Phone as Key Issues

[hacer]

I had my first ever experience where my phone (iPhone 6S) failed to unlock the car (except for the two times where I forgot I had put it in airplane mode ). Turning Bluetooth off and on again resolved it. This also happened not long after my phone went into low-power mode and was then recharged causing it to automatically leave low-power mode. I practically never have my phone discharge to the point of going into low-power mode, so I wonder if there is a bug where entering and leaving low power mode causes a problem with the phone key feature of the app. It could also be a coincidence.

 

[smak]

So you pull on the handle and wait 10 seconds and then the car will be unlocked?

Sorry about the lateness but yah. I pull the handle, if it doesn't work, i'll just wait a few seconds. Once In a while I'll pull my phone out, but never have had to unlock from the app, and I have never been forced to use the card. But like I said, if the car would unlock upon seeing the bluetooth, things would be much better.

I think randomly things can be happening on your phone that delays the connection a few seconds.

 

[Pontus]

Do we any list of which phones works good and which do not work so good?
Right now I have a Samsung J3 which is bad, but I also have a iPhone 6s which works a lot better. Since I almost always have both phones with me both are connected to the car and then I almost never any problems. But today I'm thinking of buying a Samsung S9, is that a good phone to use as a key?

 

[thx1139]

So ordered our Model 3. Question is do we need to upgrade our phones?

We have Android phones. I have a mid range phone LG G6 and my wife has a lower end Moto G Plus. She was just sick of spending big bucks on phones.

 

[BadToo]

Do we any list of which phones works good and which do not work so good?
Right now I have a Samsung J3 which is bad, but I also have a iPhone 6s which works a lot better. Since I almost always have both phones with me both are connected to the car and then I almost never any problems. But today I'm thinking of buying a Samsung S9, is that a good phone to use as a key?

I have asked but few people list phones that work. After suffering with my LG K20 phone which did not work 100% of the time, I finally bought a Samsung Galaxy S7. Now, so far, I have 100% success. It has only been a week though.

 

[zissou]

I finally bought a Samsung Galaxy S7. Now, so far, I have 100% success. It has only been a week though.

Same here. Always had problems with the Pixel. The new Samsung S9 works perfectly as phone key (so far).

 

[apacheguy]

I sometimes turn my phone off overnight. When I turn it on in the morning, it never works as a key until I manually open the Tesla app. Is that intended behavior?

 

[chronopc]

I sometimes turn my phone off overnight. When I turn it on in the morning, it never works as a key until I manually open the Tesla app. Is that intended behavior?

Turning off your phone shouldn't matter as long as when you turn it back on bluetooth is enabled.

 

[apacheguy]

Turning off your phone shouldn't matter as long as when you turn it back on bluetooth is enabled.

Yeah, Bluetooth is always enabled on my iPhone.

Speaking of which, I just had another fail. Had to reopen the Tesla app and it worked. Resetting Bluetooth never seems to do the trick.

 

[gregincal]

Turning off your phone shouldn't matter as long as when you turn it back on bluetooth is enabled.

The App needs to be running as well. So yes, it's normal to need to launch the app before it will work. Definitely if I force quit the app or restart my phone it won't unlock until after I launch the app. Once I've launched the app once it continues working.

 

[chronopc]

The App needs to be running as well. So yes, it's normal to need to launch the app before it will work. Definitely if I force quit the app or restart my phone it won't unlock until after I launch the app. Once I've launched the app once it continues working.

I've restarted my phone without opening the app and it works fine for me. I'm on Android so maybe the app is always running in the background?

 

[apacheguy]

The App needs to be running as well. So yes, it's normal to need to launch the app before it will work. Definitely if I force quit the app or restart my phone it won't unlock until after I launch the app. Once I've launched the app once it continues working.

I suspected that was the case. I think most of my other problems are related to the phone app crashing in the background since it seems to work as soon as I reopen the Tesla app.

IMO, it is silly to have to rely on proper backgrounding of the Tesla app. If I were the lead engineer at Tesla that would have been a deal breaker for me on phone key concept. The primary method of entry needs to be 100% reliable and not depend on a series of conditions being met.

 

[KenR]

I didn't know what to search on so I figured I would just post here. I am on an iPhone X.... and every time I put the car out of park... My Apple Pay pops up and asks me to double click to pay. Hehehehehe Why am I getting charged every time I want to use this dang car????

 

[MP3Mike]

I didn't know what to search on so I figured I would just post here. I am on an iPhone X.... and every time I put the car out of park... My Apple Pay pops up and asks me to double click to pay. Hehehehehe Why am I getting charged every time I want to use this dang car????

Don't put your phone in the cup holder where you start the car with the card key.

 

[Janus67]

Just wanted to post a me-too here.

Phone: Pixel XL, running 8.1 July Security Updates
Set Tesla app and BT to not-optimized in power settings
Tried the 'Tasker' switches that SDKoala posted in a few places.

Nothing seems to work, have had my car since Friday and it has not worked more than it has (probably failed 8/10 times). Needing to cycle airplane mode in order for it to function.

