# Tesla phone app with two cars in the household



## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

SR22pilot said:


> I had it not work tonight. Then I discovered that it only works on the car selected as active in the app. Doh!


This is very frustrating actually. I don't get why the correct car must be selected in the app. If I have two cars either should unlock when I walk up to it with my phone.


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## SR22pilot (Aug 16, 2018)

GDN said:


> This is very frustrating actually. I don't get why the correct car must be selected in the app. If I have two cars either should unlock when I walk up to it with my phone.


I'm not sure how I feel about it. It was a pain when it happened. However, I will normally have my car selected and Kim will have gets selected. That means I won't wake her car up and cause more drain when I get in mine. When I remotely access my car I won't cause hers to wake up and update and vice versa. Since I doubt we will be swapping cars a lot I may end up liking it the way it is.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

GDN said:


> This is very frustrating actually. I don't get why the correct car must be selected in the app. If I have two cars either should unlock when I walk up to it with my phone.


Do you have an Android phone?

If so, then I suggest an experiment. Set up a second work profile on your phone. Have the Tesla app running again in the work profile, but with the other car selected. I think that may be one solution to have your phone unlock both cars.


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

SR22pilot said:


> I'm not sure how I feel about it. It was a pain when it happened. However, I will normally have my car selected and Kim will have gets selected. That means I won't wake her car up and cause more drain when I get in mine. When I remotely access my car I won't cause hers to wake up and update and vice versa. Since I doubt we will be swapping cars a lot I may end up liking it the way it is.





garsh said:


> Do you have an Android phone?
> 
> If so, then I suggest an experiment. Set up a second work profile on your phone. Have the Tesla app running again in the work profile, but with the other car selected. I think that may be one solution to have your phone unlock both cars.


iPhone, so no profiles. Wasn't aware Android could do that, but interesting.

So after this morning - This has now become my number one issue. I very likely just got up on the wrong side of the bed, because I've pretty much let this hack me off to the point of ruining my morning. It all really started because I was going to turn on the heaters in the cars about 15 minutes before we left. The new AWD wouldn't wake up at all, from either phone, his or mine. Even tried shutting the app down just in case. I finally had to go and open the door to wake it up. So we both had that car open on our app.

This next part is my issue, we traded cars this morning. I drove the older MSM and he drove the AWD. We both really like the white interior, it's newer, I've driven it more, who knows why, but I figure we'll swap back and forth often if not every day. To say the least I get in Niko to drive and it tells me to use a card key. My phone was sitting in the cup holder, but on the other cars profile. So it's just frustrating that I have to select the car when they are both obviously in the same app, I've got permission, etc.

I guess they likely have their reasons. It forces me to select the car I'm in so that if I pick my phone up and look at the car or send a command to lock or something like that I don't send it to the wrong car.

I guess it will be a learning curve for me, but add my vote to not liking this implementation.


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## Love (Sep 13, 2017)

GDN said:


> iPhone, so no profiles. Wasn't aware Android could do that, but interesting.
> 
> So after this morning - This has now become my number one issue. I very likely just got up on the wrong side of the bed, because I've pretty much let this hack me off to the point of ruining my morning. It all really started because I was going to turn on the heaters in the cars about 15 minutes before we left. The new AWD wouldn't wake up at all, from either phone, his or mine. Even tried shutting the app down just in case. I finally had to go and open the door to wake it up. So we both had that car open on our app.
> 
> ...


For my own clarity, you swipe over within the app (on both phones) to the other vehicle and it won't wake up/respond? I'm not having this issue with my 3 and wife's S... so maybe it's specific to the Model 3?

It's cold here so I've frequently swiped over in the app to my wife's car to turn it on for us when we're going to use it, or even when she's headed out and I can warm it up for her. I've not yet experienced it not working properly for us.

