Do you need Premium Connectivity to use Roadly?

Not necessarily. Roadly runs in the Tesla's built-in browser and all it needs is a data connection: Wi-Fi at home, in a garage or at a charger works fine, and a phone hotspot is a legitimate route — Tesla's own documentation notes these features may also be accessed over mobile hotspots, subject to your carrier's fees and restrictions. Premium Connectivity is what you need if you want to stream over the car's own cellular connection instead.

1Standard and Premium connectivity: what actually differs

One thing differs: where the data comes from. With Standard Connectivity, the in-car browser and video streaming work over Wi-Fi, and Tesla's documentation adds that these same features may also be accessed over mobile hotspots, subject to your carrier's fees and restrictions. Premium Connectivity brings those features to the car's own cellular connection, as a subscription billed monthly or yearly depending on the market.

In practice: Premium adds nothing to Roadly itself. It adds convenience. Roadly cannot tell one kind of link from another — it sees a connection that is either there or not. If your car usually sits near a known Wi-Fi network when you use it parked, or your phone has data to spare, the difference is small.

2The three ways to get a connection in the car

There are three, and all of them are above board: the car's own cellular link with Premium active, a Wi-Fi network in range, or your phone's hotspot. They differ in cost, coverage and convenience — not in what appears on screen.

3The phone hotspot, plainly

It works, and Tesla's own documentation allows for it, noting that your carrier's fees and restrictions still apply. The mechanism is ordinary: your phone becomes a small Wi-Fi access point, the car joins it exactly as it would join your home network, and the data comes out of your mobile plan.

• Check that your plan allows tethering — some cap it or meter it separately.
• Keep the phone on a charger: running a hotspot and streaming for an hour heats it and drains it.
• After the first connection the car remembers the network and rejoins on its own.
• If the phone drops into battery saver, the hotspot may switch itself off.

4How much data video really uses

The order of magnitude is roughly 1-2 GB per hour of video at 720p. It is not a precise figure and cannot be: it depends on the content and the encoding. A locked-off shot of two people talking uses far less than a football match or an action film, because the encoder has less movement to describe.

Think in sessions, not in worst cases. A long film during a stop or a charge fits in a few gigabytes. A whole evening of episodes asks for more. Audio on its own — radio, music, a podcast — uses a small fraction of that, so if your data plan is tight, listening instead of watching changes the arithmetic entirely.

5Why the 720p cap helps here

The 720p ceiling is deliberate, and on a thin connection it is exactly what you want. Roadly draws video frames onto a canvas rather than leaning on the browser's video element — that is why passive playback keeps going while the car moves, and it is also work the car's computer has to do frame after frame.

At 720p that work stays within the hardware's comfort zone and the bandwidth needed is roughly half what 1080p would ask for. Less data, fewer pauses to refill the buffer, less chance that a shaky link stalls the whole thing.

6Tunnels and dead zones

What happens is what has to happen: no data, no video, and no app can conjure it. Roadly can soften the gap, not remove it. While the connection holds, the player builds a little margin ahead of what you are seeing and keeps playing through short interruptions; when the margin runs out, the picture stops and resumes on its own once signal returns.

That margin is never large, and on live streams it is necessarily short — live is tied to the present moment and cannot be fetched in advance. On recorded content the buffer covers a brief tunnel. A whole valley with no coverage is another matter.

When the signal is weak, step down rather than push through. Switching to radio or music keeps the stop pleasant on a fraction of the data, and it tolerates dropouts that video simply cannot.

7Battery while parked and watching

Watching something with the car parked costs little; what costs is everything else you leave running. A lit screen and playback draw a modest amount. Climate control in real heat or real cold draws far more, and over a long stop it is climate that sets the bill.

• Watch while the car is charging if you can — the question disappears.
• Turn the screen brightness down in the evening: easier on the eyes, easier on the battery.
• Run climate in bursts rather than continuously, when the weather allows it.
• For very long stops, consider whether you need sentry features running at that moment.

8How to check what your own car has

Check it in the car, not on a page like this one. Which tier a vehicle has depends on model, year, market and whether a trial period is running, and Tesla changes these terms over time — any published list goes stale.

• On the car's touchscreen, in the software settings, under the connectivity entry.
• In your Tesla account or the app, where subscriptions tied to the vehicle appear.
• By simply trying it: open Roadly on Wi-Fi, then off it, and see what changes.

And it bears repeating: whatever the answer, Roadly remains usable. With Premium, you just open it. Without it, you bring a Wi-Fi network or a phone. Roadly is an independent project, not affiliated with Tesla, Inc., and has no control over your car's subscription terms.

9Frequently asked questions

Carry on from here

• How do you watch IPTV on a Tesla?
• YouTube on Tesla: can it be watched while the car is moving?
• Tesla streaming alternatives: every way to get video on the car screen, compared