Phone as Key Issues

[N5329K]

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.

I might be able to help with that.
Robin

 

[clmason]

Is there some kind of troubleshooting cheat sheet for Phone Key not working?

 

[Bruinfan]

I LOVE the phone as key. I hate that it doesn't work.

update time:
so i was restarting the phone every nite to great success. Then someone mentioned putting phone in performance mode. I tried that, and it stopped working consistently. Maybe 5 times in 7 days it didn't work.

So, I took it out of performance mode. So for 3 days, it was fine.. then I didn't drive the car for 2 days. Then, after a phone restart, it didn't work. Reset bluetooth, after 45 sec, it worked.

So, I will now start my count over... my record is 9 days in a row. The performance mode experiment failed for me. I am now Days Since Last Incident: Reset to 1.

update:
on a galaxy S7edge btw


my last post was Apr 30. So on May 2, didn't work all day. Restarted my phone, reset, everything. DID. NOT. WORK. Then next day, worked.

Worked good for 13 days in a row. Then yesterday, first thing in the morning, didn't work. I toggle bt and airplane, no work. I restarted the phone. Started working.

No real pattern. Don't know why it would not work first thing in the morning after a phone that was newly restarted with no BT pairings.

So, my record is 13 days. On day 2 of current streak.

 

[Big Dog]

here's a review in the press with a negative comment about the phone/card key:

Motor Week Review

 

[SDKoala]

My phone key (Pixel 1) has been working well the past week or so after making a few more tweaks to the settings.

Tasker still toggles my Bluetooth hourly. I got rid of the task that toggles Bluetooth after disconnecting from the car because it was causing my car to lock when standing right next to it. This, combined with giving the app permission to modify system settings, to run in the background, and @novox77's suggestion to make sure the Tesla app's battery use is not optimized, has kept me from having a failure in about a week, which is about 30 entry events.

I learned that physically blocking the phone's Bluetooth radio while sitting in the car makes it to ask for the key card even after opening the car with the phone. It's the same as if you opened the car with the phone then turned off the phone before starting the car. There's a BLE transmitter along the driver's door (as well as passenger, front and rear), but if I have my phone in my left pocket while sitting in the car, it sometimes shields the signal and causes the car to ask for the card.

I'd be interested to know how many people enter the car with their phone in their hand vs in their pocket or purse and from what direction they approach the car to first unlock it. I think the phone can only be connected to one of the car's four BLE transmitters at a time, so if the signal is lost from one, it might be that the phone and car are having trouble reconnecting until Bluetooth on the phone is toggled. Some phones might handle this better than others and could explain why car allows you to start it even after asking for the key.

 

[jsmay311]

here's a review in the press with a negative comment about the phone/card key:

Motor Week Review

Well, sure... but it's only 10 seconds out of a 6 minute video review. Not exactly gonna turn a lot of heads.

 

[nvx1977]

my phone is in my left pocket. I was considering moving it to the right (which would be undoing 19 years of habit) to see if the car recognizes it better. I do have to jiggle the phone in my pocket, or pull it out sometimes for the car to pick it up. Feels like the car should turn up the sensitivity in terms of signal detection. I bet that has other unintended consequences too.

 

[Bigbarrel]

Almost all of my phone key problems have happened while my phone has been in my pocket. Approach the car out of my pocket and all works well.

 

[slipnslider]

Almost all of my phone key problems have happened while my phone has been in my pocket. Approach the car out of my pocket and all works well.

So another way it's inferior to a fob then.

 

[jamnmon66]

I've only had the car for 2 days now but no problems at all. It feels like magic. I really hope all of you guys can resolve your issues and I hope I continue to have good luck with it. I have a Nexus 6p. I disabled power saving and set up Tasker before I got the car so that might have something to do with it.

I carry my phone in a belt holster on my right hip and I generally take it out of the holster and put it in the console charger as I get into the car.

 

[bhzmark]

Is there some kind of troubleshooting cheat sheet for Phone Key not working?

You won't find it in this thread. Whenever people try to share information to help people troubleshoot the settings on their phone to fix the problem complainers pollute the thread with outrage and protestations that we shouldn't have to truobleshoot our own phone to help ourselves. Other threads not yet discovered by the complainers have more helpful information without the interruptions.

 

[Howdus]

My phone key (Pixel 1) has been working well the past week or so after making a few more tweaks to the settings.

Tasker still toggles my Bluetooth hourly. I got rid of the task that toggles Bluetooth after disconnecting from the car because it was causing my car to lock when standing right next to it. This, combined with giving the app permission to modify system settings, to run in the background, and @novox77's suggestion to make sure the Tesla app's battery use is not optimized, has kept me from having a failure in about a week, which is about 30 entry events.

