Tesla updates mobile app with a good feature for lazy owners, and more

Tesla has released a new update to its mobile app that adds a good feature for lazy owners, like myself, and a change in the back end that points to an upcoming feature.

It used to be Tesla owners had to go inside their vehicles to start a software update.

Tesla would send a notification through your Tesla mobile app telling you that a new update was ready and you’d need to get to your car to start downloading and installing it.

Later, Tesla released a new mobile app update that enabled owners to start the update from the app.

However, you still needed to go inside the vehicle once the update was completed in order to read the release and know what the update was about. I am so lazy that I actually complained about this just last week on the Electrek Podcast.

Now Tesla has pushed a new version (Version 4.15.0) of its mobile app to the App Store, and the release notes confirm that the new update enables Tesla drivers to view release notes (meta, I know) from the app:

View vehicle software release notes (*)

*Vehicle software version 2022.40+ required.

It means that once you update your app and have the latest 2022.40+ vehicle software in your car, you’ll be able to push a new update to it and view the update from the app without having to go to your vehicle.

That was the only official new feature in the mobile app update released last night, but Tesla App Updates (IOS) on Twitter always dig inside the updates to find any change in the back end that could lead to new features.

They found that Tesla added references to the interior cabin camera:

It’s not clear what this is about exactly, but Tesla could be adding the cabin camera view to its Sentry Mode remote camera viewing feature released last year.

The feature enables owners to remotely get a live view from the Autopilot camera feeds in their vehicles directly from the mobile app. Right now, it only gives you the option to pull the camera feeds from the front camera, back camera, and one on each side.