# Commands for Tesla: A Tesla app for iPhone and Apple Watch



## commands4tesla

**This is unofficial M3OC forum thread for feature request and support for Commands for Tesla iOS and watchOS app**
Commands for Tesla adds Siri Shortcuts, today widget and Apple Watch support for your Tesla vehicle.
In this forum thread, I will answer to all questions, feature requests, and bug reports for Commands for Tesla app.
Supported vehicles: Model 3, S & X
Current version: 1.1

Twitter: @commands4tesla

Apple Watch features:
- Lock or unlock the doors
- Turn on or off the auto conditioning system
- Flash the lights
- Honk the horn
- Open the front trunk (aka Frunk)
- Open the back trunk
- See the temperature of inside and outside of the car
- Set the cabin temperature
- Turn on seat heater for driver and passenger
- Check the battery status of your car
- See the charging status of your car
- Open charger port
- Set charge limit
- See the last location of your car on map
- See the last location address of your car

You can use Siri shortcuts to send commands to your car and hear the current status of your car with below functionalities:
- Lock or unlock the doors
- Turn on or off the auto conditioning system
- Open the charge port
- Flash the lights
- Honk the horn
- Open the front trunk (aka Frunk)
- Open the back trunk
- Get the inside temperature of your car
- Get the outside temperature of your car
- Find out how much range remained

Today widget supported:
- Lock or unlock the doors
- Turn on or off the auto conditioning system
- Flash the lights
- Honk the horn
- Open the front trunk (aka Frunk)
- Open the back


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## JWardell

I'm always interested in an app with nice Apple Watch features.
Looks to have a decent UI. Currently $5.

Here's the question I have: how often are you polling the car?
The problem that keeps me from using the Stats app is it wakes the car every 30 minutes.
I use TeslaFi extensively and I like its logic of allowing the car to sleep after 30 minutes. It will never sleep if both are used.


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## commands4tesla

JWardell said:


> I'm always interested in an app with nice Apple Watch features.
> Looks to have a decent UI. Currently $5.
> 
> Here's the question I have: how often are you polling the car?
> The problem that keeps me from using the Stats app is it wakes the car every 30 minutes.
> I use TeslaFi extensively and I like its logic of allowing the car to sleep after 30 minutes. It will never sleep if both are used.


Thank you for bring this up. The Commands for Tesla app only communicate with vehicle and wake it up if required when you want to send a command to your vehicle, or when you open the app to get updated status of your car. So you don't have to be worried about making your car awake every 30 minutes or so 🙂


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## Jim Barnette

Just purchased the app and recommend it. A couple of quick comments for the app designer:

- The frunk icon is not sufficiently obviously different from the trunk (e.g. not obvious which way the vehicle is pointing).
- I think the open charge port button should toggle to become a close charge port button after it is opened

Nice to have this capability on my wrist!


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## RoccoX

Does the app buffer the command (particularly turning on the climate control) while the car is waking up, so we don’t need to wait the 30 seconds?


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## ehendrix23

Few comments:
Inside and outside temp are showing with bunch of decimals. Really no decimals needed. 
Button to sync temp states temerature instead of temperature. 
Any way to also set heated seats for rear?
Would be nice if icons for trunk and frunk show closed when closed, open when open. 
Shortcut for Sentry?


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## commands4tesla

Jim Barnette said:


> Just purchased the app and recommend it. A couple of quick comments for the app designer:
> 
> - The frunk icon is not sufficiently obviously different from the trunk (e.g. not obvious which way the vehicle is pointing).
> - I think the open charge port button should toggle to become a close charge port button after it is opened
> 
> Nice to have this capability on my wrist!


Thank you for checking out the app and I'm glad you liked it. 
We will try to fix the issues you pointed at in the next release.
Also the a new version of the app with some other fixes and improvements released yesterday.
Thank you


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## commands4tesla

RoccoX said:


> Does the app buffer the command (particularly turning on the climate control) while the car is waking up, so we don't need to wait the 30 seconds?


