Decals for the remote climate control on windshield?

Hey everyone,

We're big dog lovers, and our shiba inu comes with us everywhere. Here in Seattle, it doesn't get super hot in the summer, but it gets hot in the Leaf, and in the winter it does get pretty cold, in the 20's.

Anyway, we love the CarWings remote climate control to turn the a/c or heat on, and it makes the cabin a comfortable 70 f no matter hot or cold. But we've had people come up to us and tell us, "you're leaving your dog here in this heat/cold?" and it makes us look bad when our dog has to stay in the car and we're running the a/c / heat to keep him comfortable.

Has anyone thought of making a windshield decal right above the charge blink lights basically saying "heat/AC running when this light is blinking" ? I think it'd be a good way to keep from having people call the police over a dog left in a hot/cold car, especially with those terrible deaths of the children left in hot cars.

I stick a note on my dash that reads, "A/C is on for the dogs" & I leave my phone number on the note. I have also left the locked car on with the electronic parking brake engaged.

Keep in mind that if you are using carwings to turn on the climate without the car plugged in, it will only run for 15 minutes. Plugged in it will run for two hours.

This just too risky - please don't do this. The one tragedy "out of N" makes it not worth it.

You might want to look into an aftermarket alarm. K9 units have this feature in their vehicles (stock on the ford crown vic police interceptor) so you can take the keys, leave the car in park, set the parking brake then leave and lock the doors and the car stays on. It will not shift out of park without the keys.

This may be more complicated in the leaf without a physical shifter or key but you may be able to do a simple version where it allows a different remote to lock the doors when you leave and take the key with you. Since the car is still on if someone gets in they may still be able to drive the car.

The downside is you won't have a text/email from carwings if the system turns off and if it fails there's always the risk. K9 officers have been lost when cars have stalled or over heated. The risk of failure would be less in a BEV but the AC system could still fail and or the car could get a code that causes it to shut down.

I wouldn't use this unless it was a situation where you could leave them without AC/heat but you're just doing it to make them more comfortable. IE coffee shop, quick grocery store stop or banking but not the mall.

Thanks for all the input! Yep, I do understand the limitations of the system, I've had my '12 for two years now, just extended the lease for another year last month!

Whenever I set the carwings, I use an alarm app that pings me every 15 minutes to turn it on again. That along with the texts from carwings makes sure I keep the climate control running. If I ever not get the text from carwings saying "climate on" I immediately go and check the car, usually what happens is the cell service is bad and the text didn't get through.

I've had to do what ColumbiaRiverGorge recommended once. We ended up staying at one spot for over an hour, and it was dragging on, so I left the car running, and locked the door. I've had my wife take the key 20ft away, and even if I reached in to unlock the door (if windows were down) and got in, it will not go into D to drive away.

Minispeed, I've had that kind of alarm on my subaru before, an autopage 2-way system with remote start. It allowed me to hit a button, then take the key out with the car running, and lock the door. If someone hits the brakes, or puts the parking brake down, the car turns off.

I just wish there was the option with carwings to do longer climate run times, maybe just have the app pop up a warning that it will drain a lot of battery power, etc. Same with a warning that the climate was turned off because of car issues.

Thanks for the concern for our Shiba! We only take him with us when we know he won't be in the car for more than an hour tops. Any more than that he stays home.

Here is our boy in the Leaf! (Note: this photo was just for show, he doesn't ride in the car like this. We have a seatbelt harness for him in the back seat)

An hour sounds like a long time to me, a non-dog-owner. But it seems to work for you.