You Can Now Summon Your Tesla Model S With Your Apple Watch
When Tesla announced firmware version 1.7 last month, which introduced the much anticipated "Summon" feature to the electric car, we knew it was only a matter of time before some enterprising developer plays around with the feature and takes it elsewhere. That time has indeed come and Allen Wong from Rego Apps has finally updated his famous, or infamous, Remote S Apple Watch app. And its new feature is as what you'd expect, allowing you to call your car from almost anywhere with a few taps on your wrist.
Summon is one of Tesla's most futurist, and forward-looking, new features. In essence, it offers the double functionality of automatically parking a Model S and then un-parking it later a touch of a button. At the moment, it's pretty much only useful for nearby parking spots, mostly a garage. It can also be a life (or money) saver for tight parking spaces where human error could cause some costly damage. In the future however, Musk envisions that you could even summon your Tesla car from across the country. Of course, presuming it can already reliably drive itself A to B.
That future is still far away, but Wong has been able to take a bite out of that. A bite that is slightly over 39 feet. That happens to be the maximum distance that Tesla requires the keyfob to be in order for summon to work. Remote S, however, has found a way around that, for now.
The update Remote S app pretty much allows users to park or call their car even without them in it, at the convenience of a few taps on the Apple Watch. That already seems like a great gift, but here's one more. Thanks to a special workaround, you can summon the Model S from a distance greater than 39 feet. The trick is to first do a Keyless Start before summoning the car.
It is not an official feature and probably goes against Tesla's safety precautions, so who knows until when this will work. For now, however, Model S owners who have smartwatches can at least have a taste of the near future.
VIA: 9to5Mac