Thank you for pointing that out.
Buffering the commands is not supported, yet. However, this is under development and will be released as soon as the work is done.
Thank you


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## commands4tesla

ehendrix23 said:


> Few comments:
> Inside and outside temp are showing with bunch of decimals. Really no decimals needed.
> Button to sync temp states temerature instead of temperature.
> Any way to also set heated seats for rear?
> Would be nice if icons for trunk and frunk show closed when closed, open when open.
> Shortcut for Sentry?


Thank you for checking out the app.
Issue wirh decimal palces is now fixed in the new update yesterday.
I'm sorry our QA has missed that spelling issue, will be fixed in next release.
We're working to re design some sections of the app to include the rear seats heater as well, will keep you posted about thar.
It currently does show the status of the trunk and frunk and whether they're open or not, their button color changes.
Shortcut for Sentry is on list of to do items.
Thank you again for checking the app. I will keep you posted about the new features.


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## BigBri

How reliable are the siri commands? I've been using Remote S for awhile and it fails to turn on the climate control 30% of the time or so. Chatted with the author and he's having to do a substantial rewrite of the application to fix the issue but I'm sick of waiting as it's been a few months.


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## commands4tesla

BigBri said:


> How reliable are the siri commands? I've been using Remote S for awhile and it fails to turn on the climate control 30% of the time or so. Chatted with the author and he's having to do a substantial rewrite of the application to fix the issue but I'm sick of waiting as it's been a few months.


Thank you for asking this.
Whenever you use any of shortcuts, it will first checks the status of your vehicle, if it's online and awake, it sends the command. If it's online but it's not awake, it first awakes it and then sends the command, if the wake up process takes longer than normal, it will give you appropriate feedback about that. And if the car isn't online like the time is not connect to Cellular or Wifi, it will tell you that as well. So, it's pretty reliable and if any command fails, at you least will be aware of the reason.
I hope this helps.
Let me know if you have any other questions


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## BigBri

commands4tesla said:


> Thank you for asking this.
> Whenever you use any of shortcuts, it will first checks the status of your vehicle, if it's online and awake, it sends the command. If it's online but it's not awake, it first awakes it and then sends the command, if the wake up process takes longer than normal, it will give you appropriate feedback about that. And if the car isn't online like the time is not connect to Cellular or Wifi, it will tell you that as well. So, it's pretty reliable and if any command fails, at you least will be aware of the reason.
> I hope this helps.
> Let me know if you have any other questions


I've bought the app and really like it so far! I've noticed the shortcut to turn on HVAC is called 'Turn on AC" inside of Shortcuts. I've also gotten errors a few times. I keep the Shortcuts widget on my home screen and just click it to run. Within maybe 5 seconds it'll say unknown error but I've created a custom shortcut that runs the command twice, waiting 10 seconds inbetween and so far so good.


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## commands4tesla

BigBri said:


> I've bought the app and really like it so far! I've noticed the shortcut to turn on HVAC is called 'Turn on AC" inside of Shortcuts. I've also gotten errors a few times. I keep the Shortcuts widget on my home screen and just click it to run. Within maybe 5 seconds it'll say unknown error but I've created a custom shortcut that runs the command twice, waiting 10 seconds inbetween and so far so good.


Thank you for pointing that out, we make sure this will be fixed in the coming release. 
Generally for any shortcuts, when you get the unknown error, it will be fixed by removing the shortcut and adding it again.
Let us know if you have any concern or question.


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## BigBri

In using the app for a few days I'm finding that it seems to not wait long after requesting the car wake up. When I open the app it'll spin for 5-10 seconds and say fail to connect. Usually if I force close it and reopen the car is awake and ready.


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## commands4tesla

BigBri said:


> In using the app for a few days I'm finding that it seems to not wait long after requesting the car wake up. When I open the app it'll spin for 5-10 seconds and say fail to connect. Usually if I force close it and reopen the car is awake and ready.


Thank you for letting me know.
We are aware of this issue, but the reason the app says failed to connect is because it seems sometimes in the process of waiking up the car, Tesla resposes back with inaccurate status of the car. For example when car is connected and it's sleep, sometimes instead of showing the car status as asleep which it usually does, it shows it as offline and based on that the error shows. However the reality is the car is waking up in that moment.
We are currently working on a fix to make it better.


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## JWardell

Finally installed the app, functionally it seems great so far.

