Summon and held down "forward" and the mirrors tucked in, the front wheels straightened out, and the tail lights flashed a few times, then it inched forward a couple of inches, and stopped about 10 inches from the door. Then the garage door opened and it inched forward about a foot until I let off the button. Since the wheel had straightened out, I didn't feel comfortable with it getting so close to the doorway. It probably would have been OK, but I didn't want to push it. So I held down the "reverse" button and again the lights flashed and it backed up until I let off the button, then the garage door closed. Needless to say I was impressed that it could open and close the garage door during my daily commute, but this blew me away.

I was so impressed, I forgot to plug in so had to go back out to the garage again.


----------



## SalisburySam

Yes, Summon can open the garage door through HomeLink if set to do so in the settings, but it may also close the door if it is open when Summon begins.

Suggestion: to avoid any chance of the garage door coming down on the car itself, I added a 2nd pair of safety sensors to the garage door closer at a height equal to the leading edge of the Model 3. That way, any body part blocking the light stops and reverses the garage door. It also protects the car if the garage door is open and then Summon issues a HomeLink command which in turn closes the garage.

For me, Summon is not reliable at all vis-a-vis my garage, but works decently away from the house to avoid puddles, tight parking, etc.


----------



## GDN

SalisburySam said:


> Yes, Summon can open the garage door through HomeLink if set to do so in the settings, but it may also close the door if it is open when Summon begins.


Would it do this? I have not tried in the garage, but from the demonstration by @Rick Steinwand it does not open the garage door as the first step, so it should close when it means to open. The car moves and when it encounters the door, then it opens it, then continues. When he summoned the other way, the car moved and then it closed the door. That second case I can see wanting to make sure your sensors cover the part of the car (bumper) that sticks out the furthest. However in his test case, it didn't arbitrarily try to open or close the door until after the car movement detected the door or had moved in to place

Either way I'm one of those people with no kids and I rarely let the dogs in the garage, so for 20 years my door beam sensor has always been set at the bumper height of my pickup or now, car.


----------



## Charlie W

Although it's been a few months since anyone has posted here, I remember reading _(back around Page 9 or so) _that some folks were having trouble getting Summon to work at all with their Model 3s. I've been one of those people - until about 1 month ago - when I FINALLY got Summon to work. I'd been getting all sorts of phone error messages, such as with the proximity sensor, settings, & other things too complicated for me to figure out. While you're probably more tech savvy than I - and I've so much respect for people like you - here's my story on how I got Summon to work. And _(I hate to admit it)_, for me, it took an iPhone "factory reset"-type command _(or "Erase all content and settings")_. A bit drastic, I know - but actually, Summon wasn't my primary reason for doing this.

I'd had a ~98% success connectivity rate with my Model 3 and iPhone 6s all along - with an occasional Bluetooth off/on toggle needed. But after my phone's internet starting running pitifully slow and apps were running worse, my choice was either to buy a new iPhone _(I didn't like that idea)_, or do a "factory reset" _(I wasn't thrilled with that choice either)_, but I was willing to give it a try. Having never done an "Erase all content and settings" before, I backed up my phone to my computer, wrote down the apps I feared I might need to reinstall, held my breath, and hit the "Erase" button. After the dust settled & I reinstalled the Tesla app, I tried Summon, and it worked! Forward/Backward. It was amazing. Yes, reinstalling my other apps was annoying, but my phone was working better than before, including my phone's internet - and Summon. While I can't guarantee your success, that's how I got Summon to work _(by accident)_. Best wishes to you!

~Charlie W

Mods: feel free to move, edit, or delete my post. You do a great job of keeping M.3.O.C./T.O.O. a great place to come to for friendly Tesla Model 3 info. _BTW, you can even delete this little paragraph. _;-)


----------



## GDN

I love seeing success. That does seem to be extreme and no fun to go that far, but this does say that software and the phones can just go wrong and need some new life. Glad this has brought you Summon success !


----------



## HCD3

Charlie W said:


> Although it's been a few months since anyone has posted here, I remember reading _(back around Page 9 or so) _that some folks were having trouble getting Summon to work at all with their Model 3s. I've been one of those people - until about 1 month ago - when I FINALLY got Summon to work. I'd been getting all sorts of phone error messages, such as with the proximity sensor, settings, & other things too complicated for me to figure out. While you're probably more tech savvy than I - and I've so much respect for people like you - here's my story on how I got Summon to work. And _(I hate to admit it)_, for me, it took an iPhone "factory reset"-type command _(or "Erase all content and settings")_. A bit drastic, I know - but actually, Summon wasn't my primary reason for doing this.
> 
> I'd had a ~98% success connectivity rate with my Model 3 and iPhone 6s all along - with an occasional Bluetooth off/on toggle needed. But after my phone's internet starting running pitifully slow and apps were running worse, my choice was either to buy a new iPhone _(I didn't like that idea)_, or do a "factory reset" _(I wasn't thrilled with that choice either)_, but I was willing to give it a try. Having never done an "Erase all content and settings" before, I backed up my phone to my computer, wrote down the apps I feared I might need to reinstall, held my breath, and hit the "Erase" button. After the dust settled & I reinstalled the Tesla app, I tried Summon, and it worked! Forward/Backward. It was amazing. Yes, reinstalling my other apps was annoying, but my phone was working better than before, including my phone's internet - and Summon. While I can't guarantee your success, that's how I got Summon to work _(by accident)_. Best wishes to you!
> 
> ~Charlie W
> 
> Mods: feel free to move, edit, or delete my post. You do a great job of keeping M.3.O.C./T.O.O. a great place to come to for friendly Tesla Model 3 info. _BTW, you can even delete this little paragraph. _;-)


I had an opportunity to use summon yesterday when someone parked so close to me I could barely get into my car. My Tesla app said proximity sensor is covered. It was not. So I squeezed into my car and my shoes fell off in the process.