 

[daveruns]

Solved all my phone problems with the purchase of a OnePlus 6 android phone last week. My Model 3 rarely started without the card key until I replaced my older Nexus 6 phone. Since I received my new phone, I am 12 for 12 starting attempts with the new phone. By the way, I really like this new phone. I bought it for other reasons (worn out battery etc on the Nexus) I did not think it would solve the ongoing starting problems, but was delighted that it did.

 

[RTPEV]

Oh yay, I get to add my first hand experience finally.

Man, it is really frustrating when the phone key doesn't work.

The good news is that the card works fine through my wallet, but as soon as I used it to unlock the door, I put my wallet back in my pocket, hop in the car, only to have it prompt me to put it on the cup holder. D'oh! At least it also works through the wallet in the cup holder as well.

But now I am reading a few posts up that if you unlock the car with the key card that you then have to lock the car with the key card?

It is uncomfortable enough walking away from a "running" and unlocked car hoping that it will lock when you get far enough away. Now you're saying that there is a scenario where it won't? It's really a shame there isn't something you can touch on the car to immediately lock in such a way that you can get immediate confirmation that it did in fact lock. Or at least if the walk away lock function activated much sooner. My wife & I must look like idiots walking away from the car and watching for mirrors folding and lights flashing even as we are halfway across the parking lot.

For those playing along at home, my phone is a Moto Z2 running Android 8. Phone as Key worked fine for about 48 hours before first fail yesterday. Bluetooth on/off didn't help, but at that point I didn't feel like screwing around with it and just used the key card.

 

[WhiteMountains]

I have an Android phone (Galaxy S9) which used to work most of the time, but has only worked once or twice in the last couple of weeks. Not sure why, but am now in the habit of just using the card all the time, which isn't bad, just not as super convenient as the phone. When using the card, you ALWAYS have to lock with the card. Otherwise, the car has no way of knowing if you are walking away or not.

Also, I rarely have to use the card in the cup holder even when I unlock with the card. Also had a few times when I had to use the car in the cup holder when I used the phone to unlock. Very inconsistent behavior, but will likely be fixed with software updates at some point.

For now, if you are going to buy a new phone anyway, an iphone will work best.

 

[SDKoala]

I've made a couple more tweaks which has really made an improvement. I've been stuck on 21.9 for over a month now and it pretty much broke my phone key function on my Pixel 1.

I took everything related to Bluetooth off battery optimization and it's gotten me back to nearly 100% function while running my Tasker profile in the background.

You'll have to look up how to find it on your own phone if you can't do it from these instructions. Under Settings, go to Apps & Notifications, then select Special App Access. Go to Battery Optimization, then tap the down arrow in the banner to show All Apps. Click on Bluetooth and select Don't Optimize. Do the Same for Bluetooth MIDI Service and anything else that looks like it's related to Bluetooth to you (those two are all I found on my phone). While you're here, if you haven't already, also make sure the Tesla app is not optimized.

In the 3-4 weeks since doing this, I've been able to get my doors open about 95% of the time again. Strangely, if I go to open my trunk before any doors, it works every time. Literally zero failures opening the trunk, which I do at least twice a day, every day. That tells me the car and phone are capable of playing nice together. However, I still get the supremely annoying behavior where I can open the trunk then seconds later not be able to open a door. Why that would happen I just can't understand.

I've noticed the times that it still fails to open the doors are mostly related to walking in and out of Bluetooth LE broadcast range. I also get pretty reliable failures trying to open the doors after charging. It's still not as good as it should be, but it's much better than it was right after 21.9 got pushed.

 

[Reid]

Car was added to my phone app last Thursday, 10 minutes before our scheduled pickup time. App and phone-as-key worked great all day. Until Thursday night. Hasn't worked since (4 days now). So I try to login to the app every few hours to see "is it working yet?" but I get the dreaded "no products are associated with your account" type message when I try to sign in to the app.

No reply to CS email. Over the weekend the "roadside" number had a prerecorded message saying they were aware of some issues and working on it, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt and didn't want to bother anyone. Might call in again today and see; if the recorded message isn't still up I'd like someone to take a look at it.

My Tesla account shows they owe me like 5 million dollars and change, so they're obviously not done with the car purchase transaction on the backend. Would be nice to be able to use the app though.

My wife needs to fish through her purse, pull out her wallet, then pull the keycard from it. That's like a 3-hand job, forget it if you're carrying anything else

Went for a run this weekend, had to keep making sure the keycard hadn't fallen out of my shorts. Then I dropped it in the coffee shop while taking my phone out of my pocket; I never misplace credit cards or normal car keys, but having a thin almost-invisible 'key' that doesn't work through the wallet is a recipe for disaster. It's a multi-step pain to take it out of your wallet every time, but it's also risky to leave it loose in a pocket in a way that 'normal' keys or keyfobs aren't. Definitely flirting with disaster having to use these things every time.

I was told phone-as-key will work even if your car gets removed from your Tesla account, but that's definitely not true for either one of our phones.

Probably mostly teething pains with new car delivery/provisioning so I'm not concerned that they screwed it up; I am concerned that the keycard is a really poor 'backup'. (on the other hand, I guess, if the phone key works 99% of the time, I'm not going to be ALSO carrying a fob around, where the keycard much more easily disappears into a wallet).