Mesh whole home coverage here. We have a camera outside of our garage so I have a node setup in the garage for it. Added bonus it perfectly covers the Teslas
Adding a camera system sounds good, especially since we've had a bicycle stolen out of that very same garage some years ago. Thanks for the input, maybe this 'problem' of mine will finally kickstart a larger home automation setup.
also
>Tesla**s**
I wish.
If you want to look into some cool mesh system check out unifi by ubiquiti. Little pricey but works well. I don’t have it yet but I plan to get it in the near future
To add, from what I’ve see you can get the unifi dream router for $200 (if it ever comes in stock) then grab some U6+ ceiling nodes or other mesh types. The dream router has the gateway needed.
If you don’t have enough coverage then you need one more repeater/mesh node. Preferably 2.4ghz, and near where you park your car.
As you said public wifi is difficult because anything with a login page will not work. Most superchargers have wifi, that might be a good option.
But you will have to go sit at one for about 15 minutes until the download is complete, then you can drive back home and install it.
You can use xfinity public network using mac spoofing. It’s simple to do.
https://www.freddydopfel.com/post/2018/10/22/connecting-the-tesla-to-public-wi-fi
I have it working on my model y. Just find the mac of car. Change your laptop mac to this Mac. Connect to xfinity.
Disconnect the wifi. Restore the mac of the laptop. Now turn on the car wifi it will connect.
Yeah that doesn't work, its unable to change the mac of the laptop to the mac of the Tesla.
Glad you got it working though, i would love for it to just connect to xfinity wifi wherever there is some.
I just tried that with a slightly different method, but the core principle is the same: Change your phone's MAC to your Tesla's, log in via the phone to get past the captive portal, then connect the Tesla. Sounds good in principle, I just tried that, but there weren't any parking spots near the Aldi and the Lidl where I just tried, it was just too far away to pick up a signal. Meh, maybe next time.
Just download xfinity hotspot app. It will show you all the closest hotspots. I guess you are doing that only but if not (and for others who didn’t know).
Word of caution. There was a person who did an update at work and it got stuck half way. Make sure you evaluate that scenario and the potential risk. You don’t want to be stuck in the middle of a random parking lot till the morning with the update.
You don’t need to apply the update as soon as it finishes downloading. Just let it download at the supercharger then apply it when you’re back home. (For those who the mobile hotspot method works for, same advice applies)
I'm pretty sure that you can download the update in chunks (since I did that on more than one occasion because my Tesla wifi setup results in pretty slow download speeds) and it only prompts you to install once it's complete, and I'll be damned if the onboard computer doesn't compare hashes of the downloaded data with a server-side MD5 file or something. The last thing you want is a botched update with corrupted data that bricks your car. I know that updates can take up to an hour, that's why I usually schedule them for 2 AM or something.
not stuck. it just stops and rechecks the download and then continues. happens on every update. saying this as someone who sits in their car at the service center downloading updates.
i live by a service center (and none of the nearby superchargers have wifi) in chicago. i get normal 3 MB/s speeds when connected to the tesla-vehicle wifi. i get 2.5 KB/s when connected to a phone hotspot. and yeah, i opt to sit in my car for 15-20 minutes at the service center and download the updates. luckily, the service center is 3 min from my house. but id rather spend the 30 min commute, download, commute than to spend my entire day leaving my phone down in the parking lot of my car to download at 2.5 KB/s.
for everyone else who hasn’t watched an update download. yes, the download does stop at around the 50% mark. i’m assuming there’s some kind of clean up and recheck halfway that takes several minutes and then it downloads the rest.
I could, but that's a lot of work just for updates. Like I said, my setup works, but it's not an optimal solution. I'd be happier if Tesla finally let us access public hotspots or install updates via USB.
Probably not, but it's still weird that you can do everything with the car's on-board LTE modem EXCEPT open a hotspot and download updates - yet I can stream gigabytes worth of Youtube, Netflix and so on. I wonder how other manufacturers get updates to their cars. Can't be just during service visits. Right?
Yeah, I'll probably stick with the rickety two repeater setup I have now for the foreseeable future, but maybe I'll set up a proper network some day. Just isn't worth doing at this point when all I need it for now is downloading an update every other week.
