# Interesting thing happened today (Phone as Key)



## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

So I got up today and went to take a drive up to Anaheim, which is about 75 miles for me. Walked down to my garage, got in the car, started, pulled away normally. Then proceeded to drive about 30 miles before remembering that I should probably charge my phone since I'd be away from a charger for several hours. So I reach into my phone pocket and ... no phone. No prob, look in the seat next to me, no phone. I figured I must have tossed it and it landed on the other side of the passenger seat. Reached over as much as I safely could while maintaining safe observation of AP. Still nothing. Then I tapped the bluetooth icon on the screen. No phone connected. Happens sometimes, so tapped to connect the phone. No phone.

Now, I carry a fob, and the keycard, but I know I didn't use either to get in the car. And, as we all know, both of those methods require a specific set of actions to get into and start the car. Arrived home about half an hour later and found my phone exactly where I expected it to be in the livingroom. No harm, no foul. But at the same time, this means one of two things. Either:

A. The car gives zero fracks who hops in and takes off in it. OR
B. The phone, from 50 feet away through my mostly concrete apartment building, has enough of a signal to open and start the car.

This is in stark contrast to my situation leaving work in the afternoon, in which about 10% of the time, I have to sit and poke the door handle half a dozen times before it registers the phone as present.

This is not necessarily intended to be a rant, but thank goodness the car is garaged at night. This really makes me leery about using bluetooth at all. I mean, if I got a 'good' parking space at a restaurant, anyone could just take the car. I'm definitely setting Pin to Drive immediately, but even just people being able to hop in is disconcerting.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

It was most likely your keyfob being in the car that did it. The car doesn't require the same device to unlock the car and drive it - you can use your phone to get in, and then use the keycard to start the car (that's how you handle Bluetooth failures that prevent the car from starting).


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## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

JasonF said:


> It was most likely your keyfob being in the car that did it. The car doesn't require the same device to unlock the car and drive it - you can use your phone to get in, and then use the keycard to start the car (that's how you handle Bluetooth failures that prevent the car from starting).


Nothing I did would have informed the car of fob or card presence.


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## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

Just to be completely certain, I just went and checked the 'Locks' menu, and it doesn't show any card or fob events since Saturday, when it went through a car wash.


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## FogNoggin (Mar 19, 2019)

I've been meaning to start using PIN-to-drive for a number of reasons. You just gave me another.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Strange.

I live in a single-family home. My wife got tired of not being able to get into the locked car in the (integral) garage until I came downstairs, so I had to install the Tesla app on her phone.

So why does your phone work from 50 feet away in a concrete building, but mine doesn't unlock the vehicle from 10 feet away through one floor of a wood-and-gypsum dwelling?


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

Alighieri256 said:


> So I got up today and went to take a drive up to Anaheim, which is about 75 miles for me. Walked down to my garage, got in the car, started, pulled away normally.


Yes! This exact thing happened to my wife a week ago! I thought we were going nuts because we haven't been able to replicate it! I can possibly provide more details context about what happened to her:

- she got in the car and drove to the gym, everything was normal. 
- her phone had been left behind in the house. I'm not sure how far away from the car it was, but it was plenty far enough that it would normally not unlock the car (based on past experience where you need to be right beside it or it won't let you in).
- we don't own any key fobs.
- she did not have her key card with her, and there wasn't a key card in the car.
- she got to the gym, went to exercise for maybe 45 mins, and came back out to the car. She got in the car like normal - car was presumably unlocked still because her phone was still at home.
- car wouldn't drive, asked for key card. This is the point where she discovered she didn't have her phone. Because she had driven there successfully she thought she must have lost her phone in the gym. She went back and forth between the gym and the car multiple times while trying to find her phone, and was able to get into the car each time (was not locking).
- after much searching she hailed a taxi and got a ride home. Discovered her phone at home, and took a taxi back to recover the car.

This has never happened before, nor since. Locks are normally very reliable for us, they usually unlock when we try to open a door, and I don't recall ever not hearing the locking beep when walking away.

I remember it was a few days after the most recent update (2019.28.2) and wondering if it was a new bug introduced. We tried a few things to attempt to replicate it but have been unable to get it to do this again. Glad (in an odd way) to hear at least one other has had the same experience!


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## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

ravisorg said:


> Yes! This exact thing happened to my wife a week ago! I thought we were going nuts because we haven't been able to replicate it!


I'm definitely not glad to hear this happened to someone else, but like you, at least I have confirmation that I'm not crazy. I'm on 28.3.1, but no way to be sure that has anything to do with it.

I've always carried at least one backup key. Long time habit from when I lived in MN and had to occasionally let the car run while locked in public. So at least I didn't get stranded. Anyway, I'll do some testing this upcoming weekend to see if I can replicate the result. Maybe it was just dumb luck that the signal resonated in some piece of buried conduit at just the right moment.


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## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

garsh said:


> Strange.
> 
> I live in a single-family home. My wife got tired of not being able to get into the locked car in the (integral) garage until I came downstairs, so I had to install the Tesla app on her phone.
> 
> So why does your phone work from 50 feet away in a concrete building, but mine doesn't unlock the vehicle from 10 feet away through one floor of a wood-and-gypsum dwelling?


