Phone as Key Issues

[TT97]

I assume the B-pillar is on the passenger side, and I thought that the card reader was only available on the driver's side. Are there two card readers? I seem to remember an owner stating that the card reader on the A-pillar broke and he couldn't enter his car.

@JES2 - The A-pillar/B-pillar are not left & right. The A-pillar is the pillar between the windshield and front window. The B-pillar is between the front and rear windows. (And C-pillar after the rear window and also D-pillar for SUVs/station wagons). There are two of each pillar.

The M3 has just one card reader on the driver side B-pillar.

 

[JES2]

@JES2 - The A-pillar/B-pillar are not left & right. The A-pillar is the pillar between the windshield and front window. The B-pillar is between the front and rear windows. (And C-pillar after the rear window and also D-pillar for SUVs/station wagons). There are two of each pillar.

The M3 has just one card reader on the driver side B-pillar.

Thanks, TT97! I actually looked it up on Wikipedia to understand the whole pillar layout vernacular for automobiles. I'm sure Tesla did not envision that owners would be so involved in B-pillar discussion with their Model 3s.

 

[slipnslider]

I’ve had my car 5 days and so far the phone key had worked a 100% of the time. My cousins came to visit yesterday and I spoke highly about the car and explained the next gen concept of not having a key. We walked out to the car and I showed everyone how easy it was to grab the handle to open the door with one hand...and nothing. I let go and tried again, and again. Then I pulled out the phone in a save attempt explaining that the app could be used too, and I hit the unlock button and I got the dreaded error - remote unlock failed. I scurried and pulled the card out of my wallet explaining the final alternative while everyone was standing by their doors wondering why it was such an affair to get through the doors to begin with. Thankfully the key card worked and the doors finally unlocked, I got in and had to place the card by the cup holders to start driving the vehicle..

This is a perfect example of why the model 3 needs a fob. Every potential customer who sees a model 3 owner struggling to get into their fancy new $60k car is a potential lost future sale.

This thread is littered with people bragging about how they've never had a problem with it, returning a few pages later to say it had started giving them problems. It will never be totally reliable. Give us a fob already and end this nonsense.

 

[slipnslider]

In an earlier post I quoted endless people who report having no problems. I won't waste my time with that exercise again.

Because it's a misleading excercise. You could find a list of a dozen people who sat on a barstool without any problem. Then one guy sits on it and it collapses. His story is more noteworthy than the times the stool didn't break because it's NOT SUPPOSED to break. Something functioning as advertised isn't newsworthy. Something failing is. And the only data we have about the phone key is a poll done on another thread with a failure rate for above 40% of users. That is not something you can dismiss as anecdotal or people who like to whine. There are fundamental technical problems with this system that were not a problem with fobs.

 

[daniel]

The past couple of days the car has been opening for me with the phone, but then it demands the key card to go into driving mode. The past couple of times it would not go into gear and there was no notification. Tapping the card on the console got it to work. I exited the Tesla app and re-launched it, and we'll see if this behavior is fixed.

Since we have to have the card anyway, what's the point of the phone app? (Yeah, it has other functions, but they mostly don't work for me because without wi-fi connectivity, my car is off line when in the garage due to the totally crappy AT&T service.)

 

[ooandyoo]

Mine worked without any issues until last week. Now I'm having to restart my phone to get it to automatically detect it. My fiance also has the same issue with her phone. Its starting to get pretty annoying.

 

[SDKoala]

This is a perfect example of why the model 3 needs a fob. Every potential customer who sees a model 3 owner struggling to get into their fancy new $60k car is a potential lost future sale.

This thread is littered with people bragging about how they've never had a problem with it, returning a few pages later to say it had started giving them problems. It will never be totally reliable. Give us a fob already and end this nonsense.

I'd bet the number of people who continue to be 100% failure-free diminishes to zero the longer they have the car. It's really only a matter of time for everyone, regardless of the type of phone you have.

 

[SDKoala]

Because it's a misleading excercise. You could find a list of a dozen people who sat on a barstool without any problem. Then one guy sits on it and it collapses. His story is more noteworthy than the times the stool didn't break because it's NOT SUPPOSED to break. Something functioning as advertised isn't newsworthy. Something failing is. And the only data we have about the phone key is a poll done on another thread with a failure rate for above 40% of users. That is not something you can dismiss as anecdotal or people who like to whine. There are fundamental technical problems with this system that were not a problem with fobs.

I think I wrote it somewhere here before: my Toyota's fob failed exactly twice in 13 years of ownership. Even those times weren't true failures. Once I let the battery get too late but it still had enough juice to work when I got closer to the car. The other time, the rubber over the button had completely worn away and I had to use a pen to push the little button on the circuit board.

My Model 3 phone key failed twice...today.

 

[Bruinfan]

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.

Update.

My last post was May 17. It has worked almost perfectly for 21 days in a row.

I restart my phone every morning, or night before.

