Phone as Key Issues

[SDKoala]

Well, some folks believe it is the "user's" fault, since a) you are having a problem and b) you are too unsophisticated / too old / too Android-ish / too uncool enough to fix it.

I wonder how quickly these people's tune would change if they were the ones having the problem. It's quite easy to dismiss if it doesn't affect you.

 

[JES2]

We could go on and on about where in the spectrum of convenience the keyfobs compare to phones and cards. But the question is academic, as there is no keyfob solution for the Model 3 at this time. We're stuck with either figuing out ways to minimize the bugs in the phone implementation and/or using the keycard.

Well, not quite Joe, we know the convenience of key FOBs based on the last 20 years of multiple cars and manufacturers producing them. The use of a phone or a card is pretty much brand new, and seem to be fairly unreliable and inconvenient for many owners.

A key FOB would actually solve the problem that many owners seem to be having, now and in the future. It actually might be academic to think that the bugs will ever be solved when we have so many phone variables, including phones not even being invented yet. Plus, having a card reader means that it will never come close to a key FOB, that is, as long as you don't move the goalposts and only compare the card to a dead key FOB.

I think we are competent enough to discuss both topics in this thread. You and your team can figure out how to solve the current and future bugs for the phone, my group will continue to romanticize of the simpler times when we churned our own butter, drove in horse-drawn carriages, and had working key FOBs.

 

[bhzmark]

I wonder how quickly these people's tune would change if they were the ones having the problem. It's quite easy to dismiss if it doesn't affect you.

I had problems too. And then I did the various troubleshooting things I found suggested online, also got updates, and now dont have problems. Some like to complain about problems to the exclusion of trying to solve them.

Those with a scientific bent will notice that some are having no problems, and some are, and so there must be a difference and seek to find that difference.

 

[robertvg]

So I thought the phone as key functionality was based upon Bluetooth 4 LE, but apparently we will get the same option in our older cars, which have BT3.
Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[SDKoala]

I had problems too. And then I did the various troubleshooting things I found suggested online, also got updates, and now dont have problems. Some like to complain about problems to the exclusion of trying to solve them.

Those with a scientific bent will notice that some are having no problems, and some are, and so there must be a difference and seek to find that difference.

That's great it worked for you, but it still doesn't mean the problems don't exist. We're going to continue to disagree on this point.

I bet I've done more troubleshooting on this issue than 99% of the people on this board, even to the point of factoring resetting my phone and running nothing besides the Tesla app. I tried the battery optimization/non-optimization options, running in the background, allowing the app to have all permissions and make modifications to the system, basically everything anyone has posted and it still fails about 20% of the time. Installing Tasker workarounds reduces it to less than 5% so I'm able to get reasonable use out of the phone key, but definitely not enough to be bug-free.

My point has always been that if Tesla was going to implement this protocol for basic car functions, it needed to be flawless across the board, not just for certain phones. Time will tell if everyone who currently has perfect use with their phones will continue to be so lucky. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some firmware update or phone software update breaks functionality for a bunch of people at once at some point in the future.

 

[N5329K]

The phone as key is a partial solution to the problem of unlocking your Model 3 and driving it away. Partial because it works for some, doesn't work well for others, and is so annoying that a few have given up altogether in favor of Tesla's Plan B, the card.
Whether it works, or is capable of working by way of tinkering and vigilance is entirely beside the point.
Imagine buying any other entry-level luxury sedan and discovering the "key" didn't reliably work. Tesla should be putting its hands together in thanks that so many early Model 3 buyers are willing to engineer their own workarounds (likely temporary, as has been mentioned), and have refrained from making Yugo jokes.
Robin

 

[diamond.g]

Sigh, it appears that even using BT may not exempt us from RF Relay attacks
All that's left of the Tesla. Stolen overnight. [Sad news] • r/teslamotors

 

[Coeus]

Sigh, it appears that even using BT may not exempt us from RF Relay attacks
All that's left of the Tesla. Stolen overnight. [Sad news] • r/teslamotors

If that was an RF Relay attack, they probably would have unplugged the charging cable rather than forcefully ripping it out. That alone makes it look like it was just winched up onto a truck and driven off.

 

[BadToo]

Can some post the models of ANDROID phones that do and do not work. I know my old Samsung SIII won't even allow the Tesla app to be installed. I bought an LG K20 phone and it does NOT work. Each and every time I have to turn Bluetooth off and back on to get in and start the car. If someone could just give me a short list of Android phones that do work, I will buy one. And yes I have tried all of the workarounds listed on this forum.

 

[iwannam3]

The first thing any app should do is to check to see if the device meets the minimum requirements for proper operation, can the app stay on, maximize battery consumption, com protocol and software level etc. What ever it needs to do the job. I'd rather have the APP say, "sorry your phone won't work" than to be a beta tester and have it work 50% of the time.

 

[RTPEV]

The first thing any app should do is to check to see if the device meets the minimum requirements for proper operation, can the app stay on, maximize battery consumption, com protocol and software level etc. What ever it needs to do the job. I'd rather have the APP say, "sorry your phone won't work" than to be a beta tester and have it work 50% of the time.

And all of that is moot anyway if the problem is not the brand of phone, the OS level, or other apps running and rather, as someone suggested previously, a fundamental flaw in the protocol that requires a stack ban if the signal strength is such that you get a certain amount of transmission errors within a certain period of time. In that case you could have identical hardware & software setups, but someone who typically sits right at the fringe of reception (i.e. in their living room which is one wall away from their garage) vs. someone else who is either clearly in range, or clearly out of range.

