SOLVED (not really): Alarm Motion Sensors Won’t Stay Off

Mirak

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I hope at least a few others with similar frustrations find this helpful. I had a call with a Ford engineer today, and he explained why I cannot keep the interior motion sensors turned off.

TL/DR: It is NOT a bug. Just poor design. But maybe a design that will be improved in the future. [UPDATE - well, maybe even the way Ford designed it is buggy!]

First, the issue: my kids or dog frequently set off the car alarm when they get into the car before I do, or if I step out of the car to run into the store, commence a public charge, etc. You can temporarily avoid that by enabling “ask on exit” to manually deactivate the sensors every time you turn off the car [UPDATE: I can now confirm that even this doesn’t work consistently according to posts below and it has now also happened to me] but that’s a little annoying. So I had hoped to permanently disable the motion sensors in the menu. Under Setting > Vehicle > Alarm you can turn Motion Sensors On or Off. But if you toggle them to Off, they still revert back to On each time you restart the car.

I thought this was a bug. It is not. It is just poor design. Or, to be more specific, old design that doesn’t take into account newer functionality. Here’s what I mean….

When the engineer took my issue back to the team, they didn’t understand what I was doing. They said (paraphrasing): “Why is this an issue? The motion sensors are only active when the car is locked. So how are people getting into the car before him? And why is he locking kids / pets in the car?”

Ok, put aside that sometimes you might want to lock your kids / pets in the car - the engineer explained that my issue is PAAK and the “walk away lock” feature. The car unlocks when I’m close by, allowing my kids to get in, and locks when I walk away, with my kids still in the car. And then the alarm activates. The motion sensors were not designed to be permanently disabled because, back before PAAK and the “walk away lock” functionality, it wasn’t nearly as much of an issue.

He said the solution was to disable the “walk away lock” feature, and either don’t lock the car when kids or pets are inside, or manually disable the sensors each time I do leave them inside.

Ok. So first I agreed with the engineer on his diagnosis and conceded that this was deliberate design and not a bug. But I then explained that it is poor design for several reasons:
  1. It’s confusing. If you cannot permanently disable the motion sensors, why even include that toggle 5 taps deep into the menu? Nobody wants to go that deep into the menu every time (and I understand you don’t have to if you enable “ask on exit” but that doesn’t eliminate the confusion of the motion sensor toggle deep in the menus).
  2. There are rare instances where you will want to lock kids / pets briefly inside the car.
  3. The “ask on exit” is not a suitable workaround because it is cumbersome having to engage with that every time you turn off your car. [UPDATE - and even that doesn't reliably turn off the sensors!!]
  4. If your car is locked with the windows down, such as possibly in the garage, you can easily set off the motion sensors just by walking too closely to the car.
  5. Disabling “walk away lock” is not a viable workaround because that is a very useful feature (most of the time)!
So I suggested a couple of future functionalities to resolve the issue:
  1. Allow the motion sensors to be permanently disabled, and/or
  2. Allow “safe zones” to be set, such as a home garage, where walk away lock does not trigger (this is a feature already included in the Super Poll).
He agreed with my points, and seemed particularly enthused about the safe zone solution.

So good news and bad news. Bad news is this isn’t a bug that will be fixed anytime soon. [UPDATE: more bad news is that even temporarily disabling the sensors doesn't always work] Good news is that I’m guessing we’ll eventually get a good workaround with a future enhancement of adding safe zones.

AND FINALLY, if you think covering the sensors with tape will do the trick, think again. I've covered my sensors and my kids still occasionally set off the alarm because apparently the sensors are also triggered by rocking, and it doesn't take very much.
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Mirak

Mirak

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ERIC8585

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But my sensors don't actually disable when I select "Yes" on the prompt to turn off the sensors before exiting the car. Either that or it gets auto re-enabled when I walk away and the car locks.

Are you saying your car with actually turn the sensors off with the prompt and they'll stay off until you come back?
 
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Mirak

Mirak

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But my sensors don't actually disable when I select "Yes" on the prompt to turn off the sensors before exiting the car. Either that or it gets auto re-enabled when I walk away and the car locks.

Are you saying your car with actually turn the sensors off with the prompt and they'll stay off until you come back?
Well crap. So that workaround may not actually work around. I’ve never tested that piece. Thanks for the info.
 

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Whatever I choose to answer in that dialogue it's still 50/50 if it actually will disable them or not.
Safe zones won't help me, as the problem is the kids waiting in the car while I run an errand.
Not sure if it's the same sensors getting tripped on ferries, but that's also a place you need to leave the car unlocked... On one hand it's designed to be super secure in sketchy areas, but seeing as I need to leave the car unlocked and unattended (if you have dogs, you want to lock and leave for a quick errand without them) - only drive in safe neighborhoods.
 


sockmeister

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Thanks for digging into this. But I agree that it's poor design, and the work-around is not really a solution.
They need to allow for permanently disabling this.
 

sockmeister

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But my sensors don't actually disable when I select "Yes" on the prompt to turn off the sensors before exiting the car. Either that or it gets auto re-enabled when I walk away and the car locks.

Are you saying your car with actually turn the sensors off with the prompt and they'll stay off until you come back?
I think they're STILL getting auto-re-enabled when walk-away lock is active.
 

Tyldum

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By the way, I discovered that the alarm status is available in the API, and since I use that with Home Assistant I can actually see the alarm active and inactive without having to test is with the kids.

50/50 is the actual ratio of the button working, last time I checked.
 

ERIC8585

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Well crap. So that workaround may not actually work around. I’ve never tested that piece. Thanks for the info.
Yeah I've been dealing with it practically every weekday recently. My son likes it when I bring the dog to pick him up at Kindergarten. Now I remote start the car so I don't have to disturb the whole neighborhood with the alarm every time.
 
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ERIC8585

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I think they're STILL getting auto-re-enabled when walk-away lock is active.
That's what I'm thinking too. Which would also be a poor implementation since the sensors are off when the car is unlocked anyway..
 

Kevin P

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Would it not work to leave the car in the "On" position and lock the doors? It will beep twice, but the alarm shouldn't sound. Or, you can disable the double-beeping, but that takes some work and some technical skill, plus an adapter for a laptop.
 

ERIC8585

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Would it not work to leave the car in the "On" position and lock the doors? It will beep twice, but the alarm shouldn't sound. Or, you can disable the double-beeping, but that takes some work and some technical skill, plus an adapter for a laptop.
Yes, leaving the car on disables the motion sensors but that's just a workaround for their alarm settings that don't work properly. And you're also slowly draining the battery.
 

Logal727

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You can lock your phone in the car when using PAAK if you use the 7-8 9-0 at the same time lock function. This may solve it reverting on walk-away.
 

ERIC8585

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I'm also wondering if there's any difference between walk away and pressing lock on the fob or phone?
 
 




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