Seems like a lightweight/waterproof keycard would be preferable to a key fob in these situations. There’s no reason you can’t turn off Bluetooth on your phone and leave it in the car.Active runner. Don't want to carry a phone with me in a half marathon.
Don't want to carry phone on me when I go swimming in the ocean.
Plenty of other reasons. Just bcos the design geeks in Silicon Valley don't have a life outdoors (and outside of video game consoles), doesn't mean that others of us don't...
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Stories of your Model 3 phone-as-a-key FAILURES, give us a FOB, Tesla!!!
- Thread starter timk225
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ℬête Noire
Active Member
I seriously can't tell if this is trolling or not. Why in the Sam Hill would you ever leave your phone in your car in a grocery parking lot? Hoping to get a chance to complain that the car windows aren't strong enough to stop someone from breaking in?
P.S. I expect you can lock the door and leave the phone in if you power off the phone? "Missing calls" surely wouldn't be a issue.
Or flip off Bluetooth.My story is that it has worked for me 100% of the time and makes the trivial act of getting in and out of a car even more trivial.
I have had a 100% success rate with the phone key on my iPhone X and I love not having to carry a large key fob around!
I have had only about a 50% success rate trying to wake the car from the app to check on charging status or start preconditioning. I've asked support and they said that there's a known issue with the app not always waking the car from a deep sleep. AT&T coverage is also only marginal in my area so this may be a contributing factor.
I have had only about a 50% success rate trying to wake the car from the app to check on charging status or start preconditioning. I've asked support and they said that there's a known issue with the app not always waking the car from a deep sleep. AT&T coverage is also only marginal in my area so this may be a contributing factor.
Yeah, I don't get the gripe, and would never want a fob again. I'd have to imagine that a fob would likely also cost in the hundreds of dollars to replace should you lose it, and those key cards are $10.
It failed for me spectacularly one time, wouldn't unlock the car so needed to use the key card to unlock but the phone was perfectly fine to start the car. Happened a few more times on different stops, so I power cycled the phone, and the next time it worked great and has ever since. I'd say that puts it in the 99% of the time category for me.
Love the phone as key feature, and the key cards in your wallet as backup. No fob Tesla, I don't need any more keys in my life.
It failed for me spectacularly one time, wouldn't unlock the car so needed to use the key card to unlock but the phone was perfectly fine to start the car. Happened a few more times on different stops, so I power cycled the phone, and the next time it worked great and has ever since. I'd say that puts it in the 99% of the time category for me.
Love the phone as key feature, and the key cards in your wallet as backup. No fob Tesla, I don't need any more keys in my life.
chronopc
Active Member
I was having 100% success for like 2 weeks and then it failed one day. I deleted my phone and set it up again as a key when it failed and now it's back to 100% success.
I am also have less success waking up the car. I notice that it requires both my phone and the car to have good signal or else it won't do it.
And that is in fact what I do. (Take the key card and lock the phone in the glovebox. And I've posted previously that I'm not necessarily looking for a fob.)
My point was more for the education of Argyle who could not understand any reason why someone might want to walk away from their car with their phone locked inside.
I've left my phone in the car many times over the years. If I am concerned about someone seeing it, I'll put it under a piece of paper or whatever is on the passenger seat, or in the console. Never had a problem with this technique EVER in my 2011 Challenger R/T.
I emailed Tesla's feedback line back a few days ago with my issues and suggestions for improvement. Haven't heard back yet.
Tonight, the phone was opening the door but not starting the car. After a long day of work at home with an electrician and going up and down stairs many times, my knees and feet were on fire and hurting. I went to the store, came out, got in the car, had to twist to the right and dig the key card out of my pocket to start the car. Then while putting the card back in my pocket, I twisted too far and took my weight off the seat too much, which shut it down. So then I had to twist again, get the card out again, and start the car AGAIN with the card, because phone-as-a-key SUCKS!!!
I'd be willing to pay $30 or so for a fob, but seeing as how I just dropped $50,000 on a car, maybe Tesla could discount that $30 by $30 or so.
Someone suggested turning off Bluetooth on my phone. Too much hassle to turn it on and off all the time, plus I never turned it on ONCE in 3-1/2 years, until I got my 3.
I emailed Tesla's feedback line back a few days ago with my issues and suggestions for improvement. Haven't heard back yet.
Tonight, the phone was opening the door but not starting the car. After a long day of work at home with an electrician and going up and down stairs many times, my knees and feet were on fire and hurting. I went to the store, came out, got in the car, had to twist to the right and dig the key card out of my pocket to start the car. Then while putting the card back in my pocket, I twisted too far and took my weight off the seat too much, which shut it down. So then I had to twist again, get the card out again, and start the car AGAIN with the card, because phone-as-a-key SUCKS!!!