----------



## Rick Steinwand

HCD3 said:


> I had an opportunity to use summon yesterday when someone parked so close to me I could barely get into my car. My Tesla app said proximity sensor is covered. It was not. So I squeezed into my car and my shoes fell off in the process.


I'm trying to understand how you fit into your car, but your shoes didn't.

How big are your feet (and your massive shoes)?


----------



## HCD3

Rick Steinwand said:


> I'm trying to understand how you fit into your car, but your shoes didn't.
> 
> How big are your feet (and your massive shoes)?


So here's the deal Rick. I was able to barely squeeze into my seat with the door open a crack. When I pushed myself into the seat. My shoes (slip on) sized 9.5 medium got caught on the door jamb and they fell off. What really pissed me off it that it was cold and my phone screen had some condensation on it and I couldn't engage summon to back the car out. It said proximity sensor covered. I tried a few times. The phone went from my pocket to a cold parking lot in partial fog. So I definitely am not Big Foot.


----------



## PNWmisty

HCD3 said:


> What really pissed me off it that it was cold and my phone screen had some condensation on it and I couldn't engage summon to back the car out. It said proximity sensor covered. I tried a few times. The phone went from my pocket to a cold parking lot in partial fog.


I've never had an issue in the cold and wet and fog with my phone's proximity sensor (as long as I keep solid objects (like my hands) away from the top of the screen). Do you have one of those plastic or thin glass screen protectors on there?


----------



## HCD3

PNWmisty said:


> I've never had an issue in the cold and wet and fog with my phone's proximity sensor (as long as I keep solid objects (like my hands) away from the top of the screen). Do you have one of those plastic or thin glass screen protectors on there?


I don't PNW. It has worked before, but when I needed it most it failed. I really needed summon that time if only to get my shoes


----------



## SalisburySam

Has any form of working Summon been released? My Dumbass Summon has never worked.


----------



## Tesla blue Y

SalisburySam said:


> Has any form of working Summon been released? My Dumbass Summon has never worked.


occasionally in my car it works. often not so much


----------



## pdp1

Ksb466 said:


> Many times the logical spot to run Summon ( garage or driveway) is on the boarder line of a wifi's Range, so connections can easily drop. I find it better to just turn off WiFi when using summon in many of my uses.


I used to think that was my case because summon would always stop when my car just barely got out of the garage and it would never summon back into the garage. It turns out my driveway is too steep and summon doesn't work on slopes.


----------



## Long Ranger

SalisburySam said:


> Has any form of working Summon been released? My Dumbass Summon has never worked.


I use basic Summon every day in my driveway. It usually works just fine. Occasionally (about once every couple weeks) it has a connection problem and it takes a second attempt to complete.


----------



## Tesla blue Y

pdp1 said:


> I used to think that was my case because summon would always stop when my car just barely got out of the garage and it would never summon back into the garage. It turns out my driveway is too steep and summon doesn't work on slopes.


do you have any idea of how steep slope effects summon?


----------



## pdp1

Tesla blue 3 said:


> do you have any idea of how steep slope effects summon?


I read that summon will not work on steep slopes in various forums online. I'm not sure of the technical reason.

I even tried a WiFi range extender to get a strong signal in my garage before I knew about this, when I still thought it was a WiFi connectivity issue. It did not help at all.


----------



## Rick Steinwand

I find my Summon fails the most when I'm in a small town or rural setting. I suspect a week 4g signal is why I have a lot of trouble with Summon. It works much better in the city where I'm less likely to use it.


----------



## Bokonon

pdp1 said:


> I read that summon will not work on steep slopes in various forums online. I'm not sure of the technical reason.


Summon operates in a mode with severe power and speed restrictions. On a given slope, if the torque required to move the car from a standstill is greater than what Summon allows, then Summon will end automatically.

This happens to me sometimes when I try to use Summon on my driveway (with something like an 8-10% grade on average). If the section of driveway where I've parked is too steep, Summon won't have enough power available to get the car moving, and will give up after about a second. If the car is parked on a less steep section of the driveway, though, Summon will work, and will have enough power to keep the car moving all the way to the top.


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## francoisp

My main fear when using Summon to back out of the garage is that it will miss that the door is not opened, not completely opened or already opened (the homelink command would close it). Based on your experiences, is Summon smart enough to detect that the door is already opened and not send the homelink command? As the car starts backing out of the garage, is Summon smart enough to cancel itself if it detects that the garage door is still closed? How much time does Summon allow for the garage door to open before moving?


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## ateslik

FrancoisP said:


> My main fear when using Summon to back out of the garage is that it will miss that the door is not opened, not completely opened or already opened (the homelink command would close it). Based on your experiences, is Summon smart enough to detect that the door is already opened and not send the homelink command? As the car starts backing out of the garage, is Summon smart enough to cancel itself if it detects that the garage door is still closed? How much time does Summon allow for the garage door to open before moving?


If you're ready to spend a couple thousand dollars when it doesn't work, go for it.

It failed for me. I've never used it since. Too expensive and too dangerous, even still.

https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/summon-settings-discussion.7631/post-147463


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