There are a lot of third party Tesla apps to choose from, but many of them just duplicate
the official Tesla app’s basic functionality and aren’t worth installing.
The only apps that really warrant checking out are those that give you functionality
or analysis that you can’t get from Tesla directly.
Want to know how your cars battery health compares to other Tesla owners?
Want to start preheating your car with just your voice?
Well, that’s where these apps come in.
Today, I’m taking a closer look at Stats for iOS.
%% Introduction
A few months ago I reviewed a couple interesting third party Tesla apps: Tezlab and TeslaFi.
I had a few reservations around Tezlab, but since my original review they’ve continued
to refine the experience and add new features.
I’m still keeping my eye on them and will probably do a follow up at some point down
the road.
TeslaFi has remained my go to standard that I use day to day to track my usage, efficiency,
battery health and more.
It’s not as simple to setup and use as Tezlab, but it offers more of the deeper analytical
data that I’m looking for.
I’ll include a link in the description for anyone interested on watching those reviews.
And before I jump in, all third party Tesla apps need you to log in with your Tesla Credentials
to generate a Tesla API token.
Some even allow you to enter your Tesla API token directly.
Before diving into any of these apps, make sure you look into how the developer is using
your data to make sure you’re comfortable.
If you want to deauthorize a developer, all you have to do is change your Tesla account
password and your API token will no longer work.
## Stats, Stats, and More Stats
Over the past month or so I’ve had a few of you suggest Stats for me to check out.
It costs $15 right now in the App Store, which might seem like a lot compared to what you
see with other apps selling for.
Is it worth that price?
In short, yes, I think it is and here’s why.
Stats falls somewhere between Tezlab and TeslaFi for convenience and functionality.
Just download, log in, and start using the app.
There’s no additional setup needed to make sure it’s not going to drain your cars battery.
No crazy configurations on sleep cycles.
Just install and go, which is very much like Tezlab.
What you’ll see when you first log in is the battery screen.
On here you’ll see your cars charge amount with a controllable slider for setting your
maximum charge.
Under that, you’ll get a readout of your average hourly phantom drain, range reported
by the car vs. your estimated range based on your driving efficiency, and information
from your last charge.
It’s a minimally designed screen, but it's packed with a surprising amount of information
on the current state of your car.
It’s a great little snapshot.
Move over to the bar chart icon in the main nav and you’ll find a more robust display
of your personal driving data over time.
You won’t see details on specific drives, but you’ll see breakdowns of charges, added
miles, charging cost, kWh added, and savings over gasoline.
You can view this in daily, weekly, or monthly ranges.
Look at your driving efficiency, or MPGe, based on the length of trip: average of 50
miles, 200 miles, and 500 miles.
And yes, before anyone comments, you can switch this to metric.
One of the things that I really like about TeslaFi is that it shows a breakdown of temperature
impact on efficiency, and so does Stats.
This is one of the areas where the UI fails the app a little bit.
There’s an easily missed tiny graph icon in the “driving efficiency” section that
you can tap to get a nice scatter plot of your battery efficiency by temperature.
Further down the page you can get charts on miles driven per day, week, or month.
Below that you get reports on charge rate in kW against the battery level.
This is something that I really didn’t like how Tezlab displayed it ... I kind of lost
my mind on their use of bar charts ... feel free to watch that review to see my mini bar
chart meltdown.
Well, Stats displays this information as a line graph in very easy to digest manner.
I immediately understood what I was looking at the first time I loaded up the app.
I tip my UI designers hat to the developer for this one.
And we’re still not done with the data.
Stats also gives you a scatter chart on your battery’s health, which helps you monitor
battery degradation.
It’s a great stat to keep an eye on, but not something you should get anxiety over.
And finally, a breakdown of phantom drain.
On the first screen we got our average hourly drain, but here we can slice the drain by
day, week, and month, and even better, it includes a little map to show you where the
drain occurred.
The UI of how this area functions was a little confusing at first, but makes a lot of sense
once you use it.
This can be very helpful if you see an big spike in drain, so you can jog your memory
as to what might have happened on that day.
For me I’ll sometimes see higher phantom drain if I’m doing a series of short errands
around town.
The car doesn’t have an opportunity to go into a deep sleep to save energy, and if you’re
sitting in the car waiting for family to run into a store, the car is going to have a higher
than normal phantom drain.
Another area where I dinged Tezlab, but gave TeslaFi high marks for, was for data export.
I want to give Stats a virtual high five because they also include a way to export the data
for your own use.
The one downside is that it’s not obvious how to do so.
In places where you can export the data, you’ll see a little share icon on the upper
right corner of the graph.
Tap that and you’ll get options for exporting.
Move to the line graph icon in the navigation and this is where you see aggregated statistics
for all Stats users.
Both Tezlab and TeslaFi offer some insights like this, so it’s great to see Stats including
something like it too.
This shows you averages for driving efficiency and phantom drain across users, as well as
firmware versions and how many people have which version.
Again, it’s not like you’ll be spending a lot of time on this screen, but it gives
you a benchmark for comparison.
## Controls
Stats also offers some of the basic controls that you’ll get in any third part app, like
climate control, keyless driving, locking and unlocking doors, honking the horn, flashing
the lights, and where the car is currently parked.
But I saved the best for last: Stats includes Siri Shortcuts support!
