Phone App: iPhone/Android app

[David29]

Recently I realized that turning on the seat heaters from the app does not work. The app shows they are on, but when I get to the car, the seat is cold and the panel indicates the seat is not on. Same for the steering wheel. The cabin heat can be operated just fine (fortunately, since it has been cold and snowy here lately!). But at least those related features do not seem to be working, and they did used to work.
I do not know when this started, and I have not had a software update for some time. The car is on 2020.48.12.1.

My phone is an Android, in case that matters.

I seem to recall having seen other complaints about this, on other tesla groups (Facebook, maybe) but had not verified it in my own car until recently, so this may be "old news."

 

[David29]

Recently I realized that turning on the seat heaters from the app does not work. The app shows they are on, but when I get to the car, the seat is cold and the panel indicates the seat is not on. Same for the steering wheel. The cabin heat can be operated just fine (fortunately, since it has been cold and snowy here lately!). But at least those related features do not seem to be working, and they did used to work.
I do not know when this started, and I have not had a software update for some time. The car is on 2020.48.12.1.

My phone is an Android, in case that matters.

I seem to recall having seen other complaints about this, on other tesla groups (Facebook, maybe) but had not verified it in my own car until recently, so this may be "old news."

But maybe I am wrong! I went to a dental appointment today, and turned on preheat, including the seat, as I was checking out at the end of the appointment. The seat was hot when i got to the car a few minutes later! So does this possibly work sometimes but not others? Does it depend upon how long the preheat lasts? Does it possibly time out (which would make sense, actually)? I will need to pay closer attention or maybe do some tests....

 

[tpedwards]

What I suspect is that the phone app works as expected EXCEPT when you approach your car your profile is invoked overriding what you had set from the phone. This happens to me nearly daily.

 

[Rocky_H]

I guess I'll add to this thread:
It seems one of the firmware updates recently broke the functionality of keyless driving from the app. I push the button for keyless driving in the app. The front display on the car shows the message that keyless driving has been enabled and says I have 2 minutes to press the brake and put the car in gear. But when I try to do that, then the car just shows an error that the key fob is not in the car. Well of COURSE it's not!! This is KEYLESS driving! It's supposed to not be here. So Tesla seems to have broken this logic somehow in one of their updates.

And don't say reinstall the app. It does this on both my app on my Android phone, and on my wife's iPhone too, so it does seem to be some error in the car's software.

Most people probably wouldn't notice this much, because I'll bet most people don't use this function, but it is my wife's preferred method of driving the car, since she always has her phone, but sometimes doesn't want to carry the key fob. I have set up a service appointment for it, but I just thought to check if anyone else had noticed this and maybe what firmware version broke it?

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I guess I'll add to this thread:
It seems one of the firmware updates recently broke the functionality of keyless driving from the app. I push the button for keyless driving in the app. The front display on the car shows the message that keyless driving has been enabled and says I have 2 minutes to press the brake and put the car in gear. But when I try to do that, then the car just shows an error that the key fob is not in the car. Well of COURSE it's not!! This is KEYLESS driving! It's supposed to not be here. So Tesla seems to have broken this logic somehow in one of their updates.

And don't say reinstall the app. It does this on both my app on my Android phone, and on my wife's iPhone too, so it does seem to be some error in the car's software.

Most people probably wouldn't notice this much, because I'll bet most people don't use this function, but it is my wife's preferred method of driving the car, since she always has her phone, but sometimes doesn't want to carry the key fob. I have set up a service appointment for it, but I just thought to check if anyone else had noticed this and maybe what firmware version broke it?

We use this function all the time when moving the cars in or out of the garage. I'm pretty sure it is still working for us in 2021.4.15 but will try to confirm it today..

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I guess I'll add to this thread:
It seems one of the firmware updates recently broke the functionality of keyless driving from the app. I push the button for keyless driving in the app. The front display on the car shows the message that keyless driving has been enabled and says I have 2 minutes to press the brake and put the car in gear. But when I try to do that, then the car just shows an error that the key fob is not in the car. Well of COURSE it's not!! This is KEYLESS driving! It's supposed to not be here. So Tesla seems to have broken this logic somehow in one of their updates.

And don't say reinstall the app. It does this on both my app on my Android phone, and on my wife's iPhone too, so it does seem to be some error in the car's software.

Most people probably wouldn't notice this much, because I'll bet most people don't use this function, but it is my wife's preferred method of driving the car, since she always has her phone, but sometimes doesn't want to carry the key fob. I have set up a service appointment for it, but I just thought to check if anyone else had noticed this and maybe what firmware version broke it?

We use this function all the time when moving the cars in or out of the garage. I'm pretty sure it is still working for us in 2021.4.15 but will try to confirm it today..

I just confirmed on the S, 3 and Y that I can still use remote start from the phone app in Android.

 

[David29]

I guess I'll add to this thread:
It seems one of the firmware updates recently broke the functionality of keyless driving from the app. I push the button for keyless driving in the app. The front display on the car shows the message that keyless driving has been enabled and says I have 2 minutes to press the brake and put the car in gear. But when I try to do that, then the car just shows an error that the key fob is not in the car. Well of COURSE it's not!! This is KEYLESS driving! It's supposed to not be here. So Tesla seems to have broken this logic somehow in one of their updates.

And don't say reinstall the app. It does this on both my app on my Android phone, and on my wife's iPhone too, so it does seem to be some error in the car's software.

