MY will not automatically unlock

[shahryaran]

Its Bluetooth Low Emissions (BLE) not regular bluetooth, and I have personally experienced, several times in fact, having my phone in my back pocket, having it not work, and doing nothing else but turning sideways to bring the phone closer to the door and having it then work.

With that being said, In the past several months it has become much less reliable for me on my iPhone, after several years of working 99% of the time. Tesla stuff being Tesla stuff, I just chalk it up to some update or other. iPhones dont have a bunch of backgrounding settings, but I have checked those.

In any case, that advice was given from my own experience. Feel free to use or ignore as you wish.

BLE is still Bluetooth with is so 2.4 GHz and still can operate thru human body. However, I don't deny your experience. I think the issue is that the phone and the car are constantly scanning. But their scanning period do not overlap so it takes a moment to find eachother and communicate. During this time, what ever we think we do to change thing to that will unlock the car shouldn't be associated as cause and effect reasoning to why it's not working. I have gotten close to my car and waited with my phone in my pocket and eventually after 20 to 30 seconds the phone and the car communicate and unlocks.
However, based on your experience, there could be intentional security mechanism from Tesla with recent updates that tried to prevent hacking or spoofing or fishing. It could be that the phone and the car find each other immediately but the app uses other sensors such as gyro and proximity sensor to verify movements. This may explain why phone in backpack delays unlocking. Next time you should wait when you get to your car while your phone is in your backpack to see what happens.

 

[jkdman123]

I think they made an across the board adjustment to this functionality 12-18 months ago or so. This started happening often with my old M3. About half the time the doors would not unlock until I opened the phone and sometimes would have to open the app. Just got a MY and the same thing happens.

Weirdly enough, opening the trunk while the car is still locked is much more reliable on both cars, it seems. Maybe one out of 4 times the trunk won't open until I open the phone, but it works as advertised much more often than the doors.

Maybe the car was sensing the phone key from too far away which might allow someone to get into your car without you realizing it, so they dialed up the required signal strength from the phone to trigger an unlock. All I know is that for about the first 3 years of owning the M3 it worked about 90% of the time and then suddenly changed and has been that way for a long time.

 

[piarenla]

Does it eventually unlock if you wait for say, a minute or two?

I'll give that a try, the next time unlock on approach does not work. Lately, it's been good. Thanks.

 

[robjg63]

When it works, it can be in your back pocket - You are reaching for the door handle, so are very close to the car anyway.
I have a Samsung/Android phone - I have found that turning the battery saver OFF, seems to make it a bit more reliable.
(Not perfect though).

When it deosnt work, usually, just hitting the power button wakes the phone and it will work.

I suspect something in the phone and/or car goes into a bit of a sleep mode and takes some sort of provocation to wake up.

 

[GalacticHero]

This still fails on my car all the time. Taking the phone out of my pocket and holding it near the car does not help. I usually have to shut off BT, wait for the Tesla app to complain about BT off, then turn BT back on. It's faster to just take out my key card (I never drive anywhere using just the phone.)