I say almost:

about 11 days in, it didn't work... so I used my card... even with a phone reset. then I figured out... oh, I switched cars on the app. I rarely switch cars, and I did the night before and didn't switch it back. So I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and say it would've worked.

Then 2 nights ago, it let me into the car, but then it wouldn't start. I used my card. It did lock on walkaway without using the card, meaning it was detecting my phone.

So, I've slowly gained confidence in my phone as key... I still have a moment of uncertainty when I go to open the door. But it has lightened over the past 3 weeks.

hoping I didn't jinx myself.

 

[daniel]

Shutting down the app and re-launching it has not prevented the car from demanding the key card at irregular intervals. Only now it's to open the car, rather than just to get it into drive mode.

 

[SDKoala]

I think I wrote it somewhere here before: my Toyota's fob failed exactly twice in 13 years of ownership. Even those times weren't true failures. Once I let the battery get too late but it still had enough juice to work when I got closer to the car. The other time, the rubber over the button had completely worn away and I had to use a pen to push the little button on the circuit board.

My Model 3 phone key failed twice...today.

Get too low, that is.

 

[Bruinfan]

i don't think the problem is the app. it's the phone and its bluetooth issues.

i restart the phone every day/nite. been pretty good for me.

 

[WileyTheMan]

Yeah, I was one of those people who initially didn't have any problem with the phone key, but now it will open the car like 70% of the time. If not, then I have to either unlock my phone or disable/enable the BT radio (like airplane mode, not resetting the BT device connections).

That said, I am still all for the technology in concept. I'm just really hoping they can figure out these inconsistencies, or just throw us a fob. We shall see.

 

[SDKoala]

i don't think the problem is the app. it's the phone and its bluetooth issues.

i restart the phone every day/nite. been pretty good for me.

If you read back on all these phone threads, it's well-established that it's not the app itself. It has everything to do with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication between the car and the phone, which is a two-way street.

@novox77 made some great observations showing there's a car-side issue where the BLE beacons are potentially all falling asleep, which would keep the phone from responding since there's no signal to respond to. I haven't spent the time to do this testing myself, but I wonder if the car isn't waking up the BLE radios sometimes when attempting to open the door and that's what keeps the phone from connecting as the key.

 

[SDKoala]

There's potentially good news for Google Pixel users. The June 2018 Pixel/Nexus Security Bulletin that was just released yesterday has a patch that's supposed to improve BLE performance on all Pixel models.

This is a security patch that usually happens in the background and not a new version of Android, so you won't necessarily get an OTA update notification to install it. You can force install it by going to System -> System update -> Check for update. If you weren't automatically updated, your previous security patch is probably May 5, 2018 and this should update to June 4, 2018.

We'll have to see if this changes anything about the phone key.

 

[daniel]

There are too many different phones with too many different operating systems, for the phone ever to be a solid solution to getting into the car. The phone-as-key should be a secondary system, with a fob as the primary system. Then if you happen to have a phone and OS that works, and you like it, you can use it instead of the fob.

Toyota got it right: Touch the inside of the handle and the car opens if the fob is nearby. Press Start and the car starts if the fob is in the car. Physical key inside the fob as a backup to unlock the car, and a slot in the dashboard to insert the fob in case the fob battery dies. This solution is so elegant that no improvement is needed. Bluetooth is well known to be flakey, and Tesla should have realized it would never be a solid solution.

Controlling the car from a distance via the app and internet is a really cool concept. But for getting into the car it's way too unreliable.

 

[RenMan68]

Shutting down the app and re-launching it has not prevented the car from demanding the key card at irregular intervals. Only now it's to open the car, rather than just to get it into drive mode.

I think this is more a bluetooth issue than anything else. Shutting down the app or even restarting the phone won't be as useful as unpairing then re-pairing the bluetooth connection. I suggest always doing this after a software update. I see this behavior with all kinds of bluetooth devices.

 

[N5329K]

Yeah, I was one of those people who initially didn't have any problem with the phone key, but now it will open the car like 70% of the time. If not, then I have to either unlock my phone or disable/enable the BT radio (like airplane mode, not resetting the BT device connections).

That said, I am still all for the technology in concept. I'm just really hoping they can figure out these inconsistencies, or just throw us a fob. We shall see.

We all make mistakes. It's what we decide to do about them that's important. Own up? Run away? Deny? Each tells the world who we really are.
Tesla has a similar choice to make now.
Robin

 

[daniel]

I think this is more a bluetooth issue than anything else. Shutting down the app or even restarting the phone won't be as useful as unpairing then re-pairing the bluetooth connection. I suggest always doing this after a software update. I see this behavior with all kinds of bluetooth devices.

I have no doubt that you are right it's the Bluetooth.

Question: When you say unpair and re-pair the BT connection, is this just turning BT off and on again? Or do I need to tell the phone (or the car, or both?) to forget the connection, and then start all over as if I was pairing the phone to the car for the first time?

 

[mwenn1]

so far so good for me, I have a Pixel 2 XL. The phone key has only not worked like once or twice in the 3 months i have had the car.