I'd be willing to pay $30 or so for a fob, but seeing as how I just dropped $50,000 on a car, maybe Tesla could discount that $30 by $30 or so.
Someone suggested turning off Bluetooth on my phone. Too much hassle to turn it on and off all the time, plus I never turned it on ONCE in 3-1/2 years, until I got my 3.
sperkin
Active Member
Mine fail around 3 times a week. Just say twice a day I unlock my car a week this is like 3 out of 14 tries. It sucks but it's even worst while it happens at work and everyone watch me struggle to open the door when my hands are full.
Sure, but that wasn't the situation that I was replying to. The OP was complaining about it getting in the way at the checkout line at the grocery, not in the middle of his triathlon.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
diamond.g
Active Member
Based on the X and S fob pricing I would be very surprised if the 3 fob was cheaper.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Yeah, if they can't make the D upgrade cheaper they sure as cowpucky wouldn't make the FOBs cheaper than the $170/a piece or whatever they are now on the S/X. On top of that they'd need to do a major rework of the vehicle to install the transceiver for the old style FOBs, which just isn't going to happen at any price.
diamond.g
Active Member
They are likely gonna be BT fobs which means new batteries quite often compared to the old RF fobs.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Which also means that at least some of the issues are likely to carry over, and just need to get worked out anyway so patience is the word of the day.
Although having more engineering control of both ends of the BT and it being dedicated task (rather than whatever else is going on with your phone) could help.
This is a big difference, though. It takes the highly fragmented side (phone Bluetooth variability) completely out of the equation. Obviously there are phones that are very stable as keys, so it should be possible to engineer a reliable Bluetooth LE fob for the rest of us. People whose phones work get to keep using their phones. Those of us that struggle daily get the satisfaction of being able to unlock our cars too. I'm not sure why so many people are against that so much.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
There's a few things mixed in, not the least of which is.......colourful individuals, like timIdontrememberhisnamebecauseIvegothimonidiotfilter, that are floating rather specious assertions and claims.
Then there is the matter of what Tesla would actually accomplish by creating a stand-alone BT remote, and what else they could be spending that focus & effort on. If the bottom line for what it's solving is "a fallback for phones that the default system doesn't work on" then I'd much rather they put the effort into cleaning up the preferred solution. It is also something that Tesla would have a hard time charging a customer for. "Hey you, pay us an extra $200 to help us get us out of a software engineering jam" doesn't have an endearing ring to it.
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So if Tesla releases an optional Model 3 fob that's small enough to fit in your skin tight pants and charges the exact same for it as the Model S/X, would you be happy or would you move on to complaining about the price?
davedavedave
Member
Here’s a couple of thoughts that I haven't seen elsewhere on the subject:
Keycard: Despite the downsides of the keycard, there are some real positives. FOBs do fail too - when batteries go low, or if they're submerged in water - but the keycard does not. So while it's not as versatile, it's more more reliable than a FOB. It's also MUCH cheaper than a replacement FOB. After more than two $100 OEM/aftermarket replacement FOBs, many manufacturers require expensive reprogramming or even MCU replacements. I've read that the keycards cost $5 to $7.50 at the service centers.
Digital Car Key specification: 'Digital Key' standard uses your phone to unlock your car Thanks to OTA updates, I'm pretty sure that Tesla can benefit from this standard as other manufacturers adopt it. IMHO, The *REAL* problem is fragmentation, from which Android devices suffer the most - but this spec and it's implementations will provide a better baseline to develop, test and improve. As more and more Android phones benefit from the Digital Car Key standard, I think we'll see huge boosts in reliability for cars that adopt the standard.
Yep, I'm an optimist. With an iPhone X.
Thoughts?
Keycard: Despite the downsides of the keycard, there are some real positives. FOBs do fail too - when batteries go low, or if they're submerged in water - but the keycard does not. So while it's not as versatile, it's more more reliable than a FOB. It's also MUCH cheaper than a replacement FOB. After more than two $100 OEM/aftermarket replacement FOBs, many manufacturers require expensive reprogramming or even MCU replacements. I've read that the keycards cost $5 to $7.50 at the service centers.
Digital Car Key specification: 'Digital Key' standard uses your phone to unlock your car Thanks to OTA updates, I'm pretty sure that Tesla can benefit from this standard as other manufacturers adopt it. IMHO, The *REAL* problem is fragmentation, from which Android devices suffer the most - but this spec and it's implementations will provide a better baseline to develop, test and improve. As more and more Android phones benefit from the Digital Car Key standard, I think we'll see huge boosts in reliability for cars that adopt the standard.
Yep, I'm an optimist. With an iPhone X.
Thoughts?
