This is why I stopped using the profile that toggles BT after disconnect. It would look like it reconnected right away, but it really wasn't connected, which was keeping the phone key from re-establishing even if I approached the car again.
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Android phone key work around with Tasker?
- Thread starter SDKoala
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This is why I stopped using the profile that toggles BT after disconnect. It would look like it reconnected right away, but it really wasn't connected, which was keeping the phone key from re-establishing even if I approached the car again.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the Tasker work-around to work between my car and phone...the profile ran correctly, just didn't help with my Blu phone connection. In order for my phone to connect and be usable as the key, seems like it needs the Tesla app re-started, the Airplane mode toggled....and then a long wait period...that occasionally works but is not reliable. However, I did find an old iPhone 5 in a drawer...and after a battery replacement, it works 100% of the time as the key. I have no sim card in it, and it has no apps other than Tesla (and the default apple). Turned off every other unrelated feature. Works perfect!! It's really nice to be able to use the car as it's intended. I wish I didn't have to carry a 2nd phone around in my pocket, but oh well - at least it's working.
Evidence that it's a phone issue rather than a car issue. Where are you carrying the iPhone 5 (on your body) in comparison to your primary phone? I've seen speculation (and I wonder too) if that has something to do with it. Also, I'm not sure if you posted earlier but what kind of phone do you have?
I have no doubt my phone has crappy Bluetooth...but I keep trying to find a way to make it work...it's a Blu Life One X2... otherwise it's been a great phone.
I keep my phone in my left front pants pocket, and the iPhone 5 in the right front.
No. If I fiddle with it enough, it will. Meaning I have to toggle airplane mode (just toggling BT doesn't seem to do it). Wait for it to come back, then open the app, and wait until it says connected...sometimes repeating this process more than once (if I havn't already given up).
Yeah, the BT on this phone hasn't ever worked that well. On my first Blu phone (R1HD), it would connect flawlessly to my S for phone calls, but never for audio. No matter what I did, couldn't get it to connect. Occasionally I'd be able to show that it was connected for audio, but it wouldn't actually play anything.
On the newer one (Life One X2), it usually connects for phone/audio to my S, but when it doesn't - oh boy it's a pain to get it back.
When we took delivery of our 3, I figured I'd have trouble with this phone and the BTLE connection, and sure enough I did. My wife and I both have the same phone, and both have the same problem.
I wouldn't really mind buying a new Android at this point, if I could find one that was reliable close to 100% of the time with the 3.
The iPhone 5 I'm using just for the key is working 100% flawlessly - as long as I can keep it charged
Another update. I had been running the profile to toggle BT off/on every hour and nothing else along with disabling power optimization for the Tesla app. Between these two things, the phone was working nearly every time, like actually approaching 99-100% and to the point where it was a surprise when it wasn't working (as opposed to being surprised that it actually worked). Then, the 18.3 update happened and a new bug popped up that I didn't see on 14.13. After using a different BT device (headset, speaker), then coming back to the car while it is asleep, the phone key doesn't work until I toggle BT again.
Workaround for this has been to create another profile that toggles BT off/on after disconnecting from non-Model 3 BT devices. I've only been in and out of the car a handful of times since starting that, so we'll see if it's any better.
Workaround for this has been to create another profile that toggles BT off/on after disconnecting from non-Model 3 BT devices. I've only been in and out of the car a handful of times since starting that, so we'll see if it's any better.
Despite the tasker profiles, I'm seeing a very rare failure still happening. And thanks to my attempts at figuring out the "BT Near" profile, I have that BLE Scanner app to give me a clue.
In my observations, there are two observable failure types:
1) phone key functionality can be recovered with a BT toggle
2) phone key functionality can be recovered with an Airplane mode toggle
Never has it been necessary to reboot the Tesla screen (although in both of the above situations, doing so does fix the problem as well).
The periodic BT toggle Tasker profile(s) will prevent #1 from happening, which does seem to be the majority of failure types. But in the #2 failure mode, something a bit more catastrophic has happened such that the BT toggle doesn't clear the issue. Airplane mode seems to go deeper in its reset.
