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Can someone please explain me Phone key benefit

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My 3 seems to have an incredible knack for choosing the wrong phone when my wife and I are both in the vehicle...

Mine sometimes selects my wife's profile when her phone is nowhere near the car. BTW, priority phone is only for calls and streaming. It's supposed to select the profile corresponding to the phone it detects on the driver side but I don't understand why it screws up from time to time. It is a quirky system but works well most of the time.
 
Saw this on Reddit / Teslamotors just today.

OP Q: What does tapping the keys person icon that’s next to the trash icon do? When I tap it, it says saving at the top of the screen where my profile name is. Under keys it says “active/apple iPhone/profile name” then I tap the person icon and it says saved but then just says “active/apple iphone” it no longer has the profile name next to iPhone. However, no matter what it says under keys my profile stays the same in the notification bar up top. What’s the difference if it says my profile name under keys or not?

A: My understanding is when you select one of those profiles, it will associate it with that key in the future. For example, my phone is associated with my profile, so when I use my key, the car sets it to that profile. I don't think it will change the profile while you're in that screen, it's simply linking the profile to a key.

OP: Ok that makes sense I was confused because the profile stayed the same and when I’d make changes it would prompt to save the profile regardless of what I had in the key settings. I wasn’t separating the settings being associated with the key vs the profile in my mind. Makes sense now thank you.
 
You have your phone set wrong and/or over thinking what you need to do.

You do not have to keep it running in background. You can kill it.

You need Location Always (Precise) and Background App Processing. That’s what background App Processing is for.

iOS will relaunch the app in background and you will NOT see it in your list of recently used apps. It will still appear as shutdown.

If you look at Battery usage you’ll Apps Background usage. I kill the Tesla App all the time. But you’ll still see it is consuming some resources. You’ll see another app in the list below consuming resources in background. I wrote it and I had to understand how it works. Even if I kill all apps and reboot my phone and not touch either app they will still work.

You will get warnings from iOS on Apps that behave this way because some users don’t realize they have apps that are consuming resources (because they can be invisible) And will ask if you want to continue allowing it.

If you start the app and background it or kill the app and let the iOS restart it is essentially the same thing. It still needs permission to operate in background if it’s not in foreground.


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WRT Android, I have selected the Tesla app under Battery: Background Usage Limits: Never Sleeping Apps. Everything works without the app being opened, I can approach the car and it opens and unlocks without having the app open or in the tray at the bottom of the screen. Do you know if this keeps the care awake or if it only awakes if I open the app or approach the car without the app open? I know Android is a different world but since you wrote an app I was hoping you would know.
 
WRT Android, I have selected the Tesla app under Battery: Background Usage Limits: Never Sleeping Apps. Everything works without the app being opened, I can approach the car and it opens and unlocks without having the app open or in the tray at the bottom of the screen. Do you know if this keeps the care awake or if it only awakes if I open the app or approach the car without the app open? I know Android is a different world but since you wrote an app I was hoping you would know.

I would suspect how you have setup Android would be any different than iOS (with it’s intended setup).

It’s hard to say what the car will do. But I do know with the Model X if I leave the FOB in the car it does not properly sleep. I vaguely recall there is a dead zone you can put your FOB so the car doesn’t “see it”.

If a phone is responding to Bluetooth nodes that’s how it allows you to open the door and drive. Just like a FOB. So if you leave your phone in the car that’s set up to stay in your pocket (Android or iOS) it likely won’t sleep properly as well.

If you never leave the phone in the car it should sleep no matter how you setup your phone.

There were threads about people complaining (or concerned) there car didn’t sleep just because they saw devices in their blue tooth list on their phone. The car knows your proximity by using multiple blue tooth devices and it needs several strong signals to know your close to unlock and drive. If you are 20 ft away and see one or two devices I think it will sleep fine. My model 3 did and part of our house was over the garage and I always saw devices listed. I think as long as you stay outside of the range it locks at I think it should sleep even if you see devices connected in Bluetooth settings.
 
I would suspect how you have setup Android would be any different than iOS (with it’s intended setup).

It’s hard to say what the car will do. But I do know with the Model X if I leave the FOB in the car it does not properly sleep. I vaguely recall there is a dead zone you can put your FOB so the car doesn’t “see it”.

