Bluetooth - unlocking the door survey

[jjrandorin]

Whether you leave blue tooth on all the time or turn it off when not needed (as I do) the car still needs to wake up it if is asleep.

Perhaps when I get a "real phone" I will leave blue tooth on all the time.

if you turn off bluetooth, you not only will need to start up bluetooth but re launch the app. Its not "designed" for you to be micro managing it like that.

 

[mswlogo]

Whether you leave blue tooth on all the time or turn it off when not needed (as I do) the car still needs to wake up it if is asleep.

Perhaps when I get a "real phone" I will leave blue tooth on all the time.

Most of the time the issue is not the car, or the car sleeping. It's not seeing your phone because people have power save on which kills some background things in the phone that prevent it from working. Or running some venders buggy "customized" version of Android.

Can you connect to your car when it's sleeping? Well most people can. There are many levels of sleep in the car.

My car is "sleeping fine". If it's only using 2 miles a day while parked, that as deep as I expect it will sleep. While still handling phone as key and answering an LTE phone connection remotely etc.

My iPhone is constantly "seeing" the car in my house (I'm 80 feet from it now and it shows an active "Phone as Key" connection). But it's Bluetooth LE that uses milliwatts of power. It doesn't mean the door will unlock. It just sees it. Lot's of stuff in the car are always on. LTE, Bluetooth Radios, Key Card Radios, Some Battery Monitoring etc.

There are dozens of ways the protocols "Wake up" and go to a higher state. Like I said you are overriding the whole purpose of "hands free" phone as key. The phone is usually the problem. But you've just "rebooted" Bluetooth by turning on Bluetooth and woke the phone from a deeper sleep. When most folks have issues it's because that deeper sleep hands free protocol fails, but you bypassed most of it.

On an iPhone if you turned on Bluetooth, it would wake every app registered for background with Bluetooth. You want that to all work without doing that sort of thing. And that's where it gets tricky. That it all works without wasting power. Some don't trust it can still shut their Bluetooth off.

I've written both iPhone and Android apps that have to connect to BLE devices just like the car. iPhone was a breeze. Android what a nightmare. Because ever vender hacks up Android differently, especially around power management and sleeping. Samsung got it right 2 years after Pixel. If you want "official" Android, get a Pixel.

 

[mswlogo]

if you turn off bluetooth, you not only will need to start up bluetooth but re launch the app. Its not "designed" for you to be micro managing it like that.

I agree he shouldn't micro manage like that these days. But he did say I think it is working for him with that "sledge hammer" work flow.
But any app worth a bean should handle Bluetooth restarting (getting the rug yanked out from under it ).

 

[RFernatt]

...If you want "official" Android, get a Pixel.

Amen. Pixel 2 XL has been perfect with the Model 3.

But, don't keep anything between the phone and the car. I was holding my Surface and the phone together with the Surface between the car and phone and no unlock. Rotated my hand and then unlock. Keeping a human body between the phone and car could also be problematic. I usually have the phone in my hand or jacket pocket in winter as I approach the car.

The only other time I had trouble was when my Leaf was on next to Tesla and my phone connected Bluetooth to the Leaf and then wouldn't talk to to the Tesla. Only time I've used the keycard to get in.

 

[tomot]

The only other time I had trouble was when my Leaf was on next to Tesla and my phone connected Bluetooth to the Leaf and then wouldn't talk to to the Tesla. Only time I've used the keycard to get in.

You can only connect to ONE Bluetooth device at a time with your phone. Hence if Bluetooth is talking to your Leaf it can't talk to your Tesla at the same time. The same is true if you have different brands of Bluetooth speaker in you home, You have to unpair one brand if you want to change to another brand.

 

[RFernatt]

You can only connect to ONE Bluetooth device at a time with your phone. Hence if Bluetooth is talking to your Leaf it can't talk to your Tesla at the same time. The same is true if you have different brands of Bluetooth speaker in you home, You have to unpair one brand if you want to change to another brand.

Yeah, I knew why it wasn't working and I didn't want to unpair from the LEAF since this was a one off situation, so no big deal. Just wanted to note that was a situation where the phone didn't unlock the car due to the circumstances, not the Model 3's or the phone's fault, just a limitation of the technology.