 

[aronth5]

My Android Galaxy 8 has been fairly reliable. (2 problems in 6 weeks)
Did have a problem this morning though and remembered one suggestion to toggle airplane mode on then back off. First thing I tried and surprisingly it worked. Doesn't address the root cause but at least something to remember.

 

[PeteInCA]

Are we anticipating Lemon Law issues with this? I mean, many of us have addressed this issue with the dealer over and over again and yet they are not able to resolve it. In my case, sometimes the phone key works to get me in the car but as soon as I sit down and press the brake pedal it wants the card to "start" the car. If I wait a while the phone key will eventually work. Many times the phone key will not work to open the door but usually does if I keep trying to open the car for 30 seconds or so. For me these issues are happening about once a day. I am using a Samsung S9 with Android 8.0.0 . This is not my expectation for a car in this segment or frankly in any segment.

 

[iwannam3]

Are we anticipating Lemon Law issues with this? I mean, many of us have addressed this issue with the dealer over and over again and yet they are not able to resolve it. In my case, sometimes the phone key works to get me in the car but as soon as I sit down and press the brake pedal it wants the card to "start" the car. If I wait a while the phone key will eventually work. Many times the phone key will not work to open the door but usually does if I keep trying to open the car for 30 seconds or so. For me these issues are happening about once a day. I am using a Samsung S9 with Android 8.0.0 . This is not my expectation for a car in this segment or frankly in any segment.

They should have to put "BETA" in 78 font as a disclaimer on anything phone key related.

 

[Fusion]

I was 100% till yesterday on my Samsung S8. Had to toggle on airplane mode for it to work again. I have the settings set for full permissions and no battery saving.

 

[PeteInCA]

I am wondering if the toggling that people are doing is really accomplishing anything. For me if I continue to try the door for about 30 seconds I think it opens most times. There are times when I've pulled out the card, so I cant say for sure that everytime it would have worked had I waited. Nonetheless this is not how it is designed to work.

 

[JES2]

Are we anticipating Lemon Law issues with this? I mean, many of us have addressed this issue with the dealer over and over again and yet they are not able to resolve it. In my case, sometimes the phone key works to get me in the car but as soon as I sit down and press the brake pedal it wants the card to "start" the car. If I wait a while the phone key will eventually work. Many times the phone key will not work to open the door but usually does if I keep trying to open the car for 30 seconds or so. For me these issues are happening about once a day. I am using a Samsung S9 with Android 8.0.0 . This is not my expectation for a car in this segment or frankly in any segment.

I think the Lemon Law would apply only if you did not have the card as a way of entering and starting the vehicle. It is possible that a judge would view the phone as an optional entry method, but not one that is guaranteed to have 100% success or a time limit of how long it takes to activate the unlock. I guess Tesla could point to the phone (specifically Android) and say it is not even their (Tesla's) problem.

I really think this is the case of Tesla operating like a software company rather than an automobile company. They figure that with enough patches, the problem will be solved.

I see the same thinking at Tesla with the Enhanced Autopilot. They had to anticipate that there would be drivers simply abusing or not understanding the limitations of the autopilot capabilities, but they handled it like a beta software program with a lot of bugs. Let the users in the field debug the problems. I wonder if they regret not having a Key FOB on the M3, and if it might have been a better idea to limit the wide scale use of autopilot.

 

[SDKoala]

I am wondering if the toggling that people are doing is really accomplishing anything. For me if I continue to try the door for about 30 seconds I think it opens most times. There are times when I've pulled out the card, so I cant say for sure that everytime it would have worked had I waited. Nonetheless this is not how it is designed to work.

Toggling is absolutely effective in resetting the Bluetooth connection and allowing the phone and car to reestablish communication to get the phone key to work. It's the first troubleshooting step suggested by the Tesla app itself. Setting my phone to automatically toggle Bluetooth every hour in the background made a huge difference in how often the phone key is successful.

 

[jsmay311]

As long as Tesla is selling every Model 3 as fast as they can make them, and they're not getting any serious negative press about the phone key issue, I doubt they'll take any significant steps to fix it.

The only way I see this changing is if national media picks up the story and reports on how buggy the phone key is and how dissatisfied (some) Model 3 owners are with it, and that negative press shames Tesla into taking action.

To that end... if there's a dissatisfied Model 3 owner out there who also happens to know somebody at Teslarati or Electrek or Jalopnik or Autoblog or wherever, they could pitch that person a story about the Model 3 phone key problems and reference the negative poll results on this site as evidence of the extent of the problem, and hopefully get them to publish an article. Then maybe such a story might get picked up by national media.

It might be a long shot, but it's better than nothing.

 

[diamond.g]

As long as Tesla is selling every Model 3 as fast as they can make them, and they're not getting any serious negative press about the phone key issue, I doubt they'll take any significant steps to fix it.

The only way I see this changing is if national media picks up the story and reports on how buggy the phone key is and how dissatisfied (some) Model 3 owners are with it, and that negative press shames Tesla into taking action.

To that end... if there's a dissatisfied Model 3 owner out there who also happens to know somebody at Teslarati or Electrek or Jalopnik or Autoblog or wherever, they could pitch that person a story about the Model 3 phone key problems and reference the negative poll results on this site as evidence of the extent of the problem, and hopefully get them to publish an article. Then maybe such a story might get picked up by national media.

It might be a long shot, but it's better than nothing.

Also include CNBC and seekingalpha. The shorts would spread bad information faster especially if it could affect the stock price.