The opening screen on the watch bugs me. The bottom row of buttons are half displayed and need to be scrolled. Can you fit all the buttons on the display by moving them closer together?
Also, I might suggest adding some colors to the buttons, so my brain can more quickly identify what I want to press. 
Most of the time I am just turning on HVAC.


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## commands4tesla

JWardell said:


> Finally installed the app, functionally it seems great so far.
> 
> The opening screen on the watch bugs me. The bottom row of buttons are half displayed and need to be scrolled. Can you fit all the buttons on the display by moving them closer together?
> Also, I might suggest adding some colors to the buttons, so my brain can more quickly identify what I want to press.
> Most of the time I am just turning on HVAC.


Thank you for your support. I hope you enjoy the app.

Thank you for sharing this with me, I will discuss this with our designer to check the possible options for making the icons more readable on watch.


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## JWardell

I have another idea..OK well, two:

Add a button to enable/disable sentry mode.

Now that's too many buttons! Well.. it would be nice to have the ability to choose which buttons we want (and even better, their position).

HVAC is still the only button I really use, and I have to scroll down a bit to use that. I would personally like HVAC first, sentry second, then maybe horn and frunk open.

Thanks


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## Ken Voss

JWardell said:


> I have another idea..OK well, two:
> 
> Add a button to enable/disable sentry mode.
> 
> Now that's too many buttons! Well.. it would be nice to have the ability to choose which buttons we want (and even better, their position).
> 
> HVAC is still the only button I really use, and I have to scroll down a bit to use that. I would personally like HVAC first, sentry second, then maybe horn and frunk open.
> 
> Thanks


I think the issue here is everyone wants a different order for the buttons, in my case I use Frunk the most, arms full and say "Hey siri open Frunk", in your case HVAC is the most important for you, so the best solution would be to allow users to configure the order of buttons based on each individual use case


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## JWardell

Ken Voss said:


> I think the issue here is everyone wants a different order for the buttons, in my case I use Frunk the most, arms full and say "Hey siri open Frunk", in your case HVAC is the most important for you, so the best solution would be to allow users to configure the order of buttons based on each individual use case


Which is why I suggested we have the ability to change positions.
Also, I don't use the frunk button because..I have never ONCE used the frunk!  Really needs an auto-close.


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## Eric714

Great iPhone App! Thanks.

Took me a few minutes to realize that the login is my Tesla.com login. And the Shortcuts need to be set-up individually by recording the Siri command phrases.

Other than that it was pretty sweet to walk up to my car with a load of grocery bags and say "Open Frunk" and with my new pistons (from I1Tesla's video 



) it automatically opened.

The car does have to be unlocked or the Frunk will not fully open. So, it's actually two commands - "Unlock Car" and "Open Frunk."

Perhaps a suggestion: make the "Open Frunk" include unlock car. Or can that be done now?

Download watch app, but I have not used it yet.

Petty cool. Thanks.
Eric


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## commands4tesla

JWardell said:


> I have another idea..OK well, two:
> 
> Add a button to enable/disable sentry mode.
> 
> Now that's too many buttons! Well.. it would be nice to have the ability to choose which buttons we want (and even better, their position).
> 
> HVAC is still the only button I really use, and I have to scroll down a bit to use that. I would personally like HVAC first, sentry second, then maybe horn and frunk open.
> 
> Thanks


Did you update to version 1.2? Sentry mode is there now. In watch, iPhone, Siri, and Today's widget


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## commands4tesla

Eric714 said:


> Great iPhone App! Thanks.
> 
> Took me a few minutes to realize that the login is my Tesla.com login. And the Shortcuts need to be set-up individually by recording the Siri command phrases.
> 
> Other than that it was pretty sweet to walk up to my car with a load of grocery bags and say "Open Frunk" and with my new pistons (from I1Tesla's video
> 
> 
> 
> ) it automatically opened.
> 
> The car does have to be unlocked or the Frunk will not fully open. So, it's actually two commands - "Unlock Car" and "Open Frunk."
> 
> Perhaps a suggestion: make the "Open Frunk" include unlock car. Or can that be done now?
> 
> Download watch app, but I have not used it yet.
> 
> Petty cool. Thanks.
> Eric


Thank you for using the app 
I'm pretty sure Frunk and Lock status of the car are independent, I've never had the issue for opening the Frunk when the doors are locked. 🤔
Did you try to test it in Tesla app?


