Auto Homelink issues?

[PaulR]

This makes lot of sense. I will just clarify that we believe GPS is not involved in auto-close. The speculation that GPS signal is required for auto-close (which I was earlier led to believe) is not well proven. The wait a while to leave the garage to allow the auto-close to get active could be attributed to the infotainment busy with other process (e.g. scanning your USB, syncing with your phone, getting connected to the mothership, etc.). If you have large USB drive plug-in, try to unplug it before you park the car the night before. Having the always connected ON also helps according to MikeBur (although not required in my S experience).
I do not leave USB plug-in, do not sync my phone, and always connected is OFF, only use wall switch to open garage before leaving and auto-close never fail for me.

I don't think GPS is needed for auto-close (leaving) but it seems logical to assume it is involved in returning home - just as the suspension system uses geolocation to raise and lower the car at a particular saved location. My door begins to open when I approach my driveway. I don't believe that the HomeLink system is continually polling and searching when I am far away from home as that would be inefficient, but it seems to know when I am close to the house.

 

[Merrill]

I do get the drop down menu for both the garage door and the gate when I back out and it actually counts down the distance but when the the garage door gets to close it does not close but the gate will open properly. Not sure what is happening I have tried everything mentioned on this thread.

 

[PaulR]

I do get the drop down menu for both the garage door and the gate when I back out and it actually counts down the distance but when the the garage door gets to close it does not close but the gate will open properly. Not sure what is happening I have tried everything mentioned on this thread.

I don't have a gate so I am sorry I cannot help you with this particular situation. But, initially, I did have a problem when I had both my garage door and my wife's garage door programed into HomeLink. Though they both would open and or close by touching the HomeLink icon, when I would summon my car, my door would remain closed and only her door would open! Others had that problem as well. The only solution I found was to delete her door from the HomeLink on my car so it did not get confused. So I wonder if when you have more than one listing on the HomeLink it gets confused and works only on one. Someone suggested that it would pick the first door which was programed and ignore the others, but I deleted my wife's (which was first on the list) and left mine, then added back hers to make it 2nd on the list, but that didn't change anything. It still would get confused and open her's rather than mine. I ultimately deleted hers as I don't really need it on my car anyway.

MY comments are only to point out that it seems that HomeLink can't handle 2 openings in sequence (n your case).

 

[BertL]

...I do not leave USB plug-in, do not sync my phone, and always connected is OFF, only use wall switch to open garage before leaving and auto-close never fail for me.

As crazy as it is, I DO leave my USB stick plugged-in, I DO sync my phone including the Beta Calendar function, always connected is ON, and I use EITHER the wall switch or the Homelink button before leaving and both auto-open AND auto-close never fail me (assuming I'm not using it with Summon).

 

[mspohr]

This makes lot of sense. I will just clarify that we believe GPS is not involved in auto-close. The speculation that GPS signal is required for auto-close (which I was earlier led to believe) is not well proven. The wait a while to leave the garage to allow the auto-close to get active could be attributed to the infotainment busy with other process (e.g. scanning your USB, syncing with your phone, getting connected to the mothership, etc.). If you have large USB drive plug-in, try to unplug it before you park the car the night before. Having the always connected ON also helps according to MikeBur (although not required in my S experience).
I do not leave USB plug-in, do not sync my phone, and always connected is OFF, only use wall switch to open garage before leaving and auto-close never fail for me.

I would think that GPS must be involved with autoclose. That would be the best way to calculate the 20 ft countdown.
My driveway is perpendicular to the garage and even when I drive up and down past the garage, it waits until I'm 20 ft away to close the garage.

 

[msnow]

As crazy as it is, I DO leave my USB stick plugged-in, I DO sync my phone including the Beta Calendar function, always connected is ON, and I use EITHER the wall switch or the Homelink button before leaving and both auto-open AND auto-close never fail me (assuming I'm not using it with Summon).

Ditto, that's my process as well.

 

[ViperDoc]

Auto homelink

Mine worked fine once I realized I needed to use the homelink button to first open the garage door before backing out. It then immediately started to distance countdown and closed. Upon returning the garage also opened with a 20 countdown as well. It makes me just that much more lazy in the car but I dig it.

Oh, I didn't know you needed to open the door (when leaving) with homelink. We had been opening the door with the button on the garage wall—and then it closes the door on departure very irregularly (more often failing to close it than not). So I will try this method!

Thanks

DJ

 

[ohmman]

I do get the drop down menu for both the garage door and the gate when I back out and it actually counts down the distance but when the the garage door gets to close it does not close but the gate will open properly. Not sure what is happening I have tried everything mentioned on this thread.

MY comments are only to point out that it seems that HomeLink can't handle 2 openings in sequence (n your case).