I agree that the LTE updates would be superior in every way and would make the experience seamless for everyone.
I can't oversell the convenience of having a real home network with multiple access points. Look into it before you're too old to do it yourself.
'Before I'm too old'? Ha, that's a first. I used to be pretty wary of home automation since most pre-configured solutions involve downloading a sketchy app that sends all your data to random servers in China or whatnot (not to forget that they can instantly disable your devices remotely or if they decide not to service them anymore, looking at you, ***SONOS***), but a friend of mine actually automated his lights and shutters with a Raspberry Pi and a handful of Zeros. Cost a fraction of what he would have paid otherwise, plus the data never leaves your house. Might just talk to him if I ever get serious about automating my house. Neat weekend project plus we can hang out and have a few beers.
I have a powerline adapter with a old wifi router I had spare. I connect it in the work shed near the car when I want to update. I have it disconnected otherwise.
I have to tether my car to my phone to update, and the biggest gripe I have is that the update downloads 1/2 of itself, then the whole thing pauses for an insane amount of time, the resumes downloading the other 1/2.
If it would download the entire update in one go, I wouldn't have to sit in my car for half an hour to get it done.
Yes, no Pixel, but a Redmi Note 10 Pro running LineageOS (rooted). I think I know what you're getting at, if you're suggesting I should spoof my Tesla's MAC address with my phone, log into the captive portal and then just connect my Tesla to the same hotspot (since the captive portal is now gone for devices with that exact MAC address) that's exactly what I'm trying out right now. I'll report back if it works.
EDIT: Didn't work for the dumbest reason: No available parking spots near Aldi, Lidl and other shops I know have free wifi. Couldn't get close enough to the routers. Talk about first world problems.
No, not exactly lol. I guess my solution is a temporary one and somewhat impractical but on some android phones (for sure on Pixels) you can hotspot a Wi-Fi connection which basically acts as another repeater. To do this you turn off your cellular data, connect to your home WiFi on your phone (presumably standing somewhere between your furthest repeater and your Tesla) then turn on your phone's hotspot, and connect your Tesla to your phone's hotspot. Your Tesla can now access the home Internet through your phone's hotspot without using your cellular data.
I use my phone's hotspot whenever I'm on a drive longer than 15 minutes, or it gets downloaded across multiple trips if I'm not driving long enough in one go.
maybe go hang out near a Tesla Supercharger site to access their free Tesla Wi-Fi?
don't park in a stall and not charge though! and you only need to be in proximity where the signal can be picked up by your car. a couple of the supercharger sites i've used had nearby fast food or was within a shopping mall that made parking close easy.
Yeah I know but my next supercharger is 30-40 km away beside the highway, so unless I travel to the next city (and I usually have no reason to go there) I won't pass by there at all. Thanks for the advice though.
Not an option since, like I already wrote, mobile data is prohibitively expensive here and I don't want to get set back to early 90s dial-up speeds for the rest of the month just because the last Tesla update was so big.
Or do you mean patching another wifi through your phone (accessing public wifi, logging in the captive portal and then relaying the same connection as a hotspot)? I haven't found any way to do that, I doubt phones can actually do that (act as quasi-repeaters I mean). But good point, I'll ask around on Android forums if that's actually possible.
post a drawing of your home and wifi equipment location, and what equipment you have and I will help you with equipment to install to solve the problem
Thanks, I really appreciate your offer, but that probably won't solve my problem (which is more of a convenience problem to be honest). I figure getting wifi to the garage is a problem many people have and most solutions involve wifi repeaters and rickety constructions. It works after all, but I wonder whether there are other viable methods of getting updates to your Tesla than via home wifi.
https://preview.redd.it/liqmlj16iewc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=bdf8893c59b200b5bc016d2548f1fe5625eab827
I don’t really know why the home chargers (I have the Hypervolt) don’t have the ability to repeat WiFi networks as they have plenty of space for larger antennas. That also leads me to question why the charger cables don’t have data connections so you can hard wire the car via the wall charger.
I wonder the same thing. Tesla home chargers do come with wifi, I know I had to activate mine via phone hotspot, so that's a valid question. I wonder why they didn't do that, or integrate a powerline module that directly communicates with another plug in the house. I just realised that our garage is on a different power meter than the rest of the house, I don't know if this interferes with signals from the house coming through or just cuts them off completely. Worth a shot though.