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## Appstache

Do you have plans to add watchface complications for range any time soon? Trying to decide if I should purchase EV Watch for that function. I’ll likely hold off if you’re adding that down the road.


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## Eric714

commands4tesla said:


> Thank you for using the app
> I'm pretty sure Frunk and Lock status of the car are independent, I've never had the issue for opening the Frunk when the doors are locked. 🤔
> Did you try to test it in Tesla app?


Turns out it's my new auto-open pistons are no so "automatic".

Eric


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## JWardell

commands4tesla said:


> Did you update to version 1.2? Sentry mode is there now. In watch, iPhone, Siri, and Today's widget


Yes, I like the interface improvements too.


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## BigBri

Noticed Temperature is spelled Temerature where Sync Tempreature is.


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## Eric714

BigBri said:


> Noticed Temperature is spelled Temerature where Sync Tempreature is.


What Bri said.

Also, what's the 82.03...? I sort of thought it was seat angle. But it's in the climate section. It's clearly not temperature.


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## JWardell

Eric714 said:


> What Bri said.
> 
> Also, what's the 82.03...? I sort of thought it was seat angle. But it's in the climate section. It's clearly not temperature.


I think it reads temps in Celsius and is converting to Fahrenheit without rounding to whole integers


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## Eric714

JWardell said:


> I think it reads temps in Celsius and is converting to Fahrenheit without rounding to whole integers


Initially, I thought it was the seat recline angle. Then, I sort of assumed what you said. The "..." implies there're more decimal places. Clearly, I need to see them. It's very important for to me to get precise temperatures.


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## JWardell

Eric714 said:


> Initially, I thought it was the seat recline angle. Then, I sort of assumed what you said. The "..." implies there're more decimal places. Clearly, I need to see them. It's very important for to me to get precise temperatures.


It's not more precise, all internal temps are in half a degree C (and that's common across the industry), it's just decimals in the unit conversion.


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## Eric714

JWardell said:


> It's not more precise, all internal temps are in half a degree C (and that's common across the industry), it's just decimals in the unit conversion.


I was joking Josh! I'm an engineer and one of my pet peeves is the misuse of "significant digits." It's like taping a micrometer to the end of a yardstick - precise but not accurate.

BTW, I really like your posts and really appreciate all you do for this community, sincerely.


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## commands4tesla

Appstache said:


> Do you have plans to add watchface complications for range any time soon? Trying to decide if I should purchase EV Watch for that function. I'll likely hold off if you're adding that down the road.


Comes next week with version 1.3


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## commands4tesla

BigBri said:


> Noticed Temperature is spelled Temerature where Sync Tempreature is.


I forgot to push that change. Will be fixed in the next release.


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## commands4tesla

Eric714 said:


> What Bri said.
> 
> Also, what's the 82.03...? I sort of thought it was seat angle. But it's in the climate section. It's clearly not temperature.


This was fixed in the recent update, v 1.2. Did you update the app?


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## commands4tesla

Version 1.3 released to App Store with support for Apple Watch Complications and performance improvements.


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## Appstache

commands4tesla said:


> Version 1.3 released to App Store with support for Apple Watch Complications and performance improvements.


Great job with the complications! Another request- can you change the buttons on the watch app to require force touch or a confirmation? I was out to breakfast this morning and accidentally popped my frunk open from the app when I was about 4 blocks away


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## Ken Voss

I have been experiencing a very severe Phantom drain in the range of 0.5 and 1.0 MPH since around the time I went to Firmware release 2019.8.5 I measured this drain over 9 separate periods when the car was (or should have been) sleeping in my garage. I tested with my Jeda wireless pad and USB drive disconnected, with WiFi turned off, nothing I did reduced the drain until last night. What did I do different?

I signed out of the Commands App and the phantom drain immediately reduced to 0.12% per hour (over a 17 hour period) which is very normal.

I like the app but I do not have any intent on using it until this is resolved.