This isn't entirely the case. I have a gate and a garage door, which are about about 100 ft apart. They both open flawlessly with auto-open. In Merrill's case, it may have more to do with the rapid succession between them since it sounds like his gate and garage door are very close together.

 

[Merrill]

I don't have a gate so I am sorry I cannot help you with this particular situation. But, initially, I did have a problem when I had both my garage door and my wife's garage door programed into HomeLink. Though they both would open and or close by touching the HomeLink icon, when I would summon my car, my door would remain closed and only her door would open! Others had that problem as well. The only solution I found was to delete her door from the HomeLink on my car so it did not get confused. So I wonder if when you have more than one listing on the HomeLink it gets confused and works only on one. Someone suggested that it would pick the first door which was programed and ignore the others, but I deleted my wife's (which was first on the list) and left mine, then added back hers to make it 2nd on the list, but that didn't change anything. It still would get confused and open her's rather than mine. I ultimately deleted hers as I don't really need it on my car anyway.

MY comments are only to point out that it seems that HomeLink can't handle 2 openings in sequence (n your case).

Yes you are totally correct, if I delete the gate form the auto open and close the garage door will close. According to the service center the engineer's say it is a software issue.

 

[nolngrgrsngslde]

Oh, I didn't know you needed to open the door (when leaving) with homelink. We had been opening the door with the button on the garage wall—and then it closes the door on departure very irregularly (more often failing to close it than not). So I will try this method!

Thanks

DJ

When you get in the car, the Homelink menu appears but the "Skip" option is not shown. That is when you should open the garage door. You then proceed to put the car in D/R, the Skip option should appear. Don't touch it, drive away and the garage door will close behind you.

If you touch "Skip" , it will continue to skip forever. I think this is a bug. The way I got it to work again is to toggle the Auto-Close option from the homelink settings screen.

Note: if I were to have the computer count 20ft , i would rely on the number of wheel rotations as opposed to GPS. I think GPS is not accurate down to one foot.

Yes, GPS is involved in Auto-open and it works great. Keep in mind though that if you arrive home and the door is open, it will close it.

The biggest problem for the car is to guess whether the door is open/closed, hence the Cycle is very important. I am sure Tesla will improve it , maybe they will allow us to reset the Cycle when we need to.

Someone mentioned integrating with MyQ. That is a great idea. MyQ has an API, my phone App knows when the door is open/closed from anywhere is the world.

We need a garage door app which would work in principle similar to the slacker/tunein apps. You enter your username/passwd and Tesla would connect to MyQ API and find the status of the door. If you are home, it would close the door itself. If you are not, it would ask the server to do it.



HTH

 

[PaulR]

Oh, I didn't know you needed to open the door (when leaving) with homelink. We had been opening the door with the button on the garage wall—and then it closes the door on departure very irregularly (more often failing to close it than not). So I will try this method!

Thanks

DJ

I open the door with EITHER the button on the wall OR the HomeLink icon on the screen (but always BEFORE I put my foot on the brake) and it works either way flawlessly. So what you are doing is fine. Though you might want to try using the HomeLink icon on the screen to test it. Remember though, once you have put your foot on the brake you have actuated the electric rail in the car and it knows that you opened that door and the software gets confused and will not work properly.

- - - Updated - - -

When you get in the car, the Homelink menu appears but the "Skip" option is not shown. That is when you should open the garage door. You then proceed to put the car in D/R, the Skip option should appear. Don't touch it, drive away and the garage door will close behind you.

If you touch "Skip" , it will continue to skip forever. I think this is a bug. The way I got it to work again is to toggle the Auto-Close option from the homelink settings screen.

Note: if I were to have the computer count 20ft , i would rely on the number of wheel rotations as opposed to GPS. I think GPS is not accurate down to one foot.

Yes, GPS is involved in Auto-open and it works great. Keep in mind though that if you arrive home and the door is open, it will close it.

The biggest problem for the car is to guess whether the door is open/closed, hence the Cycle is very important. I am sure Tesla will improve it , maybe they will allow us to reset the Cycle when we need to.

Someone mentioned integrating with MyQ. That is a great idea. MyQ has an API, my phone App knows when the door is open/closed from anywhere is the world.

We need a garage door app which would work in principle similar to the slacker/tunein apps. You enter your username/passwd and Tesla would connect to MyQ API and find the status of the door. If you are home, it would close the door itself. If you are not, it would ask the server to do it.



HTH

nolngrgrsngslde you are correct on all of your points.... your experience is exactly like mine. I too have the MyQ app on my iPhone and had used it prior to 7.1 to see if my door was left open or not. It works well. I encourage others to try it also. As I travel a lot and am away from home for extended periods of time I like to check to see if the doors are closed or not. A nice convenience and not expensive to implement since most of us already have a compatible opener anyway.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I've tried all of the suggestions here and nothing works, so I've taken another member's advice and disabled the function for now. Tesla really needs to get its sh1t together on software. This is totally unacceptable.

