Connecting Your Tesla to Public WiFi
The Tesla infotainment system is an immense, media-rich platform. Everything from streaming Netflix to changing your car horn to a fart sound is at your fingertips. The connected set of features built into Tesla’s media system does not come without a data cost, though. Tesla offers a default standard connectivity package and a paid premium one. The reality is you’ll pretty much need the paid option to experience all the benefits the system has to offer.
Almost all the services work flawlessly through premium connectivity (LTE), but you’ll still need to connect to WiFi for some things. Most Tesla firmware updates still require a WiFi connection and streaming high quality video is almost always going to be a smoother experience when done over WiFi. In some rare cases, users have been unable to stream video over LTE at all because of connection constraints.
Connecting to WiFi while sitting in your own driveway is usually no problem at all, but what happens when you’re far away from home on a road trip? If you need to connect to WiFi and the only thing around is public WiFi then you might run into a few snags trying to connect.
Currently, Tesla does not allow you to connect to WiFi that uses captive portal authentication. This WiFi is different from normal home networks that simply use a pre-shared key as a password. Captive portal…
