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Phone and Keycard Locked in Car
- Thread starter Cookiemobster
- Start date
diamond.g
Active Member
I don't think Tesla will use the 315mhz fob in their cars anymore. The 3 doesn't have the hardware for it at all (According to the conformity page). When they come out with a fob it will be bluetooth based.
Key Fob? Blagh! I've had my Model 3 for a month and it works as advertised. I use the small iPhone SE (fits in my pocket nicely), and the doors are unlocked when I approach. Since I live in a rural area I rarely carry any keys. So no-fob means one less thing to carry. Since the car is in "walk-away mode", I can hear the mirrors fold-up as I exit the garage.
My wife's car has a proximity fob... she's constantly scrounging around in her purse trying to determine if she has her key. I'm glad not to have a similar issue.
My wife's car has a proximity fob... she's constantly scrounging around in her purse trying to determine if she has her key. I'm glad not to have a similar issue.
I think you could solve this problem by turning off the "walk away door lock" setting. Go to the locks screen and hit the little gear in the upper right corner to bring up the screen that lets you do this. Then you would have to do something to lock the car.
For me the phone has worked just fine.
For me the phone has worked just fine.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
Have you not heard?
Tesla Files FCC Application For Bluetooth Key Fobs For Tesla Model 3 Owners | CleanTechnica
even before the FCC filing Elon admitted a Fob would have to be done some time back. I'm surprised you hadn't heard either way.
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
Mobile Data = Cell phone LTE connection
The car is connected to the phone using bluetooth not LTE. Or said another way
diamond.g said:
I had not heard this. This is wonderful news. In addition to being a promise of a solution to so many of our woes, it shows that Tesla really does care. I hope the fob will have buttons for the frunk and trunk as well as unlocking the car.
It is absolutely an unreliable BT connection. More generally, BT is known to be an unreliable communications protocol. It is being asked to connect an almost unlimited number of different kinds of hardware, running an even greater number of operating systems, all of which are constantly changing, to a large number of different hardwares and operating systems. Or, in this case, to a one specific piece of hardware running any of several firmware versions. BT is a pretty good system that works pretty well for a lot of applications. But it is not reliable enough to be the primary means of access to a car, which for many people is their only means of transportation.
just last weekend, my phone fell out of my pocket onto the seat without my knowledge. I got out and walked away. 60 seconds later I realized I didn't have my phone and walked back to the car, panicked that the car would be locked with my phone inside. But the car was not locked. It recognized my phone was in the car and did not lock. I opened the door, walked away, and heard the auto lock chirp about 15 seconds later.
I believe this is the desired and intended behavior of the car.
Personally I have had no issues with the phone as key setup.
Agree on the "intended" part. But not so sure about the "desired" part.
My previous car with keyless entry (and I'm guessing the vast majority of cars with keyless entry) had an option to turn on an audible alert when you exit the car and leave/forget the key fob inside. But apparently no Teslas have this feature -- not even S/X's.
This seems like a glaring and inexplicable (and inexcusable) omission to me.
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diamond.g
Active Member
Eh my Volt makes noise when you leave it on and leave with the key. It makes noise if you leave the key inside too. No way of turning the noise off. It is annoying. Personally I am not sad it is missing in the 3, but I understand the want for an option.
That's only half true.
In the Volt, the "Remote Left in Vehicle Alert" is optional. You can turn it on or off in the Vehicle Personalization settings. And that's the alert we're talking about here.
As for the Volt's "Remote No Longer in Vehicle" alert... I agree that it's annoying*, but it's completely irrelevant to any discussion about Teslas. That alert was added to the Volt due to the concern of people accidentally leaving the car on after exiting, and eventually the engine could turn on after the battery drains and potentially fill a garage with exhaust fumes and possibly cause CO poisoning.
In contrast, Teslas (1) turn off on their own after exiting with the key/phone, and (2) they don't have an engine.
(*The "Remote No Longer in Vehicle" alert was added to 2011-2013 Volts via a recall and software update, but I simply declined this update at the dealer so I never had to deal with this annoying alert.