Hopefully it's something in the recent update that can be quickly fixed. Sorry you're dealing with this @GDN


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

Yes - the part about swiping back and forth, guessing that is just a personal thing I'm going to have to get used to. If we each just drove one car it wouldn't' be a problem, but we both drive both cars.

The second issue is what you noted, this morning the AWD just wouldn't wake up, no matter what we did from the app. It has woken up many times in the last week, but it wouldn't this morning, had to open a door to get it to wake up so the app could connect. Hope it is just a bug in the current SW and will soon be fixed.


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## SR22pilot (Aug 16, 2018)

I've had the car not wake up where i had to go and open the door and then the app would connect. That happened when there was only one car associated with the app. As far as having to switch, it isn't a big deal to me. I can see the logic both ways.


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## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

SR22pilot said:


> I've had the car not wake up where i had to go and open the door and then the app would connect. That happened when there was only one car associated with the app. As far as having to switch, it isn't a big deal to me. I can see the logic both ways.


I agree. We have both our cars on different Tesla accounts and, even then it doesn't seem troublesome enough to merge the two accounts. I drive both cars, my wife only drives hers (although she does have a key card for mine in case she needs to move it).

BTW, if your car won't wake, there is no need to touch the door handle to get your phone to connect, just unlock using the app and then it connects. I'm amazed at the range of my Samsung S8+ (I believe it's using Bluetooth) because I can unlock it sitting in my den about 50 feet away and through the sliding glass door, some large shrubbery and a solid wood fence. The reason I think it's using Bluetooth in these cases is the LTE is not connected when I hit unlock and yet it unlocks almost immediately. Then, in a few seconds, LTE is connected.


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

PNWmisty said:


> I agree. We have both our cars on different Tesla accounts and, even then it doesn't seem troublesome enough to merge the two accounts. I drive both cars, my wife only drives hers (although she does have a key card for mine in case she needs to move it).
> 
> BTW, if your car won't wake, there is no need to touch the door handle to get your phone to connect, just unlock using the app and then it connects. I'm amazed at the range of my Samsung S8+ (I believe it's using Bluetooth) because I can unlock it sitting in my den about 50 feet away and through the sliding glass door, some large shrubbery and a solid wood fence. The reason I think it's using Bluetooth in these cases is the LTE is not connected when I hit unlock and yet it unlocks almost immediately. Then, in a few seconds, LTE is connected.


So you're saying that even if the app didn't wake the car I still have connectivity to the car via Bluetooth or some option and the unlock button in the app will still work? I'll have to give this one a try. I was in the house so might have been able to reach it via Bluetooth, at a minimum if I had walked closer closer to the garage I would have been in range.

I truly figured that all options on the app screen only worked once connected via the network. I hate it when I get blinders on and don't see the obvious.


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## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

GDN said:


> I truly figured that all options on the app screen only worked once connected via the network. I hate it when I get blinders on and don't see the obvious.


I know this because our ski cabin is many miles from ANY cellular connectivity and yet I can still unlock the doors with the app, even at remote trailheads.

If it's in our driveway I can still pre-condition the cabin but I think that's only because I have wifi. I haven't tried pre-conditioning the cabin when I'm out of wifi and BT range.


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

PNWmisty said:


> I know this because our ski cabin is many miles from ANY cellular connectivity and yet I can still unlock the doors with the app, even at remote trailheads.
> 
> If it's in our driveway I can still pre-condition the cabin but I think that's only because I have wifi. I haven't tried pre-conditioning the cabin when I'm out of wifi and BT range.


So one more clarification, you think it can connect and unlock via Bluetooth if that is available, also if your phone and car are connected via the same Wifi network it still works (even without LTE), then for world wide coverage all of course works with any kind of connectivity including LTE.

I'll have to do some testing. I like it.


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## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Yes, I just verified, you can lock/unlock with only Bluetooth, no LTE, no wifi. But you need wifi OR LTE to operate the climate control. And unlocking with Bluetooth wakes up the car so it will connect to wifi or LTE.


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