I've been checking my BLE Scanner, and when failure type 2 occurs (I know because toggling BT doesn't resolve), the scanner app shows that all 4 iBeacon BLE radios are undetected by the phone. For a while, it was unclear to me whether this was an issue with the phone not scanning for the signals, or if the car was no longer advertising the beacons.
This morning, I checked the scanner and only 3 iBeacons were being picked up by the phone. Even with a BT and Airplane toggle, I could only see 3 out of 4. However, despite the missing iBeacon connection, the phone key was still functional. This was the first time I've witnessed this. I was a bit surprised that Airplane toggle didn't get me back the 4th one. It seems to imply that there was a car-side failure for one of the radios.
Next, I used the app to wake up the car. I was standing next to the car and could hear the wake. Then I checked my BLE Scanner app and the 4th missing iBeacon was back. This would imply that it somehow fell asleep with the rest of the car. This would definitely be a car-side issue, since my expectation is that all the iBeacons should remain awake so phone-key functionality isn't affected by car sleep.
Today I observed 1 iBeacon asleep. But if all 4 fall asleep, which I now think is possible and has happened to me before, then phone key will appear to be dead until the car is woken up. In the interim, radio toggles on the phone won't help.
In my observations, there are two observable failure types:
1) phone key functionality can be recovered with a BT toggle
2) phone key functionality can be recovered with an Airplane mode toggle
Never has it been necessary to reboot the Tesla screen (although in both of the above situations, doing so does fix the problem as well).
The periodic BT toggle Tasker profile(s) will prevent #1 from happening, which does seem to be the majority of failure types. But in the #2 failure mode, something a bit more catastrophic has happened such that the BT toggle doesn't clear the issue. Airplane mode seems to go deeper in its reset.
I've been checking my BLE Scanner, and when failure type 2 occurs (I know because toggling BT doesn't resolve), the scanner app shows that all 4 iBeacon BLE radios are undetected by the phone. For a while, it was unclear to me whether this was an issue with the phone not scanning for the signals, or if the car was no longer advertising the beacons.
This morning, I checked the scanner and only 3 iBeacons were being picked up by the phone. Even with a BT and Airplane toggle, I could only see 3 out of 4. However, despite the missing iBeacon connection, the phone key was still functional. This was the first time I've witnessed this. I was a bit surprised that Airplane toggle didn't get me back the 4th one. It seems to imply that there was a car-side failure for one of the radios.
Next, I used the app to wake up the car. I was standing next to the car and could hear the wake. Then I checked my BLE Scanner app and the 4th missing iBeacon was back. This would imply that it somehow fell asleep with the rest of the car. This would definitely be a car-side issue, since my expectation is that all the iBeacons should remain awake so phone-key functionality isn't affected by car sleep.
Today I observed 1 iBeacon asleep. But if all 4 fall asleep, which I now think is possible and has happened to me before, then phone key will appear to be dead until the car is woken up. In the interim, radio toggles on the phone won't help.
These are great observations and I think you're on to something. I've been having daily failures upon the first wake-up after sleep every morning since 18.3 and persisting with 18.13. Not one day in the past week have I been able to get in my car in the morning without toggling airplane mode. Togging Bluetooth doesn't establish a connection. Nothing changed with my phone, which had been working reliably with the Tasker timed toggle profile in place. Given what you've observed, it looks like something changed with the car's sleep that's keeping the BLE transmitters from transmitting at all times, which is essential to the phone key working.
Maybe airplane mode toggle works because the app is communicating in the background through the Tesla servers, and re-establishing an Internet connection (wifi or LTE) sends new commands to the car to wake up the BLE radios. I have no idea if that's something the app even does, but there's no other reason I can think of that would explain why toggling anything on the phone would get the car's BLE radios to wake up.
It would seem like an easy fix would be for Tesla to make a firmware change to turn on all four BLE radios upon a failed attempts to open the car.
I have pixel 1 and I am the same situation where I need to toggle airplane mode to unlock the car.