And I believe in newer 2018-and-later Volts you can turn this alert off too, just not independently of the "Remote Left in Vehicle" alert.)
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I love the phone as a key implementation. I don’t have to carry keys anymore. It has been quite reliable (2-4x when I have had issues in 2 months of ownership). Is it less reliable than a fob, maybe......
In the last two cars I owned with fobs and either owner sensing handles or lock/unlock buttons on handles, I have had issues. The fob was fine, it was the tech in the handles or car that was an issue. So for years these automatic lock/unlock systems have been wonky from my perspective. The only one that worked flawlessly was when I had a fob and had to physically push button on it to lock/unlock.
I guess I’m lucky because I’m an iPhone owner and the Tesla implementation has been very good from my perspective.
Tesla does need to do better because it sounds like the Android crowd and others are having issues far too frequently. On a related point, if I had to pull out that card more than 1x a month I would be very unhappy.
In the last two cars I owned with fobs and either owner sensing handles or lock/unlock buttons on handles, I have had issues. The fob was fine, it was the tech in the handles or car that was an issue. So for years these automatic lock/unlock systems have been wonky from my perspective. The only one that worked flawlessly was when I had a fob and had to physically push button on it to lock/unlock.
I guess I’m lucky because I’m an iPhone owner and the Tesla implementation has been very good from my perspective.
Tesla does need to do better because it sounds like the Android crowd and others are having issues far too frequently. On a related point, if I had to pull out that card more than 1x a month I would be very unhappy.
I have an iPhone and the car demands the key card at least once a week. The only times I've had issues with the Prius key fob were twice (in 14 years) when the fob battery died. Had to use the little physical key hidden in the fob, and then insert the fob into the slot to drive.
diamond.g
Active Member
So far I have noticed that as long as the car is idling response to door is immediate. But if car is sleeping it take a moment to wake up and unlock. It hasn’t asked me for the keycard yet. It is interesting how people with iPhones could even be having problems since Apple is pretty strict with their Bluetooth stack.
This morning the phone unlocked the car just fine at home. But then at both of my errand stops the car demanded the key card before it would open. I've had times when there is a short delay. But these times the screen said it wanted the key card. I can find no pattern to when it demands the key card. The phone is always in my right-hand front pocket.
Other times, the phone opens the car but the car demands the key card to drive. (This morning it only wanted the card to unlock. It drove fine without it, though I guess I don't know whether that's because it finally "saw" the phone, or if I put it in gear within the time limit.)
so I don't work at Tesla and don't have inside info, but I work with BLE a lot and have some theories on the matter:
Certainty: There is a BLE transceiver for each side of the car, the rear of the car, and the center console.
Theory: The car is doing time-of-flight comparisons to determine the location of the phone. If a phone is "closer" (by time-of-flight) to any two perimeter BLE transceivers than it is to the center console transceiver, then it stands to reason the phone is outside of the car. This is when you'll get the situations where the car lets you in, but won't let you start the car.
The problem is that time-of-flight is not a perfect measurement system. Anyone who uses their Apple watch to unlock their laptop has probably seen it say the watch is too far away at least once, even when it's right there.
When/if Tesla release the BLE fob, it won't necessarily fix that issue but it SHOULD fix the total lack of detection when you can't get into the car, which seems to have a lot to do with the mobile app and the phone OS.
Certainty: There is a BLE transceiver for each side of the car, the rear of the car, and the center console.
Theory: The car is doing time-of-flight comparisons to determine the location of the phone. If a phone is "closer" (by time-of-flight) to any two perimeter BLE transceivers than it is to the center console transceiver, then it stands to reason the phone is outside of the car. This is when you'll get the situations where the car lets you in, but won't let you start the car.
The problem is that time-of-flight is not a perfect measurement system. Anyone who uses their Apple watch to unlock their laptop has probably seen it say the watch is too far away at least once, even when it's right there.
When/if Tesla release the BLE fob, it won't necessarily fix that issue but it SHOULD fix the total lack of detection when you can't get into the car, which seems to have a lot to do with the mobile app and the phone OS.
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