Difficulty waking from app

[carlsonjd11]

I seem to be having a continual problem of waking the car from the app. It’ll just spin forever on “Last seen X hours ago.” It does seem to wake usually if I open and close the app a half dozen times and try unlocking/locking the car. However, I’d rather not go through they rigamarole.

Interestingly, my wife’s phone is also connected as a phone key. She tried yesterday and it woke the car almost right away after the app opened.

So, it seems to be a problem with my phone. Any idea on what might be the issue? It’s an iPhone 11. I deleted and redownloaded the app, which hasn’t seemed to help. Her phone is an iPhone 12, I think.

 

[Soul Surfer]

You should try removing your phone, as a phone key. Once you reset that as a phone key, chances are you will have corrected the problem.

 

[carlsonjd11]

You should try removing your phone, as a phone key. Once you reset that as a phone key, chances are you will have corrected the problem.

I’m pretty sure when I reinstalled the app, I had to set the phone up as a phone key again. Is there some other method for doing it that is different?

 

[EVRider-FL]

You should try removing your phone, as a phone key. Once you reset that as a phone key, chances are you will have corrected the problem.

The phone key has nothing to do with waking the car from the app. I see the same issue sometimes whether or not I’m using the device as a phone key (from my iPad for example).

 

[carlsonjd11]

The phone key has nothing to do with waking the car from the app. I see the same issue sometimes whether or not I’m using the device as a phone key (from my iPad for example).

If the phone key has nothing to do with it, why does it not wake up on my phone after trying for a few minute and then instantly work for my wife’s phone. Nothing else changed.

 

[EVRider-FL]

If the phone key has nothing to do with it, why does it not wake up on my phone after trying for a few minute and then instantly work for my wife’s phone. Nothing else changed.

Could be any number of things, including the fact that the phones are different models, but the phone key feature only controls access to (unlocking) the car, it has nothing to do with accessing the car via the internet, which is what the app does when trying to wake the car. You can try temporarily turning off the phone key feature on your wife's phone (in the app, under Security & Drivers), and I'll bet that won't change anything.

Check the iOS settings for the Tesla app on both phones and make sure they match. Also make sure both phones have the same version of the Tesla app if you're comparing them.

For me, sometimes the app connects to the car quickly, other times it doesn't, using the same phone.

 

[carlsonjd11]

Could be any number of things, including the fact that the phones are different models, but the phone key feature only controls access to (unlocking) the car, it has nothing to do with accessing the car via the internet, which is what the app does when trying to wake the car. You can try temporarily turning off the phone key feature on your wife's phone (in the app, under Security & Drivers), and I'll bet that won't change anything.

Check the iOS settings for the Tesla app on both phones and make sure they match. Also make sure both phones have the same version of the Tesla app if you're comparing them.

For me, sometimes the app connects to the car quickly, other times it doesn't, using the same phone.

Perhaps it was just chance on my wife’s phone. That said, I’ve shown it to other Tesla owners and they said it definitely wasn’t working correctly. I’ll check the settings. Are there any general settings to check as well?

 

[carlsonjd11]

Moreover, when on wifi, is the phone using wifi to communicate with the car or is it trying to use the cell connection? This seems like a dumb question as I assume wifi, but I thought I’d ask. We do have slightly different cell providers (I have the prepaid version through the same carrier, which may operate differently). That said, on wifi, it shouldn’t matter.

 

[GtiMart]

Waking the car requires sending it an SMS as far as I know, and that can fail. When the mobile app doesn't wake my car inside 10-15 seconds, I kill the mobile app and start it again. This normally makes it work for me, most probably re-attempting the SMS send...

 

[EVRider-FL]

Moreover, when on wifi, is the phone using wifi to communicate with the car or is it trying to use the cell connection? This seems like a dumb question as I assume wifi, but I thought I’d ask. We do have slightly different cell providers (I have the prepaid version through the same carrier, which may operate differently). That said, on wifi, it shouldn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter if the phone is using WiFi or cellular, but as the previous reply suggested, the car needs cellular coverage to respond to the app, even when connected to WiFi. If the phone isn’t connected to WiFi, make sure cellular data is enabled for the Tesla app.

 

[carlsonjd11]

It doesn’t matter if the phone is using WiFi or cellular, but as the previous reply suggested, the car needs cellular coverage to respond to the app, even when connected to WiFi. If the phone isn’t connected to WiFi, make sure cellular data is enabled for the Tesla app.

When the phone is connected to wifi, does it send the message to wake through wifi, meaning the cell connection is irrelevant? I suppose I could just turn off cell data to try. Though, I think you can still send SMS messages even with cell data turned off.

 

[PianoAl]

This happens occasionally with my tablet, which is not set up as a key.

In fact, it happens occasionally with all my devices, and the intermittent failure has led me to some incorrect conclusions. For example, at one point I thought that making the car honk fixed the problem. Not so. Just chance.

Also, one of our cars can wake immediately and the other take a while.

We have poor cell coverage at our house but good wifi.

 

[GtiMart]

I believe this is how it goes:
Phone (running Tesla Mobile app) -> phone's internet connection (Wifi or otherwise LTE) -> Tesla computer on the internet -> cell phone provider -> SMS to your car
Your phone does not talk to the car directly to wake it up, it talks to a Tesla computer in the cloud. That computer will do whatever it needs to do to get an SMS sent to your car.

 

[EVRider-FL]

When the phone is connected to wifi, does it send the message to wake through wifi, meaning the cell connection is irrelevant? I suppose I could just turn off cell data to try. Though, I think you can still send SMS messages even with cell data turned off.

No, the SMS message to wake your car goes through cellular, even if your car is on WiFi. As the previous post stated, it doesn’t matter how your phone is connected to the internet.

 

[carlsonjd11]

No, the SMS message to wake your car goes through cellular, even if your car is on WiFi. As the previous post stated, it doesn’t matter how your phone is connected to the internet.

So, if the phone is on wifi, the signal to the cloud from the phone will go through wifi, meaning even if the phone has no cell service, it’ll go through. The SMS from the cloud to the car will always go through cellular, meaning the car must have some cell service even if on wifi.

 

[fhteagle]

Fail to wake and very delayed location updates have been pretty chronic for our 2023 MY on 2023.44.30.7 . Both Tesla app (from two phones) and Home Assistant fail to wake the car 90+% of the time, even when trying to send lock or similar commands.

Hoping 2023.44.30.8 fixes this behavior, as it's really screwing with my HA automations.

 

[EVRider-FL]

So, if the phone is on wifi, the signal to the cloud from the phone will go through wifi, meaning even if the phone has no cell service, it’ll go through. The SMS from the cloud to the car will always go through cellular, meaning the car must have some cell service even if on wifi.

Correct.

 

[PianoAl]

I can make the car honk from the app even though the app won't connect. Why not make the honk wake up the car?

 

[GtiMart]

Some of the commands don'T go through the internet but instead communicate through the local bluetooth LE connection. Maybe the honk is one of them. If you're so close, pulling the door handle also wakes the car up.

 

[EVRider-FL]

I can make the car honk from the app even though the app won't connect. Why not make the honk wake up the car?

From my experience, you can still execute remote functions even before the app shows that it has connected to the car. Some functions like lock/unlock will work via Bluetooth if you’re close enough to the car, but I don’t think it’s just that. I think the app is slow to show that you’re connected.