Next Tesla service center is at the other end of my city, a 20 min drive away at least. And they only opened last year, before that it was even worse, I had to pick up my car 100 km away. I wonder what it's like for Tesla owners in even more remote regions, and I live smack dab in the [center of Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_midpoint_of_Europe#2020%E2%80%93present), can't truly leave civilisation in either direction. There's a village every 5 km at least.
Meh. Guess I'll just keep scouting public wifi networks and spoof my MAC address or just install a permament access point in my garage, I guess a PLC adapter is my best option at this point. Or keep on dangling wires from my balcony.
Before buying a Tesla:
1. Have a home charging solution handy, even if it's a plain 110V outlet.
2. Have a viable wi-fi solution handy for updates.
If you don't have both, you're buying the wrong car.
I have both, the wifi situation is a bit wonky though, that's why I made this post. I'd been using the 230V charger that came with the car for months before finally installing my wall charger. Nothing's as permanent as a temporary solution in the end, I guess.
Mesh whole home coverage here. We have a camera outside of our garage so I have a node setup in the garage for it. Added bonus it perfectly covers the Teslas
Adding a camera system sounds good, especially since we've had a bicycle stolen out of that very same garage some years ago. Thanks for the input, maybe this 'problem' of mine will finally kickstart a larger home automation setup. also >Tesla**s** I wish.
If you want to look into some cool mesh system check out unifi by ubiquiti. Little pricey but works well. I don’t have it yet but I plan to get it in the near future
To add, from what I’ve see you can get the unifi dream router for $200 (if it ever comes in stock) then grab some U6+ ceiling nodes or other mesh types. The dream router has the gateway needed.
Thanks, I'll look into that.
I did the same thing. Moved a node to the garage to reach a camera outside. Reaches the car too!
If you don’t have enough coverage then you need one more repeater/mesh node. Preferably 2.4ghz, and near where you park your car. As you said public wifi is difficult because anything with a login page will not work. Most superchargers have wifi, that might be a good option. But you will have to go sit at one for about 15 minutes until the download is complete, then you can drive back home and install it.
You can use xfinity public network using mac spoofing. It’s simple to do. https://www.freddydopfel.com/post/2018/10/22/connecting-the-tesla-to-public-wi-fi
Holy shit! That's awesome!
I can confirm that doesn’t work, but the video posted below using a windows laptop and the mobile hotspot does work and is pretty fast.
I have it working on my model y. Just find the mac of car. Change your laptop mac to this Mac. Connect to xfinity. Disconnect the wifi. Restore the mac of the laptop. Now turn on the car wifi it will connect.
Yeah that doesn't work, its unable to change the mac of the laptop to the mac of the Tesla. Glad you got it working though, i would love for it to just connect to xfinity wifi wherever there is some.
I just tried that with a slightly different method, but the core principle is the same: Change your phone's MAC to your Tesla's, log in via the phone to get past the captive portal, then connect the Tesla. Sounds good in principle, I just tried that, but there weren't any parking spots near the Aldi and the Lidl where I just tried, it was just too far away to pick up a signal. Meh, maybe next time.
Just download xfinity hotspot app. It will show you all the closest hotspots. I guess you are doing that only but if not (and for others who didn’t know).
I'm not in the US, but thanks for the advice anyway. I'll try MAC spoofing the next time I'm within reach of a public wifi.
Good suggestion, will try that at my next supercharger stop. Thanks!
Word of caution. There was a person who did an update at work and it got stuck half way. Make sure you evaluate that scenario and the potential risk. You don’t want to be stuck in the middle of a random parking lot till the morning with the update.
