iOS 15 - phone key keeps disconnecting

[SilentFlight]

I am not sure if the issue is related to iOS 15, but I never had my phone key not recognized by my MY. After updating my phone to iOS 15, it keeps disconnecting ALL the time, so there is at least a coincidence here. I was running a few errands today, when I got into the car (which BTW was opened by my phone) the car refused to start and asked for the key card. While driving, with my phone on the wireless charging plate, the car gave me the "Phone key not detected, won't be able to restart this drive after stopping" or something similar - multiple times. I could fix it by putting my phone into airplane mode and then back on normal. Just Bluetooth off and on didn't fix it.

Has anyone experienced the same?

 

[Mister_Greyman]

Same... I seem to have to at least turn the phone screen on for the car to see it. And bt streaming is a bit hit or miss...

 

[alexcue]

Yeah it locked with phone in my car today on iOS 15. Luckily I had the fob.
Card in wallet for emergency but didn’t think of it.

 

[leonar40]

Same here. Glad to see it's something with the phone and not the car, as I assume Apple will fix it quickly. Both times removing the phone and re-adding it to the locks menu has worked. Good tip about the airplane mode, that would be faster to fix it temporarily.

I wonder if Apple changed the bluetooth settings to make it go to sleep or something like that.

 

[TwelveVoltMan]

I upgraded to iOS 15 yesterday and haven’t had any issues with phone key functionality.

 

[patnshan]

Happened to me once, than not again after that. It used to happen very rarely, even before iOS 15.

 

[dogmodes]

Haven't had the issue, been on since release. I did have once it didn't recognize and I had to open the phone to unlock, but that has always happened once in awhile. I've had to reset it twice in the past 6 months, once for it just lost it, and the other app was in a crashing loop and I had to delete/reinstall.

 

[patmurphey]

It connects and disconnects randomly on my Android phone when I am away from the car, but it's never failed to connect and unlock approaching the car. As long as it works approaching the car, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[GtiMart]

I've said it before, and I believe it's the case here again: each new iOS and Android version comes with new features to save some energy and make the phone battery last longer. These typically disable functionality like gps or bluetooth, or suspend applications that they think are taking too much energy without being useful. You need to go in the settings of the OS and/or the application and make sure you disable these features / force enable the proper services / application etc. I can't be more precise since this changes all the time, but it's typically what causes this type of problem.

 

[norazi]

I know on my Android phone I just set the Tesla app to be exempt from power saving.... I am not sure if that is possible on iOS. It seems to prevent the Bluetooth from going to sleep and help with reliability.

 

[SilentFlight]

Same here. Glad to see it's something with the phone and not the car, as I assume Apple will fix it quickly. Both times removing the phone and re-adding it to the locks menu has worked. Good tip about the airplane mode, that would be faster to fix it temporarily.

I wonder if Apple changed the bluetooth settings to make it go to sleep or something like that.

Apple definitely did make changes to Bluetooth, although not sure if they are related to this issue. One thing I noticed is that I used to be able to turn Bluetooth off if I put my phone in airplane mode. Now it just says that it disabled Bluetooth "until tomorrow" like it used to before when I wasn't in airplane mode. Airplane mode used to be a full stop of everything radio, but apparently having Bluetooth off is not an option any more.

 

[SilentFlight]

It connects and disconnects randomly on my Android phone when I am away from the car, but it's never failed to connect and unlock approaching the car. As long as it works approaching the car, I wouldn't worry about it.

Well, I didn't necessarily worry about it, I just couldn't start the car It would only start with the key card while the phone was inside the car with Bluetooth on.

 

[SilentFlight]

I know on my Android phone I just set the Tesla app to be exempt from power saving.... I am not sure if that is possible on iOS. It seems to prevent the Bluetooth from going to sleep and help with reliability.

I don't think Bluetooth on iOS goes to sleep. If anything, Apple seems to want to make sure you can't turn it off. I suspect it may be because Apple has built a few crowdsourced features around Bluetooth (Find my...) that use any iOS devices available as a mesh network to locate things. Also, with more and more "smart" things (car, house, etc.) there are an ever increasing number of devices around that rely on BT so it would be a bad move for Apple to make BT connections less reliable. I suspect it's either a bug or some typical new release issue.

 

[bluetrep1]

never use iOS x.0.
always use iOS x.1+

 

[Eric9610]

Just an FYI I had this issue plenty prior to iOS 15. My friend also has this problem and not on iOS 15.

 

[Soul Surfer]

Just got my car today. I had a similar issue then paired it up again and all was a-ok.

 

[zpaul]

My car won't let me in with my phone. Started today.
I can open it from app but can't drive it requests to put Key on center console.
Pretty annoying experience.

 

[dino007]

Updated to ios 15 with 11 pro max so far no issues with my phone key with tesla

 

[Tabor]

Apple definitely did make changes to Bluetooth, although not sure if they are related to this issue. One thing I noticed is that I used to be able to turn Bluetooth off if I put my phone in airplane mode. Now it just says that it disabled Bluetooth "until tomorrow" like it used to before when I wasn't in airplane mode. Airplane mode used to be a full stop of everything radio, but apparently having Bluetooth off is not an option any more.

You can turn BT off. Just go into settings. “Until tomorrow” is there just incase you forget to turn it on, annoying I agree.

We’ve had the problem periodically with our M3 and ios15.

 

[Eric9610]

Actually if you turn BT off then back on, on your phone, you won’t need the key card and the app starts working again