Phone as Key - One week Trial leaving FOB at home

bairdc3

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I have used my phone as a key for one week, leaving the key at home, and just using my phone.

Range anxiety I got over pretty quickly, but phone as a key not so much.

It doesn't work half the time. I have to open my phone and get it to wake up and click the button a few times. Then get in the car and it will say Key not found on first click of the start button, hit again and it will work.

So not impressed quite annoying actual.
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generaltso

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Yup, that is a very common PaaK experience. I just take a fob with me. If they ever get it working much closer to 100%, I'll start leaving the fob at home.
 

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I have used my phone as a key for one week, leaving the key at home, and just using my phone.

Range anxiety I got over pretty quickly, but phone as a key not so much.

It doesn't work half the time. I have to open my phone and get it to wake up and click the button a few times. Then get in the car and it will say Key not found on first click of the start button, hit again and it will work.

So not impressed quite annoying actual.
Same experience here after three weeks. I haven't resorted to carrying the key fob but I'm hoping they can fix this with software updates. Tesla owners seem to have a much more reliable experience with Paak on their cars so its obviously doable
 

ChasingCoral

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It's sometimes a bit slow but I always leave the fob at home.
 

don27d

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Agree with most folks. Mine works 50-70% of the time. Else, I need to enter codes. Sometimes, I'm able to get inside the car, but will not recognize the phone to start the car. Sometimes, I need to turn bluetooth on/off or restart ford app or reboot phone. Definitely flaky.
 


Platitude

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I notice more issues when I leave it unplugged and the Mach E goes to sleep, it seems slow to wake. Also I don't think they have the background tasks on the phone active enough (probably a good thing to preserve battery life), as the second major thing I have to do is reopen the app on my phone.

The most annoying thing though happened to me today though. Came out of the grocery store and opened the door, all's fine there. Go to pull the frunk release and the alarm goes off. So it recognized my phone enough to unlock the door but not enough to not trip the alarm when opening the frunk. Go figure. ?‍♂

I still deal with for short jaunts, but anything road trip wise I don't think I feel comfortable enough not having the Fob with me.
 

NuAlphaMan

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Same here. I've been trying it for the last two weeks. It's worked the majority of the time. I find it works well when I leave the app running. If I close it and reopen it before I go, it gets flaky. There were several times it would let me in the car, but not recognize it as the key. The weirdest issue was, I ran some errands and everything was working fine. I was pulling up to my house and I stopped to check the mailbox. I got back in the car and it said no key detected. I never took the phone out of the car. I had to enter the password to drive up my driveway.

Are you guys Android or iPhone users? I'm using a S21 Ultra.
 

AllenXS

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Using an s20 galaxy note with known issues with android auto.

Bit of a tiny delay at times.

Key fob always stays home. Never been stuck Executive first week (more panic on my part after reading the forums)
 

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It's sometimes a bit slow but I always leave the fob at home.
Brave soul. But if all else fails we can use the special code to enter and start. Interesting, when you do this, you will get a message from Ford on your PAAK that manual code start up was made.
 

Scarpia

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Unless it works flawlessly 100% of the time, I'm not interested in PAAK. I bought an extra fob and will have it programmed for $75, so it's costing me $160, which is rather irritating.
If my wife ever takes the car, though, it is money well spent because having her deal with PAAK would be a real trial.
 

SOLIDAge

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Am I missing something? I see these posts pop up every now and then and it baffles me why no one just uses the door code as a backup if PaaK doesn't work?

I got my Mach-E 2 months ago and have the fob in a drawer. The phone works 75% of the time, but when it doesn't I just use the door code.
 

TheVirtualTim

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I may have stumbled onto something.

At a couple of the car meetups I am pretty much always fairly near the car with my phone and I noticed the car was frequently trying to wake-up (e.g. the walk-up lighting would turn on). But after a while it stopped doing this and THAT is when the PaaK didn't work unless I opened the FordPass app and press the button to unlock the doors.

I also noticed this at home. I have a detached garage so as long as I'm in my house the phone is never close enough to the car to wake-up and unlock. So when I actually DO go out to the car it always "just works" with no fuss.

But I have done projects in my garage where I'm constantly walking in and out of range with my phone ... and the car did the same thing it does at the car meetups ... it stops responding after enough times of walking up, walking away, walking up, etc. etc.

This makes me wonder if people with attached garages might have their phones close enough to the garage that the car is waking up ... and after enough times it gives up on you and requires manually unlocking the car.
 

Carsinmyblood

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I won't use the phone as a key, here's why. When I need to use the car, the key fob and my wallet are next to each other in the drawer. If I used PaaK, I'd eventually leave the house without my wallet.

Paak doesn't really solve a problem, key fobs work better and grabbing the key (and wallet) isn't a problem in need of a solution.

I do look forward to the app though.
 

Totallyford

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I may have stumbled onto something.

At a couple of the car meetups I am pretty much always fairly near the car with my phone and I noticed the car was frequently trying to wake-up (e.g. the walk-up lighting would turn on). But after a while it stopped doing this and THAT is when the PaaK didn't work unless I opened the FordPass app and press the button to unlock the doors.

I also noticed this at home. I have a detached garage so as long as I'm in my house the phone is never close enough to the car to wake-up and unlock. So when I actually DO go out to the car it always "just works" with no fuss.

But I have done projects in my garage where I'm constantly walking in and out of range with my phone ... and the car did the same thing it does at the car meetups ... it stops responding after enough times of walking up, walking away, walking up, etc. etc.

This makes me wonder if people with attached garages might have their phones close enough to the garage that the car is waking up ... and after enough times it gives up on you and requires manually unlocking the car.
I've had the very same experience. My garage is about 350' from my house. I noticed when I was working in the garage and walking back a forth past the car the car would wake up repeatedly and then after 15 or 20 minutes it would go to sleep. It no longer recognized the phone and I would have to go to the ford app and unlock it from there, get in and place my phone on the charge mat for a minute before the recognized the paak. PAAK works for me now 98% of the time. I think the main issue with ford pass is that it's so slow. You can push the unlock button then take out a smoke light it and about then the mirrors start to unfold. ?
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