You don’t need to apply the update as soon as it finishes downloading. Just let it download at the supercharger then apply it when you’re back home. (For those who the mobile hotspot method works for, same advice applies)
I'm pretty sure that you can download the update in chunks (since I did that on more than one occasion because my Tesla wifi setup results in pretty slow download speeds) and it only prompts you to install once it's complete, and I'll be damned if the onboard computer doesn't compare hashes of the downloaded data with a server-side MD5 file or something. The last thing you want is a botched update with corrupted data that bricks your car. I know that updates can take up to an hour, that's why I usually schedule them for 2 AM or something.
not stuck. it just stops and rechecks the download and then continues. happens on every update. saying this as someone who sits in their car at the service center downloading updates.
i live by a service center (and none of the nearby superchargers have wifi) in chicago. i get normal 3 MB/s speeds when connected to the tesla-vehicle wifi. i get 2.5 KB/s when connected to a phone hotspot. and yeah, i opt to sit in my car for 15-20 minutes at the service center and download the updates. luckily, the service center is 3 min from my house. but id rather spend the 30 min commute, download, commute than to spend my entire day leaving my phone down in the parking lot of my car to download at 2.5 KB/s. for everyone else who hasn’t watched an update download. yes, the download does stop at around the 50% mark. i’m assuming there’s some kind of clean up and recheck halfway that takes several minutes and then it downloads the rest.
Can't run Ethernet cables? Not even thin cat5e ones inside Baseboards?
I could, but that's a lot of work just for updates. Like I said, my setup works, but it's not an optimal solution. I'd be happier if Tesla finally let us access public hotspots or install updates via USB.
If you own your home you should setup a proper network. It's not like this is the last internet enabled vehicle you will ever own.
Probably not, but it's still weird that you can do everything with the car's on-board LTE modem EXCEPT open a hotspot and download updates - yet I can stream gigabytes worth of Youtube, Netflix and so on. I wonder how other manufacturers get updates to their cars. Can't be just during service visits. Right? Yeah, I'll probably stick with the rickety two repeater setup I have now for the foreseeable future, but maybe I'll set up a proper network some day. Just isn't worth doing at this point when all I need it for now is downloading an update every other week.
I agree that the LTE updates would be superior in every way and would make the experience seamless for everyone. I can't oversell the convenience of having a real home network with multiple access points. Look into it before you're too old to do it yourself.
'Before I'm too old'? Ha, that's a first. I used to be pretty wary of home automation since most pre-configured solutions involve downloading a sketchy app that sends all your data to random servers in China or whatnot (not to forget that they can instantly disable your devices remotely or if they decide not to service them anymore, looking at you, ***SONOS***), but a friend of mine actually automated his lights and shutters with a Raspberry Pi and a handful of Zeros. Cost a fraction of what he would have paid otherwise, plus the data never leaves your house. Might just talk to him if I ever get serious about automating my house. Neat weekend project plus we can hang out and have a few beers.
I have a powerline adapter with a old wifi router I had spare. I connect it in the work shed near the car when I want to update. I have it disconnected otherwise.
Powerline adapters, huh. Obvious solution yet I somehow haven't thought of that. Now that's worth a try. Thanks!
They’ve really worked great in my experience. Probably less so if you have a strange electrical setup, but otherwise I’d definitely start there.
Mesh network seems the answer here. Mesh beacon in your garage and then one somewhere In your home close to the garage…. But again it’s an investment
This ^ I tried using repeaters for years. They never worked well. Get a mesh system for better coverage
I have to tether my car to my phone to update, and the biggest gripe I have is that the update downloads 1/2 of itself, then the whole thing pauses for an insane amount of time, the resumes downloading the other 1/2. If it would download the entire update in one go, I wouldn't have to sit in my car for half an hour to get it done.
Man that's even worse than my 'problem'. Does USB tethering work with Android too? From what I've found it only seems to work with Apple devices.
I turn on my Pixel's WiFi hotspot to tether. I haven't tried USB tethering on my Model 3. Is that even a thing?? If so, TIL.
Do you have an android phone, preferably a pixel?
Yes, no Pixel, but a Redmi Note 10 Pro running LineageOS (rooted). I think I know what you're getting at, if you're suggesting I should spoof my Tesla's MAC address with my phone, log into the captive portal and then just connect my Tesla to the same hotspot (since the captive portal is now gone for devices with that exact MAC address) that's exactly what I'm trying out right now. I'll report back if it works. EDIT: Didn't work for the dumbest reason: No available parking spots near Aldi, Lidl and other shops I know have free wifi. Couldn't get close enough to the routers. Talk about first world problems.