If a phone is responding to Bluetooth nodes that’s how it allows you to open the door and drive. Just like a FOB. So if you leave your phone in the car that’s set up to stay in your pocket (Android or iOS) it likely won’t sleep properly as well.

If you never leave the phone in the car it should sleep no matter how you setup your phone.

There were threads about people complaining (or concerned) there car didn’t sleep just because they saw devices in their blue tooth list on their phone. The car knows your proximity by using multiple blue tooth devices and it needs several strong signals to know your close to unlock and drive. If you are 20 ft away and see one or two devices I think it will sleep fine. My model 3 did and part of our house was over the garage and I always saw devices listed. I think as long as you stay outside of the range it locks at I think it should sleep even if you see devices connected in Bluetooth settings.

Thank you.
 
Working well so far on never sleeps. Phone is set to restart every morning at 2 am just for jollies and without opening the Tesla app the car unlocks and works as if the app were open. Before I clicked this setting the car wouldn't unlock if I hadn't accessed it recently with the open app even if the app stayed open, had to put it on screen and let it refresh, no longer need to do that.

That said, the car now won't send text messages, I get a generic message that texting works with iOS and Android phones. The app has all permissions enabled.
 
Yup, house has smart locks. I don't carry any keys.
Best part about cell phone as key....If you leave it in the house, the office or at a restaurant, you will know by the time you get to your car that it is nearby and go back and get it.
That is SO TRUE! I recently left my phone at a restaurant right before I got my Tesla and thank goodness half way home I needed to make a call and discovered that I'd left it behind before I got home.

I was just thinking of this benefit the other day as I walked up to my M3 and it opened. 😉
 
(LOVE the phone key...ALWAYS have a Tesla card in my wallet)
I decided to keep my backup card key in the glove compartment, with a PIN code lock. That way it's available for any driver using a phone key (or a determined/insightful thief). If I'm locked out because of phone key malfunction, I can still open the doors remotely with the app or get my wife to do it from her phone.
 
I decided to keep my backup card key in the glove compartment, with a PIN code lock. That way it's available for any driver using a phone key (or a determined/insightful thief). If I'm locked out because of phone key malfunction, I can still open the doors remotely with the app or get my wife to do it from her phone.
Huh??? If your phone malfunctions, and your wife's phone isn't nearby, you're screwed, right? How would you get to the glove compartment.
 
Huh??? If your phone malfunctions, and your wife's phone isn't nearby, you're screwed, right? How would you get to the glove compartment.
Remote locking/unlocking functions through internet, not Bluetooth, so either phone can do it. I do have to trust my phone to stay operational even if the key function acts up but that's a reasonable risk to live with. In the worst case, there's always Uber (oops, that needs a phone...) I stopped carrying my wallet decades ago because it affects my sitting posture and exacerbated back problems, and I find the card key is too big for a front pocket. The car will wake up when the door opens even if the phone key isn't active, so I can still unlock the glove compartment.
 
I hear what everyone’s say but if your phone is dead and your not near another phone or the other person can’t be reached your screwed.

I keep an extra key card in my wallet if the phone doesn’t work with or if I need to leave my in stacked parking.

To each their own.
 
WattsappATL: Okay, now we're getting real personal.

I abandoned my butt-cheek wallet 2 decades ago. I was travelling a lot, foreign cities, and realized it was an easy mark for a pickpocket. I use a magnetic leather money clip with id, credit card, in a front pocket, always in my right pocket, because I dress left.

All the drivers in my household have a Tesla keycard. Phones fail...or get lost...but, as someone said above, "to each, his/her own."
 
WRT Android, I have selected the Tesla app under Battery: Background Usage Limits: Never Sleeping Apps. Everything works without the app being opened, I can approach the car and it opens and unlocks without having the app open or in the tray at the bottom of the screen. Do you know if this keeps the care awake or if it only awakes if I open the app or approach the car without the app open? I know Android is a different world but since you wrote an app I was hoping you would know.
Just a follow-up, since doing this the car has instantly responded whenever I approach and open the doors, trunk, and I almost never have the app opened. Before doing this I would occasionally have to open the app and let it connect to the car before it would respond to my tug on the door handle or trunk lid.
 
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