Leave the phone (off) in the car?

[daniel]

As I've posted elsewhere, I'm about to take my annual long hiking trip up to Canada. I will be at several different wilderness hiking lodges for a week to ten days at a time. The car gets parked at a meeting area or staging area and I go up to the lodge and come back to it when I leave the lodge. There's no cell phone service at the lodges and I need to pack as light as I can for each lodge.

I have no need for my phone at the lodges and I normally would turn it off and leave it in the car.

But with all the issues of unlocking the Model 3 I'm wondering if it's a good idea to leave my phone and have only the key card. I've never had the car fail to unlock from the key card, but I'm wondering if that's ever happened to anyone? There's only the one outside sensor for the key card and if that were to fail I'd be locked out. At one of the staging areas where the car will be parked, there's no cell service, so Tesla could not remotely unlock the car, even if I made my way to town and phoned from a pay phone.

Is it safe to leave the phone and just rely on the key card? Or should I keep both with me to be on the safe side?

 

[Need]

Parking lots for popular hikes are common places for smash and grab. People leave phones and luggage behind. Someone told us to actually leave the car's windows open that way the thieves know there is nothing valuable in there and won't bother to smash our window. This was at Hawaii. Maybe it is safer at Canada.

 

[ewoodrick]

As I've posted elsewhere, I'm about to take my annual long hiking trip up to Canada. I will be at several different wilderness hiking lodges for a week to ten days at a time. The car gets parked at a meeting area or staging area and I go up to the lodge and come back to it when I leave the lodge. There's no cell phone service at the lodges and I need to pack as light as I can for each lodge.

I have no need for my phone at the lodges and I normally would turn it off and leave it in the car.

But with all the issues of unlocking the Model 3 I'm wondering if it's a good idea to leave my phone and have only the key card. I've never had the car fail to unlock from the key card, but I'm wondering if that's ever happened to anyone? There's only the one outside sensor for the key card and if that were to fail I'd be locked out. At one of the staging areas where the car will be parked, there's no cell service, so Tesla could not remotely unlock the car, even if I made my way to town and phoned from a pay phone.

Is it safe to leave the phone and just rely on the key card? Or should I keep both with me to be on the safe side?

You should be good. You may want to disable remote access to allow the car to use a little less power while parked. If the phone is turned off, I mean really off, then the car shouldn't see it. You probably can't leave it charging, because some phone wake up when charging.

 

[daniel]

Parking lots for popular hikes are common places for smash and grab. People leave phones and luggage behind. Someone told us to actually leave the car's windows open that way the thieves know there is nothing valuable in there and won't bother to smash our window. This was at Hawaii. Maybe it is safer at Canada.

These are not trailhead parking lots. They are private property. Two are locked parking areas at heliports. One is used only by the lodge owners for their guests, who get picked up there and driven to the trailhead to hike in to the lodge

You should be good. You may want to disable remote access to allow the car to use a little less power while parked. If the phone is turned off, I mean really off, then the car shouldn't see it. You probably can't leave it charging, because some phone wake up when charging.

Disabling remote access sounds like a good idea, since there's no cell coverage anyway at at least one of them. And yes, I power the phone completely off whenever I leave it in the car. No need to put it on a charger when it's powered off.

My question is not about the phone, though. It's about leaving myself with only one way to open the car: The key card. Normally I have two ways in case one fails.

 

[daniel]

I think I'm going to play it safe and bring the phone with me when I leave the car.

 

[Need]

Just in case if other people going on the hike got phone with data, you could also ask them to download the Tesla app, log in as you, and unlock the car to get your phone. If you decided to leave your phone in the car and the key card does not work.

 

[daniel]

Just in case if other people going on the hike got phone with data, you could also ask them to download the Tesla app, log in as you, and unlock the car to get your phone. If you decided to leave your phone in the car and the key card does not work.

True. I'm just going to take my phone with me.