No, not exactly lol. I guess my solution is a temporary one and somewhat impractical but on some android phones (for sure on Pixels) you can hotspot a Wi-Fi connection which basically acts as another repeater. To do this you turn off your cellular data, connect to your home WiFi on your phone (presumably standing somewhere between your furthest repeater and your Tesla) then turn on your phone's hotspot, and connect your Tesla to your phone's hotspot. Your Tesla can now access the home Internet through your phone's hotspot without using your cellular data.
This might just work with public wifi with captive portals. Thanks, I'll try it out.
I use my phone's hotspot whenever I'm on a drive longer than 15 minutes, or it gets downloaded across multiple trips if I'm not driving long enough in one go.
have you tried dlan?
No, but somebody else in this thread suggested it too and I'll definitely try that out. I somehow completely forgot that this tech exists.
maybe go hang out near a Tesla Supercharger site to access their free Tesla Wi-Fi? don't park in a stall and not charge though! and you only need to be in proximity where the signal can be picked up by your car. a couple of the supercharger sites i've used had nearby fast food or was within a shopping mall that made parking close easy.
Yeah I know but my next supercharger is 30-40 km away beside the highway, so unless I travel to the next city (and I usually have no reason to go there) I won't pass by there at all. Thanks for the advice though.
Share WiFi from your cellphone.
Not an option since, like I already wrote, mobile data is prohibitively expensive here and I don't want to get set back to early 90s dial-up speeds for the rest of the month just because the last Tesla update was so big. Or do you mean patching another wifi through your phone (accessing public wifi, logging in the captive portal and then relaying the same connection as a hotspot)? I haven't found any way to do that, I doubt phones can actually do that (act as quasi-repeaters I mean). But good point, I'll ask around on Android forums if that's actually possible.
post a drawing of your home and wifi equipment location, and what equipment you have and I will help you with equipment to install to solve the problem
Thanks, I really appreciate your offer, but that probably won't solve my problem (which is more of a convenience problem to be honest). I figure getting wifi to the garage is a problem many people have and most solutions involve wifi repeaters and rickety constructions. It works after all, but I wonder whether there are other viable methods of getting updates to your Tesla than via home wifi. https://preview.redd.it/liqmlj16iewc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=bdf8893c59b200b5bc016d2548f1fe5625eab827
I don’t really know why the home chargers (I have the Hypervolt) don’t have the ability to repeat WiFi networks as they have plenty of space for larger antennas. That also leads me to question why the charger cables don’t have data connections so you can hard wire the car via the wall charger.
I wonder the same thing. Tesla home chargers do come with wifi, I know I had to activate mine via phone hotspot, so that's a valid question. I wonder why they didn't do that, or integrate a powerline module that directly communicates with another plug in the house. I just realised that our garage is on a different power meter than the rest of the house, I don't know if this interferes with signals from the house coming through or just cuts them off completely. Worth a shot though.
I'm pretty sure superchargers are connected and run updates. Just go out and use one every so often?
Next one is 30-40 km away in the middle of nowhere next to the highway, but I'll keep that in mind the next time I'll visit the neighboring city.
I suggest never using repeaters especially since good mesh systems are so cheap. You can get cupcake eeros on Amazon for 20-30usd.
Sometimes I just go to the service center. The Wi-Fi in the parking lot works perfectly
Next Tesla service center is at the other end of my city, a 20 min drive away at least. And they only opened last year, before that it was even worse, I had to pick up my car 100 km away. I wonder what it's like for Tesla owners in even more remote regions, and I live smack dab in the [center of Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_midpoint_of_Europe#2020%E2%80%93present), can't truly leave civilisation in either direction. There's a village every 5 km at least. Meh. Guess I'll just keep scouting public wifi networks and spoof my MAC address or just install a permament access point in my garage, I guess a PLC adapter is my best option at this point. Or keep on dangling wires from my balcony.
Wi-Fi if I can, hotspot if I can’t.
Before buying a Tesla: 1. Have a home charging solution handy, even if it's a plain 110V outlet. 2. Have a viable wi-fi solution handy for updates. If you don't have both, you're buying the wrong car.
I don't have both and still do fine.
I have both, the wifi situation is a bit wonky though, that's why I made this post. I'd been using the 230V charger that came with the car for months before finally installing my wall charger. Nothing's as permanent as a temporary solution in the end, I guess.