No clue. When I think of how much rigmarole it took to get clean WIFI to the garage, I'm at a complete loss.


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## slave0418 (Aug 4, 2019)

Alighieri256 said:


> So I got up today and went to take a drive up to Anaheim, which is about 75 miles for me. Walked down to my garage, got in the car, started, pulled away normally. Then proceeded to drive about 30 miles before remembering that I should probably charge my phone since I'd be away from a charger for several hours. So I reach into my phone pocket and ... no phone. No prob, look in the seat next to me, no phone. I figured I must have tossed it and it landed on the other side of the passenger seat. Reached over as much as I safely could while maintaining safe observation of AP. Still nothing. Then I tapped the bluetooth icon on the screen. No phone connected. Happens sometimes, so tapped to connect the phone. No phone.
> 
> Now, I carry a fob, and the keycard, but I know I didn't use either to get in the car. And, as we all know, both of those methods require a specific set of actions to get into and start the car. Arrived home about half an hour later and found my phone exactly where I expected it to be in the livingroom. No harm, no foul. But at the same time, this means one of two things. Either:
> 
> ...


I did set a PIN right after delivery...Give "them" no chance...


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## ScottM3 (Jun 29, 2019)

This is, I believe, an intentional change that came with the latest update. If you've checked 'Home' as an exception in the Sentry menu the car will no longer lock the doors when you park at home. It took me a couple days to figure it out too, but I find it super convenient when I simply need to grab something out or put something in the car because I no longer need to find my phone and open the app to unlock it. You however have discovered something even more surprising, that apparently you don't need to take any additional action to drive the car so long as the fob is present. I don't have a fob, so though my car is not locked it refuses to move until I open the app.


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## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

ScottM3 said:


> This is, I believe, an intentional change that came with the latest update. If you've checked 'Home' as an exception in the Sentry menu the car will no longer lock the doors when you park at home. It took me a couple days to figure it out too, but I find it super convenient when I simply need to grab something out or put something in the car because I no longer need to find my phone and open the app to unlock it. You however have discovered something even more surprising, that apparently you don't need to take any additional action to drive the car so long as the fob is present. I don't have a fob, so though my car is not locked it refuses to move until I open the app.


Just want to reiterate that the fob has nothing to do with it. The car let me get in and drive away with no key of any kind present, as far as the car knew at the time. And @ravisorg's wife had the same experience. I can fully understand the car not locking if home is listed as a Sentry Mode exception. That makes some sense, and as long as that's only at home, it doesn't impact me much. But I am not at all comfortable with the notion that my garage door is now the only thing standing in the way of GTA.


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## 3V Pilot (Sep 15, 2017)

I just checked my car, at home, and it's locked. I have home excluded on sentry mode and I'm on 28.3.1 as well. Something strange is going on if some people are finding cars unlocked and others are not. Hope they fix this in the firmware!


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## Quicksilver (Dec 29, 2016)

3V Pilot said:


> I just checked my car, at home, and it's locked. I have home excluded on sentry mode and I'm on 28.3.1 as well. Something strange is going on if some people are finding cars unlocked and others are not. Hope they fix this in the firmware!


Yup. Home excluded from sentry here too and it's always locked while in my garage. Wished it didn't lock. 28.3.1


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

I will double check, but 99% sure it locks at home with no sentry mode at home for me. That would be scary as hell if it didn’t, since we park in our driveway a lot - anyone could steal anything out of the cars if it didn’t lock while at home. 😱


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## ScottM3 (Jun 29, 2019)

Ravisorg - If you park in your driveway, ENABLE sentry mode!


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

ScottM3 said:


> Ravisorg - If you park in your driveway, ENABLE sentry mode!


Overnight it's in the garage, but during the day there are many times it's between errands and it gets left in the driveway for a few hours. 🙂

If sentry mode was sensitive enough to tell the difference between the driveway in front of the garage and the garage itself I might consider it!


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## ScottM3 (Jun 29, 2019)

Well this locked-or-unlocked thing is weird, isn't it?
Should be irrelevant, but in the 'locks' menu I have 'unlock on park' enabled... 
Interested to hear if this makes a difference for anyone


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

ScottM3 said:


> Well this locked-or-unlocked thing is weird, isn't it?
> Should be irrelevant, but in the 'locks' menu I have 'unlock on park' enabled...
> Interested to hear if this makes a difference for anyone


I have that enabled too (most people probably do) and pretty sure it's unrelated. That just unlocks the doors when you park it so people can get in and out easily (without having to tap the unlock icon). The car still locks automatically when you walk away.


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## ScottM3 (Jun 29, 2019)

Alighieri256 - I really have no idea how the fob communicates with the car, but since you seemed to indicate that you had the fob with you when this occurred I wondered if the car "knew" ?


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

ScottM3 said:


> Alighieri256 - I really have no idea how the fob communicates with the car, but since you seemed to indicate that you had the fob with you when this occurred I wondered if the car "knew" ?