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## commands4tesla

Appstache said:


> Great job with the complications! Another request- can you change the buttons on the watch app to require force touch or a confirmation? I was out to breakfast this morning and accidentally popped my frunk open from the app when I was about 4 blocks away


Thank you for using the complications. We will add more information to complications in the future  
About the confirmation request, it's a very good idea t add another level of confirmation. We will work on options for the next releases


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## commands4tesla

Ken Voss said:


> I have been experiencing a very severe Phantom drain in the range of 0.5 and 1.0 MPH since around the time I went to Firmware release 2019.8.5 I measured this drain over 9 separate periods when the car was (or should have been) sleeping in my garage. I tested with my Jeda wireless pad and USB drive disconnected, with WiFi turned off, nothing I did reduced the drain until last night. What did I do different?
> 
> I signed out of the Commands App and the phantom drain immediately reduced to 0.12% per hour (over a 17 hour period) which is very normal.
> 
> I like the app but I do not have any intent on using it until this is resolved.


Thank you for trying out the app.

For phantom drain issue, we have tested the app before with several cars and we haven't had any issue, I've heard since version 2019.8.5 people had issues with the phantom drain but it wasn't related to our app.
However, because we don't collect any statistic data from your car like many other apps in the market, we don't wake up your car at any time if you don't open the app to use it. Even updating complications on apple watch only happens when the car is awake, and if it's not, no update happens to complications.

This post has some more information about the phantom drain on version 2018.8.5

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/bb198o


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## Ken Voss

commands4tesla said:


> Thank you for trying out the app.
> 
> For phantom drain issue, we have tested the app before with several cars and we haven't had any issue, I've heard since version 2019.8.5 people had issues with the phantom drain but it wasn't related to our app.
> However, because we don't collect any statistic data from your car like many other apps in the market, we don't wake up your car at any time if you don't open the app to use it. Even updating complications on apple watch only happens when the car is awake, and if it's not, no update happens to complications.
> 
> This post has some more information about the phantom drain on version 2018.8.5
> 
> __
> https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/bb198o


I just need to be as clear as possible on this.
1- With the Commands app enabled I lose between 0.5 and 1.0 MPH while the car is sleeping
2- With the Commands app disabled I lose between 0.10 and 0.13 MPH while sleeping

Stated a different way with the app enabled phantom drain is 5 to 10 times worse than it is with the app disabled. For testing I have Sentry disabled and USB devices are fully disconnected so neither of those are contributing to this. The one and only variable remaining is the Command App, and the difference when it is disabled is remarkable.

I like the app and wish this wasn't the case but its just the fact.


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## JWardell

Is there any way to customize the complication? I only see range in mi, I might want to see percent or something different. Regardless, thanks for adding it, it's nice to have some data.


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## commands4tesla

The new version of the app released to App Store.
What's new in this version:
- Introducing Commands Queue: Now you can queue commands before the car wakes up and the app will execute them after the car is awake. You can switch on or off this feature in the settings section.
- Support Email: You can now request for support within the app through email.
- Improvements to wake up time for iPhone and Apple Watch apps
- Improvements to today's widget
- Bug fixes and other improvements


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## commands4tesla

Commands for Tesla v1.5 with following changes and improvements is available on the App Store

- Improvements to Apple Watch app wake up and loading times
- Improvements to weather selection UI for Apple Watch and iPhone
- Improvements to charge limit selection UI for Apple Watch and iPhone
- Bug fixes and general performance improvements


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## ALLZAP

commands4tesla said:


> The new version of the app released to App Store.
> What's new in this version:
> - Introducing Commands Queue: Now you can queue commands before the car wakes up and the app will execute them after the car is awake. You can switch on or off this feature in the settings section.
> - Support Email: You can now request for support within the app through email.
> - Improvements to wake up time for iPhone and Apple Watch apps
> - Improvements to today's widget
> - Bug fixes and other improvements


I bought the APP and downloaded it on my Iphone, but I can't log in. I have tried my login and pw multiple times to no avail.... I don't see an option where I can reset it....help! plz


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## JWardell

I thought the updated watch app was broken as there were no +/- buttons to change charge level, then I just happened to touch the number and it scrolled. Suggest some graphical element to make that more obvious.

I'm also unsure, does having the complication on the watch wake the car when updating every hour or two? I had lots of wakes over the last few months, somewhat suspected the complication, but could be car firmware.


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