I learned that physically blocking the phone's Bluetooth radio while sitting in the car makes it to ask for the key card even after opening the car with the phone. It's the same as if you opened the car with the phone then turned off the phone before starting the car. There's a BLE transmitter along the driver's door (as well as passenger, front and rear), but if I have my phone in my left pocket while sitting in the car, it sometimes shields the signal and causes the car to ask for the card.

I'd be interested to know how many people enter the car with their phone in their hand vs in their pocket or purse and from what direction they approach the car to first unlock it. I think the phone can only be connected to one of the car's four BLE transmitters at a time, so if the signal is lost from one, it might be that the phone and car are having trouble reconnecting until Bluetooth on the phone is toggled. Some phones might handle this better than others and could explain why car allows you to start it even after asking for the key.

If my phone is in my back pocket, it sometimes won't work. I have to turn about 90 degrees and it will work. I have to say despite it not working every now and then, I love it. I no longer carry any keys with me.

 

[JES2]

You won't find it in this thread. Whenever people try to share information to help people troubleshoot the settings on their phone to fix the problem complainers pollute the thread with outrage and protestations that we shouldn't have to truobleshoot our own phone to help ourselves. Other threads not yet discovered by the complainers have more helpful information without the interruptions.

I assume you don't see the irony of someone who constantly comes to this thread and complains about others that are complaining.

Nah, probably not.

 

[bhzmark]

I assume you don't see the irony of someone who constantly comes to this thread and complains about others that are complaining.

Nah, probably not.

The tertiary complaining about someone complaining about others complaining is of course even more unproductive. And so the pollution goes on.

I don't have mod rights to move posts a "zero value whining" thread so I try to show, mostly by example, but also by encouragement and criticism, that the thread should be used to share useful information.

Solutions to phone problems must be found in other threads.

In this one I will merely attempt to stay on this side of snippiness and gently mock the complainers who are unable and unwilling to help themselves and even worse they try to frustrate the attempts of others to share useful info.

 

[Benjamin Brooks]

Elon announced Performance Model 3 at $78k last night. If that includes a normal key fob, I will gladly upgrade from my early VIN Model 3

 

[SDKoala]

The phone key has been working better for people since the 18.3 update. That would seem to suggest a Tesla-side change. Maybe placebo, maybe not, but it points to there being more variables than the phone itself, which is what I've seen people assert a few times.

As an experiment, for the past few days I turned off all of my workarounds and put the phone and app back to default settings to see how the update may have affected the phone key. Before, I'd approach a door or the trunk and a not-insignificant percentage of the time, nothing would happen and the car would ask for the keycard to unlock. Now, if I try again about 2-4 seconds after the failed open, most of the time the car will wake up and unlock. Something must have improved about the BLE connectivity to explain that change in behavior. My theory is the car is actively sending a second signal to reconnect to the phone after a failed attempt that it wasn't doing before. It still fails sometimes, which is likely a phone-side problem, but something definitely changed to increase the chance of success.

I also much more rarely see the unexplained prompt for a keycard that sometimes happened after entering the car with the phone key. Now the only time I see that is if I physically obstruct the phone so the Bluetooth signal is weakened.

The great thing is that with reinstating the workarounds, I now a nearly failure-free experience getting into my car. Yes, it's tiresome to read about people complaining about the same thing over-and-over, but people just want help and this site's search function is just about the worst I've seen on any message board, so all the things that I and other people have posted are difficult to find. I have faith that Tesla will improve the function of the phone key as we go along. If not for people complaining about it, they would have no idea it needs to be fixed.

 

[bhzmark]

with reinstating the workarounds, I now have a nearly failure-free experience getting into my car.

It's there if people want it...

 

[diamond.g]

So another way it's inferior to a fob then.

My issue with wanting a fob is, the fob is likely to be BT. So if you have issues with BT interference, having a fob isn't going to fix the problem. So moving your phone to a different pocket would likely be the same solution one would have to do with a fob (or my other favorite not having fob and phone in same pocket).

Now that is moot if the 3 actually has the standard 315Mhz RF that normal fobs use.

 

[TexasEV]

Almost all of my phone key problems have happened while my phone has been in my pocket. Approach the car out of my pocket and all works well.

I found the same thing. I previously posted that my iPhone SE worked about 95% of the time. When it didn’t work, i opened the Tesla app and then it worked. It turns out that opening the Tesla app wasn’t necessary, it was the act of taking the phone out of my side pocket that allowed the car to unlock!

 

[cellogig]

I found the same thing. I previously posted that my iPhone SE worked about 95% of the time. When it didn’t work, i opened the Tesla app and then it worked. It turns out that opening the Tesla app wasn’t necessary, it was the act of taking the phone out of my side pocket that allowed the car to unlock!

That is what I have been doing and much better success rate.