You can set up voice commands for locking doors, heating seats and the cabin, opening
the trunk and frunk, starting and stopping charging, opening the charge port, and get
your car’s range or temperature.
Once you’ve configured your personalized Siri voice commands, you can use your iPhone,
iPad, Homepod, or Apple Watch to start warming up your car in the morning.
Before the Stats app I had been using the Remote S app for this, which was hit or miss
from my experience.
It was also the only unique functionality that app offered compared to the Tesla app,
so as soon as I installed Stats, Remote S was deleted from my phone.
I’ve been using Siri Shortcuts to warm up my car every morning.
Stats also has some extra things available buried in the settings menu.
You can configure notifications if your car is unlocked and nobody is inside, or if your
climate control is on and you’re not in the car.
There’s also a setting for scheduling heating and cooling, which can come in handy if you
leave home at the same time every day.
And for those speed freaks out there, there’s a 0-60 measurement tool.
## The Negatives
Now, is it all sunshine and rainbows?
Close, but there are a few minor nitpicks that I have.
If you’ve seen some of my other videos, you know that I’m a UI designer, so some
of my nitpicks are definitely on the picky side.
While the UI is clean and the data display is easy to understand, some of the navigation
is confusing.
There aren’t any labels to the main navigation, so you only have nondescript icons to try
and decipher.
What’s the difference between the bar chart icon and line graph icon?
When you see the content on the screens, it makes perfect sense why the content is grouped
the way it is.
The bar chart icon is your data vs. the line graph as all user data, but without labels,
and icons that are very similar to each other, it’s not clear what you’re going to see
when you tap on it.
The charts themselves also don’t have a consistent title or label.
The information is all there, but you have to decipher each chart from it’s unique
labeling, tabs, and graph data.
And as I mentioned earlier, the icons for exporting data and seeing how temperature
affects your battery are hidden and easily missed.
Those are very, very minor nitpicks from a UI designer.
A little TLC on some icon choices and labels would help the usability, but the structure
and organization of the app is pretty solid.
## Final Thoughts
Overall, Stats is a great app and I give it a big thumbs up.
It’s easy to use, works reliably, and is kind of a bargain for the price.
I know the price sounds like a lot, but the developer is putting out consistent updates,
fixing bugs, and adding new features.
It’s a lot of work that he’s essentially adding for free.
I’m a TeslaFi subscriber and feel like I’m getting a lot of value out of my subscription
price.
For Stats, I’d feel the same way if he switched to a subscription model, to ensure he’d
be able to continue developing the app and making updates.
I’m a big fan of independent developers being able to make a living on the App Store.
TeslaFi is still my recommendation for the deep data nerds out there.
It offers some incredible details on every aspect of your Tesla that I haven’t seen
matched anywhere else yet, but that comes at a cost.
The biggest negative is that TeslaFi is web only and doesn’t have a mobile app, so the
only integration you have at the moment is with Amazon Alexa.
Tezlab is on the other side of the spectrum with zero configuration, a decent, but slimmed
down level of information on you trips, battery, and other Tezlab users.
It also has some basic car controls, but has a very cool real-time stats view that you
can pull up on your car’s browser.
It’s more accessible than TeslaFi, but more skin deep and your data is currently locked
into their system.
Then there’s Stats, which I think is sitting in the sweet spot between those two.
It may not offer as detailed a view as TeslaFi, but Stats offers some great statistics to
help you judge your driving efficiency and your car’s health, as well as some nifty
car controls with built in Siri integration.
And like Tezlab it takes zero configuration to get it up and running, it’s a native
mobile app, and the information is streamlined and digestible.
Which of those is right for you really depends on what you hope to get out of it, but hopefully
I’ve given you enough to make a decision.
If you’re interested in trying out TeslaFi and want an additional two weeks to try it
out, you can use my [referral code] in the description below.
If you liked the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up and drop a comment below to let
me know what you think?
Do any of you use Stats?
What about any other third party Tesla services?
Chime in on what you use and why?
And don’t forget about the limited edition Tesla Wall Connector giveaway I’m running
right now.
The giveaway is available in the United States and Canada, and is running until March 8th
at 11:59pm Eastern time, so be sure to get your entries in before then.
I’ll announce the winner on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and here on the channel’s YouTube
Community tab.
If you’d like to support the channel, there are some ways you can do so.
Want some fun geeky t-shirts?
I have a SFSF Shop page that includes some cool Tesla, Space X, science, and video game
designs.
Some custom Undecided channel prints are also on the way.
Every purchase helps to support the channel, so be sure to check out the link in the description.
You can become an Undecided supporter on Patreon to help grow and shape the channel.
On Patreon I post updates, polls, behind the scenes content, and look to that group to
help me decide what’s coming next and how to shape the channel and the community.
If you’re interested, please go check out my Patreon page for additional details and
I hope to see some of you over there.
A big shout out to one of the new Supporter + members: Tom W. Thanks so much for the joining
and supporting the channel.
Looking for some great Tesla accessories, you can get 15% off your first order with
Abstract Ocean, which can save you a lot of money on their console wraps, bright LED lights,
screen protectors, and much more.
There are also some Amazon affiliate links in the description for some items that you
might find useful.
And if you haven’t already, consider subscribing and hitting the notification bell to get alerts
when I post a new video.
And as always, thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.