 

[BertL]

Hopefully every single person encountering a problem has also reported it to Tesla Tech Support -- via email to [email protected] or documented as a problem on an Invoice if they go into a SC.

Perhaps if Tesla gets enough individual owners complaining each and every time they find something isn't working, there will be some more speedy future improvements on a number of fronts. I continue to worry about the number of people reporting issues here, chiming in they have similar issues or have stopped using some feature because it does not work for them -- and Tesla never hearing their concerns first hand which is likely the only way to help us all.

 

[Cyclone]

I would think that GPS must be involved with autoclose. That would be the best way to calculate the 20 ft countdown.
My driveway is perpendicular to the garage and even when I drive up and down past the garage, it waits until I'm 20 ft away to close the garage.

It must be involved in my opinion. Until today, I had a 100% success with Auto-Close and Auto-Open. Today, I had my first quirk. When I put the car in Drive, it didn't give me the countdown though the popup was there since I got in the car and green. So I begin pulling forward expecting Auto-Close not to work, when about 1/3 of the way out of the garage, the popup appeared. It continued to work as normal.

So I still haven't had a single occasion yet where Auto-Close didn't work and my Homelink popup did appear. I did, once, have my Homelink not pop up and stay white instead of green, and that one time I did not get an auto-close. That was the one time I was testing on whether wifi played a role and that one time it happened was when my home wifi was deleted from the car. I still do not know if wifi itself plays a role, but I definitely feel that the GPS plays a role and perhaps the "wifi" signal at home helps the GPS start with an estimate of "home" rather than middle of the Atlantic (prior to getting a GPS lock).

 

[Soolim]

As crazy as it is, I DO leave my USB stick plugged-in, I DO sync my phone including the Beta Calendar function, always connected is ON, and I use EITHER the wall switch or the Homelink button before leaving and both auto-open AND auto-close never fail me (assuming I'm not using it with Summon).

Thanks. You just disprove my hypothesis. :wink: The mystery of auto-close failure remains unsolved.

- - - Updated - - -

I would think that GPS must be involved with autoclose. That would be the best way to calculate the 20 ft countdown.
My driveway is perpendicular to the garage and even when I drive up and down past the garage, it waits until I'm 20 ft away to close the garage.

Not necessarily. Once S knows that you are home garage, S can monitor the distance traveled by wheel rotation (no need for GPS, and GPS may not be that accurate anyway) to calculate the 20 ft countdown.

 

[napabill]

I've tried all of the suggestions here and nothing works, so I've taken another member's advice and disabled the function for now. Tesla really needs to get its sh1t together on software. This is totally unacceptable.

Pretty sure this is the second project for the intern that started off with the Trip Planner.:wink:

 

[msnow]

Thanks. You just disprove my hypothesis. :wink: The mystery of auto-close failure remains unsolved.

- - - Updated - - -


Not necessarily. Once S knows that you are home garage, S can monitor the distance traveled by wheel rotation (no need for GPS, and GPS may not be that accurate anyway) to calculate the 20 ft countdown.

Perhaps even one of the sensors can calculate the distance traveled.

 

[msnow]

Pretty sure this is the second project for the intern that started off with the Trip Planner.:wink:

^^^ good one [emoji1]

 

[mspohr]

It's clear that we are all like the blind men and the elephant in trying to figure out what combination of factors makes or breaks the operation of the auto open/close. This is compounded by the fact that HomeLink is a separate protocol implemented by many different manufacturers over many years and may have it's own problems. Only the programmer(s) at Tesla knows what is really happening and he/she/they are not talking. It would be nice to have a better description from Tesla about what is required for successful operation and perhaps a debug trace to help see where the system is failing.
This discussion has been interesting but is mostly speculation and guesses so not likely to yield many solid answers. It is interesting to see all of the different experiments people are doing (we haven't yet tried arm or tongue waving but it's only a matter of time).

 

[RichardL]

I took the advice to try waiting.

Opened the door using the wall button, took my time unplugging the car before even getting in (>1min)
Waited in car for >1min, turned the car on with the brake pedal
Waited > 1min before selecting reverse

The home button was showing (but no skip etc.) as soon as I turned the car on
Never saw the Auto close info, no skip button, nothing
I backed out and once again had to manually click the homelink button to close the door.

So scratch that off the list - next try is to open the door with the homelink prior to turning on the car - although my wife has never, ever done that and it seems counter to a lot of what people have been saying here.

It baffles me what the secret recipe is...