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Are there any phones that work well?

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12K views 66 replies 45 participants last post by  chaunceyg1 
#1 ·
Not as a phone, but as a Tesla Model 3 Fob?

My Samsung Galaxy S6 works most of the time, but it takes upwards of 30 seconds to connect with the car so I can open the doors. I almost always have to take the phone out of my pocket, turn it on, and bring the Tesla app to the front.

I'd even consider switching to an iPhone if they worked the way I expected.
 
#3 ·
Apple phones are definitely seeing higher success rates than Android right now.

In 100 days with my car and a few hundred locks and unlocks I would say the number of failures is 5 or less giving me a 99% success rate!
 
#6 ·
The setting mxbzz mentioned should solve your issues... The battery optimization of later Android versions is a bit too agressive and interferes with the necessary backgriund app functions...
 
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#11 ·
My iPhone 7 works about 10% of the time. The other 90% I have to pull the phone out open the Tesla app and usually manually unlock the car. It's absolutely terrible. In fact, when it works I'm surprised. It's the one thing I'm actually embarrassed about when showing the car to people.
What iOS are you on? Most with iPhone are having pretty good luck, so seems something is certainly off with your phone, Bluetooth or car
 
#10 ·
I had some issues the first 2 weeks but ever since then it's been near perfect. Worse case has been I just had to hit the home button on my phone to turn the screen on and it opens, don't even have to unlock it. Even that is pretty rare though. It's a galaxy s7 edge.
 
#15 ·
I just posted this in the thread about Android but thought I'd post it here as well.....

I have a Samsung S8+ and it works great. The only regular flaw I've noticed is that once each morning I need to turn on airplane mode then turn it off again. Once I do that it phone works the rest of the day without issue. I did adjust one setting that I read about before I got the car, I think it was to allow the app to work in the background.
 
#16 ·
One thing that I have noticed is that iPhones do not work very well at all if you use them in "low power mode" (settings -> battery -> low power mode). Is it possible that could be your issue?
@Matt Marshall If you're still having problems after that, it would be worth logging out of the app and/or removing the connection to your phone from the car, then re-connecting it. Mine stopped working after an update a while back, re-connected it and it's been fine since.
 
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#19 · (Edited)
Not as a phone, but as a Tesla Model 3 Fob?

My Samsung Galaxy S6 works most of the time, but it takes upwards of 30 seconds to connect with the car so I can open the doors. I almost always have to take the phone out of my pocket, turn it on, and bring the Tesla app to the front.

I'd even consider switching to an iPhone if they worked the way I expected.
Don't get an LG G5 or LG V30.

Samsung S8+ works well with the Model 3, although out of preference, I'm not sure if keeping the S8+.

I would liked an alternative to Samsung or Apple.
 
#22 ·
Not as a phone, but as a Tesla Model 3 Fob?

My Samsung Galaxy S6 works most of the time, but it takes upwards of 30 seconds to connect with the car so I can open the doors. I almost always have to take the phone out of my pocket, turn it on, and bring the Tesla app to the front.

I'd even consider switching to an iPhone if they worked the way I expected.
My iPhone X works very well. Never failed to open the doors and lock them as I walk away.
 
#25 ·
2 iPhone X's, 2 months with the car. Maybe 3 unlock failures is all. It is not 100% perfect, but I'm very happy with the success since I don't have to carry a fob. If they offer one, and it appears one is coming, I will likely get at least one to make it easier should a cold day in hell ever come and I let someone borrow or use the car, but that isn't likely.
 
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#27 ·
I first was using a ZTE Axon and it was very hit-and-miss, mostly miss. Amazon Prime Day had a smokin' deal on a Essential Phone PH-1 and it's much improved, though I do have to occasionally switch to the card.
 
#28 ·
I have an iPhone 8 and a Model 3 with 28.1. After months of no problems, I walked down to my car this morning with my phone in my hand and pulled the handle and nothing. So I used the app to unlock it by unlocking my phone and then hitting the unlock button on the app and I was in but then when I wanted to drive it said I needed to get the card and put it in the cupholder. And I could have gotten out the card from my wallet, but I wanted to fix the problem so...

I put on airplane mode on my phone and turned airplane mode off. Didn't help.
I rebooted my phone. Didn't help.
I went to the settings menu on the car and picked "power off", and the car powered off. Didn't help. (I was sure this would do it too)
I rebooted the MCU by holding down both buttons on the steering wheel and that solved it.

When this phone unlock works, it's great (except for opening the frunk... that always sucks), but when it doesn't it's super annoying.

As soon as the rumored fob is available, I'm getting one.
 
#30 ·
I have an iPhone 8 and a Model 3 with 28.1. After months of no problems, I walked down to my car this morning with my phone in my hand and pulled the handle and nothing. So I used the app to unlock it by unlocking my phone and then hitting the unlock button on the app and I was in but then when I wanted to drive it said I needed to get the card and put it in the cupholder. And I could have gotten out the card from my wallet, but I wanted to fix the problem so...