We don't even own fobs, so unlikely that's it. At least it certainly wasn't the issue in our case, so unless there are multiple bugs that produce the same result, it's probably not the cause.


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## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

ScottM3 said:


> Alighieri256 - I really have no idea how the fob communicates with the car, but since you seemed to indicate that you had the fob with you when this occurred I wondered if the car "knew" ?


See post #4. I verified in the car's menu that it hadn't 'seen' the fob in months, or the key card in a couple days. The car can 'see' the fob in two ways. One, the fob has an RFID chip in it just like the key card, so you can set the fob on the B pillar or behind the cup holder. Two, you click any of the buttons on the fob and it sends a one way signal just like 90's keyless entry systems. It doesn't have any passive detection like the Model S & X fob.


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## ScottM3 (Jun 29, 2019)

Yep I have to agree with you guys that there's a glitch. Earlier today after parking in my garage the car locked as it normally had before... First time in four days. Guess we'll all wait for the next update.


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## Alighieri256 (Oct 14, 2017)

Well, I tried to reproduce this effect last night. When i set the phone in the exact location where it was resting, the app does show that the phone key will actually connect. A few inches in either direction, and it disconnects. There must be metal conduit or plumbing right under the floor in that location. In any case, I wasn't able to open the car door with the phone sitting there, even though it indicated that it was connected. This was just something I tried quickly, but I'll give it a few more tries to see if I can get it to work. At least I can say that it isn't easy to make it happen.


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## Mike (Apr 4, 2016)

ravisorg said:


> Yes! This exact thing happened to my wife a week ago! I thought we were going nuts because we haven't been able to replicate it! I can possibly provide more details context about what happened to her:
> 
> - she got in the car and drove to the gym, everything was normal.
> - her phone had been left behind in the house. I'm not sure how far away from the car it was, but it was plenty far enough that it would normally not unlock the car (based on past experience where you need to be right beside it or it won't let you in).
> ...


I have found that if the phone is not involved (i. e. used the key card only for quick trip down the street) , walk away lock does not function.


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## Mike (Apr 4, 2016)

ScottM3 said:


> This is, I believe, an intentional change that came with the latest update. If you've checked 'Home' as an exception in the Sentry menu the car will no longer lock the doors when you park at home. It took me a couple days to figure it out too, but I find it super convenient when I simply need to grab something out or put something in the car because I no longer need to find my phone and open the app to unlock it. You however have discovered something even more surprising, that apparently you don't need to take any additional action to drive the car so long as the fob is present. I don't have a fob, so though my car is not locked it refuses to move until I open the app.


My car still locks at home even with Sentry set to not be on at 'Home'.

If your hypothesis is correct and walk away lock is (finally) disabled at home base only, the lock icon should, IMO, be a color other than white (suggest yellow) to indicate to the operator that an "alternate law" is currently being applied to automatic walk away lock.


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

Mike said:


> I have found that if the phone is not involved (i. e. used the key card only for quick trip down the street) , walk away lock does not function.


While that's true, it doesn't apply in this case since none of us were using key cards.

Not sure why this keeps coming up


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## Mike (Apr 4, 2016)

ravisorg said:


> While that's true, it doesn't apply in this case since none of us were using key cards.
> 
> Not sure why this keeps coming up


I guess the Bluetooth connection to the phone must be active for walk away lock to work.

Computers. .......


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

Mike said:


> I guess the Bluetooth connection to the phone must be active for walk away lock to work.
> 
> Computers. .......


Ahh! I understand now, and you're probably right. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were getting at.

Yes, so that probably explains why she could go back and forth between the car and the gym and it didn't lock. Part of the mystery is solved, and honestly that was one of the most comfusing parts , so thank you 🙂

We just need to figure out why two people were able to drive off without a key of any kind. Some mix of freaky positioning of phones and reflecting signals or maybe a recalibration bug after a new update that took awhile to redetermine phone strength while standing near the car...


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

I have intermittently been having failures of walk-away lock. Not often, maybe 5 out of 100 times in the last month or so. I just had it happen again, the first time since I first read this thread. I pulled the car into the garage to finish drying it (as rain clouds were forming over my newly washed car). I set my phone on a shelf about 5 feet from the car. I noticed it didn’t lock. No big deal - probably close enough that the car can detect it. After about 20 minutes, I brought the phone inside and the car still didn’t lock. I have revisited the car without my phone several times. It shows my phone key was last active over an hour ago. I tried to drive it and happy to report that it said no, that I needed the key card. 

Walkaway lock isn’t nearly as important as the reported instances of driving without any apparent key. But I can’t help but wonder if they are related.


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## ravisorg (Jun 27, 2018)

Bigriver said:


> I set my phone on a shelf about 5 feet from the car. I noticed it didn't lock. No big deal - probably close enough that the car can detect it. After about 20 minutes, I brought the phone inside and the car still didn't lock. I have revisited the car without my phone several times.


I wonder if walk away to lock times out after awhile. If it was 20 minutes perhaps the car went to sleep and I wouldn't be surprised if it stops looking for the phone when it does that.

This would be something fairly easy to test, and I'll try to do that over the next few days when I have a moment.


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