I am thinking to buy NFC and stick it behind the charging door, or even on door handle.. Create tasker task to toggle airplane mode when I put my phone near it.
Why is it better than using the Key Card? I hold my phone 90% of time and I will take my phone out once in the car anyways, while I don't hold my wallet in my hands ever.
Why is it better than just unlock the phone and do it manually since I am already holding it? Unlock takes 2 seconds screen to show up, and need to pull down the drawer and tap aeroplane mode, then wait and tap again.
I actually don't know the differences of nfc specs and types, so I want to ask you guys here what you think and what nfc should I buy? I see quite a few on amazon. Here is one of the cheapest one I am looking at, NFC link.
I am thinking to buy NFC and stick it behind the charging door, or even on door handle.. Create tasker task to toggle airplane mode when I put my phone near it.
Why is it better than using the Key Card? I hold my phone 90% of time and I will take my phone out once in the car anyways, while I don't hold my wallet in my hands ever.
Why is it better than just unlock the phone and do it manually since I am already holding it? Unlock takes 2 seconds screen to show up, and need to pull down the drawer and tap aeroplane mode, then wait and tap again.
I actually don't know the differences of nfc specs and types, so I want to ask you guys here what you think and what nfc should I buy? I see quite a few on amazon. Here is one of the cheapest one I am looking at, NFC link.
You will have to root your phone to have tasker automate the airplane mode toggle. I might consider doing this. I suspect I don't use any apps that complain about root except maybe my banking app, and even then, it's really infrequent. Plus I'd rather the inconvenience be on the banking app than the car.
I also wouldn't bother with the NFC tag. Just have tasker toggle airplane mode every x hours. You can add some conditional checks for when it should bypass that round, like if you're already connected to BT, or you're on a call, etc. Given that I need to fix my phone once every few days with the airplane mode toggle, I think I will try having Tasker do an airplane mode in the middle of the night every 24 hours and see if that gives me most of the way there.
I also wouldn't bother with the NFC tag. Just have tasker toggle airplane mode every x hours. You can add some conditional checks for when it should bypass that round, like if you're already connected to BT, or you're on a call, etc. Given that I need to fix my phone once every few days with the airplane mode toggle, I think I will try having Tasker do an airplane mode in the middle of the night every 24 hours and see if that gives me most of the way there.
I made similar tasker profiles to the ones mentioned in this thread before stumbling upon this thread and it has helped my S8 be near 100% working as a phone key. Key differences is that I only have it reset BT at 745am and 445pm, right before and after work. I dont want it resetting every hour since I have a smartwatch and that would be an added annoyance. Additionally, I set it up where when I disconnect from my apartment wifi, it resets BT. Since I park far enough from my apt, this works fine. I also have to setup a 7 second wait after BT disconnects, otherwise it isnt able to turn back on wifi
That's great that it's helped improve your phone key function. I toggle every hour because I'm randomly in and out of my car and not just at set times before and after work. The June Android security update for Pixel phones really helped too, but I'm still having failures, mostly when I am in and out of Bluetooth LE range of the car like @novox77 wrote in one of the other phone key threads. Bluetooth on/off toggle seems to be enough to get my phone working. Out of the dozens and dozens of times the phone key has failed, I think I only had to toggle airplane mode once.
Candleflame
Active Member
if you want a fob so desperately buy yourself a tiny phone with bluetooth off ebay... problem solved.
RTPEV
Active Member
Except it's still a phone and has all the issues related to phones:
- Unreliable Bluetooth functionality as the OS may shut down an app's BT access (apparently triggers a BT stack ban when there are a lot of fails, such as when just being on the edge of range).
- Poor battery life--risk of battery running out.
- Significantly larger and more fragile than a key fob (now I have to carry 2 phones around?)
- No failsafe backup that a fob would have (built in NFC/RFID, i.e. key card functionality built right into the fob).
Yes that is sufficient most of the time. Once when that was insufficient, toggling airplane mode did the trick. I resorted to restarting phone during delivery and only then was able tosetup phone key.
Actually the last two weeks have been great for me. Haven't needed to do any of those things.