I put on airplane mode on my phone and turned airplane mode off. Didn't help.
I rebooted my phone. Didn't help.
I went to the settings menu on the car and picked "power off", and the car powered off. Didn't help. (I was sure this would do it too)
I rebooted the MCU by holding down both buttons on the steering wheel and that solved it.

When this phone unlock works, it's great (except for opening the frunk... that always sucks), but when it doesn't it's super annoying.

As soon as the rumored fob is available, I'm getting one.
so one issue since delivery in feb 3, 2018? that was 193 days ago, so assuming you drive the car at least once a day, park it, then return to drive it home, you would have entered it 386 times. so your fail rate has been ¼ of a percentage point (0.259%). so for that 0.25% you would have the hassle of bringing along a fob every time you leave the house?
if you had said it fails a few times a week, I could understand it, but 1 out of nearly 400 seems like a chance I would take for the extra benefit of one less thing to carry.
 
#35 ·
so one issue since delivery in feb 3, 2018? that was 193 days ago, so assuming you drive the car at least once a day, park it, then return to drive it home, you would have entered it 386 times. so your fail rate has been ¼ of a percentage point (0.259%). so for that 0.25% you would have the hassle of bringing along a fob every time you leave the house?
if you had said it fails a few times a week, I could understand it, but 1 out of nearly 400 seems like a chance I would take for the extra benefit of one less thing to carry.
No, I've had a few issues at various times with it. It's just not that often. But it's a lot more often than 0.26% - nice math by the way. :) I think I'd put the failure rate at ~1-2%.

So to be clear, I'm not whining that this is a real problem for me and it needs an immediate solution, but I will say that it definitely doesn't work perfectly and it's kind of annoying when it doesn't. But generally I'm satisfied. But if there was a fob, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

So it happened again this morning. I have no idea what is going on - I haven't had anything other than occassional intermittent problems up until yesterday and now two days in a row the car doesn't seem to see my phone. I was riding my bicycle into work and tried to get my sunglasses out of my car and the car again refused to acknowledge the iPhone 8 sitting right in my hand next to it. I think I'll unpair the two tonight and see if that helps. I wonder if it's a 28.1 thing... or maybe it was posting to this thread. I can imagine someone at Tesla reading my post and thinking "he wants to whine about occasional problems? we can fix that!"
 
#31 ·
My wife and I have had 100% success rate with our Samsung S9 and S8+ phones respectively. That's through numerous Model 3 firmware updates. And since the S8 is just an S8+ with a smaller screen and battery, I would expect it to work just as well. I find it liberating to not have any keys or a bulky fob in my pocket all the time.
 
#33 ·
iPhone 8 here... on my 3rd software version (24.7 / 28.1 / 28.5) and still have an occasional phone key "miss" on opening the door.

In these cases "waking" the screen solves the issue 100%, just not sure there is anything I can do to make the BT active ALWAYS which seems to be the issue, not the car itself.

Lock on walk away has worked 100% on every version so far. Love the beep tone on now available 28.X :D
 
#34 ·
I started this thread, and I'd like to apologize.
After three months with my car and my (ancient? You must be kidding me...) Samsung Galaxy S6, I've come to realize that although it isn't perfect as a key, it works far better than I thought.
I have learned that, sometimes, it just takes a while for the car and phone to communicate. I've taken to walking up to the car and pulling the handle - and waiting. Most of the time, the door opens immediately; sometimes, it takes up to 20 seconds to open. But I don't need to pull out my phone, pull up the app, and start punching buttons - all that was doing was giving me something to do while the car and phone did their little thing. And, in reality, punching at the app while waiting for the door to open seems to cause more problems than just waiting. There is one thing that did seem to make things better, and that was disabling battery optimization for the Tesla app.
So, I've learned patience and been rewarded with a simpler system. And it gives me 10-15 seconds to ponder whether it's time to throw away a perfectly good phone and buy a new one...
 
#37 ·
Don't get an LG G5 or LG V30.

Samsung S8+ works well with the Model 3, although out of preference, I'm not sure if keeping the S8+.

I would liked an alternative to Samsung or Apple.
Wonder what you have against LG V30?
I have one and love it. Not full of Samsung bloatware.

But I carry a LG V30 and iPhone 7Plus.
And after some serious trial and error.

I have learned that walking up to the passenger door from the right side of the car, has about 75% success of unlocking the door on the handle pull in the first second or two. Can take 5-10 seconds to unlock at times.

Walking up to trunk and unlocking, virtually 100%.

Walking up to driver door from drivers side has 99% of success of unlocking when I pull the handle within a second or two. 100% on second pull.

Doesn't matter which phone I have or both, results favor the trunk and driver door hands down over the front passenger door.
 
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