 

[edigest]

if you turn off bluetooth, you not only will need to start up bluetooth but re launch the app.

Not true. I never have to relaunch The Tesla app.

Just to be clear, I was suggesting to the OP that a possible source of his problem connecting is the car being asleep. All of the other obfuscation aside, the car has to wake up before you can unlock it regardless of the unlock method.

Its not "designed" for you to be micro managing it like that.

Heh ... better tell Wired. The vulnerabilities mentioned have largely been patched (assuming you have newer equipment) but the fact is, bluetooth doesn't really "care" if you turn it off when not in use or leave it on all the time.

 

[mswlogo]

You can only connect to ONE Bluetooth device at a time with your phone. Hence if Bluetooth is talking to your Leaf it can't talk to your Tesla at the same time. The same is true if you have different brands of Bluetooth speaker in you home, You have to unpair one brand if you want to change to another brand.

Not quite.

You can only be actively paired to one Audio/Phone device at a time.
You can talk to many Bluetooth LE devices. Watches, Heart Monitors, Beacons, Tesla Locks etc.

Don't confuse the two.

 

[tomot]

Not quite.

You can only be actively paired to one Audio/Phone device at a time.
You can talk to many Bluetooth LE devices. Watches, Heart Monitors, Beacons, Tesla Locks etc.

Don't confuse the two.

Thanks for correcting me. My FitBit works! even though I might be playing music from my SmartPhone to a Bluetooth speaker!

 

[Snow Drift]

I've owned the car since September, it works almost 100% of the time (iPhone XS). I think once, early on, I had to take out the app.

Sometimes the car won't release the charger w/o me opening a door first, but that could be due to it sleeping deeply, or it being confused by my wife and I accessing the car at different times.

The car does NOT unfold it's mirrors as you approach. It doesn't do that until you pull a door handle and the car unlocks. It does FOLD the mirrors after you walk away and lock (if you turn on this setting).

 

[WilliamG]

I've owned the car since September, it works almost 100% of the time (iPhone XS). I think once, early on, I had to take out the app.

Sometimes the car won't release the charger w/o me opening a door first, but that could be due to it sleeping deeply, or it being confused by my wife and I accessing the car at different times.

The car does NOT unfold it's mirrors as you approach. It doesn't do that until you pull a door handle and the car unlocks. It does FOLD the mirrors after you walk away and lock (if you turn on this setting).

My only bugbear aside from occasionally intermittent unlocking with my iPhone XS Max is that I wish the charger could be removed without having to unlock the car. Feels like something that could be addressed in a software update.

 

[Snow Drift]

My only bugbear aside from occasionally intermittent unlocking with my iPhone XS Max is that I wish the charger could be removed without having to unlock the car. Feels like something that could be addressed in a software update.

Sometimes the charger does unlock when I approach and click/hold the release button on the UMC handle. Other times it won't unlock until I pull a door handle. Usually if I have interacted with the car that same day it will work upon approach, but I'm not sure if this is actually the cause as the car might just not be deeply sleeping.

 

[wtfuzz]

I’ve had my M3 since Sunday, and an iPhone XS Max.

It worked perfectly for the first few days, but now I have to pull the phone out of my pocket and hold it closer to the car for it to work. It’s driving me crazy

I keep my phone in front left pocket so it’s not a back pocket issue.

 

[super20g]

I have an s8 and I can't tell you how many times I go to get into my car on a busy street and the door wont open and I have to quickly scoot around the car and let cars pass. Now I just try to open it on the side that is parked on the curb first which is a lame workaround on a 60k+ car. My wife's iphone never works unless she opens the app first, but she rarely uses the M3 so I haven't look to deep into that one yet.

 

[wtfuzz]

On my iPhone it seems I have resolved my issue by adding the Tesla Widget. Since I’ve added the widget I’ve had a 100% success rate with the phone key.

 

[Hank101]

Had problems with Motorola Droid turbo 2, upgraded to Motorola g6, which is a low cost entry level version, wok's perfect now.

May have been some sort of Bluetooth compatability issue.