Most people probably wouldn't notice this much, because I'll bet most people don't use this function, but it is my wife's preferred method of driving the car, since she always has her phone, but sometimes doesn't want to carry the key fob. I have set up a service appointment for it, but I just thought to check if anyone else had noticed this and maybe what firmware version broke it?

It is nice to know that this function is used and useful. But -- I hope your wife always ALWAYS has her phone, and always has a good cell connection for both her phone and the car. I am sure she and you realize that parking garages and certain other places tend to cause this function to fail....

 

[Rocky_H]

We use this function all the time when moving the cars in or out of the garage. I'm pretty sure it is still working for us in 2021.4.15 but will try to confirm it today..

I did just get a call back from one of the techs at the Boise service center. He said he pushed an update to the car, and asked me to do a scroll wheel reboot to make sure it's in, and then give it a try. I have the other car here at work, so I'll give it a try when I get home tonight.

I hope your wife always ALWAYS has her phone

Well,...yeah. That's how she would drive the car away from our house.

I am sure she and you realize that parking garages and certain other places tend to cause this function to fail....

I've heard that with underground parking garages. We don't have those in Boise (or don't use them). There's plenty of out in the open parking almost everywhere. I always get this kind of flipping out from people in New York or L.A. or (in your case) Boston or other really large city metro areas when they hear about my wife wanting to drive with only the app. This is Boise, though. There isn't really anywhere she goes that's more than about a half hour from wherever I am.

About once every year or two, there's some kind of problem with the internet connection or Tesla servers or something that makes it not work while she's out, and she'll call me to see if I can remote start it, and if not, then I'll have to go swing by home and get a key fob to meet her. It's not a big deal. She griped about it the first couple of times, and we had that conversation. I said that she needs to remember she is making that choice of using the less reliable method of driving it. So I don't mind meeting up with you to fix it, but you need to have patience with that consequence of waiting because that choice didn't work out that time.

 

[Rocky_H]

Well, that was solved easily. After that software they pushed to the car, I rebooted and tried it, and remote driving worked from both of our phones now. I feel like this is a half credit situation. Sure, they fixed it easily with a software patch, but they also broke it a little too easily with software too.

 

[yog_74]

Any chance of getting the ability to move the drivers seat from the app? Or is it there and I'm ignorant?

 

[Rocky_H]

Any chance of getting the ability to move the drivers seat from the app? Or is it there and I'm ignorant?

Well, no, it's certainly not there, and honestly, I can't even imagine why that would be a thing. I have been trying to think of what kind of scenario could come up with a need to remotely move a seat, and I'm not coming up with anything.

 

[EdA]

Perhaps moving it before you get into the car...

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Perhaps moving it before you get into the car...

Can't that already be accomplished by associating the phone or fob with a profile?

 

[Rocky_H]

Perhaps moving it before you get into the car...

But WHY?! You can't sit down in it until you are standing right there at the car, literally 1 foot away from the little lever that can move the seat back before you sit down. And I think most of the cars have driver profiles associated per key fob now.

Can't that already be accomplished by associating the phone or fob with a profile?

Yes.
Sure, I sometimes take a couple seconds to move the seat back just a little from my short wife before I get in, and then select my driver profile, (or sometimes I don't bother and just squeeze in) but that seems like a really nitpicky thing to try to get implemented in a mobile app.

 

[yog_74]

You can associate a profile with a key fob? How

 

[yog_74]

Got it. This is a game changer.

 

[tpedwards]

Got it. This is a game changer.

That one has been there for a while. Don’t forget to activate Easy Entry!

 

[Faithless]

TL;DR: Phone key wouldn't initialize setup on Plaid S. Fixed it using another Tesla owners car.

I'm not sure if anyone else has seen this issue, but figured I would share.

After taking delivery of my Plaid S I was unable to bind my phone as a key. I followed advice from people here and throughout YouTube and finally had to get in touch with Tesla techs, but they also had trouble fixing the issue. The problem was that there was no way to initiate the setup. The phone key button wouldn't actually do anything.

After going round-and-round on turning off this and resetting that I came to the realization that most of the people trying to help me already had a Tesla, but this was my 1st Tesla. So I asked a friend to just tell me what he saw if I added him as a driver and, sure enough, he had the setup option! I had him add me as a driver to his car and logged out and into the app and finally I could also setup my phone as a key on my Plaid!

I don't know why it worked and I relayed this to the Tesla techs that were helping me, but there ya go!

 

[DavidSRQ]

TL;DR: Phone key wouldn't initialize setup on Plaid S. Fixed it using another Tesla owners car.

I'm not sure if anyone else has seen this issue, but figured I would share.

After taking delivery of my Plaid S I was unable to bind my phone as a key. I followed advice from people here and throughout YouTube and finally had to get in touch with Tesla techs, but they also had trouble fixing the issue. The problem was that there was no way to initiate the setup. The phone key button wouldn't actually do anything.

After going round-and-round on turning off this and resetting that I came to the realization that most of the people trying to help me already had a Tesla, but this was my 1st Tesla. So I asked a friend to just tell me what he saw if I added him as a driver and, sure enough, he had the setup option! I had him add me as a driver to his car and logged out and into the app and finally I could also setup my phone as a key on my Plaid!

I don't know why it worked and I relayed this to the Tesla techs that were helping me, but there ya go!

Great info thanks will be my 1 MS

 

[BigNick]

Moved to here:

New Tesla APP 4.x. Released for iOS and Android

Have different logins, is that a requirement?

teslamotorsclub.com