Two People. Two cellphones. Two apps. Car alarm goes off anyway.

[GooseSlapper]

I’ve poked about a bit and I don’t see a post that directly addresses this, though perhaps long time denizens of this forum might point out if this is discussed elsewhere.

So there we are. The wife and I taking a relaxing trip high in the mountains, far from cell towers and the such (this fun facts plays a role shortly).

We both have the Tesla app loaded on our phones (different accounts). Bluetooth is on with both phones and Bluetoothin’ away.

I get out of the car to take the dogs to start our walk, the wife remained in the car with the door closed organizing a few things before she exits. As I walked away, most likely the car “tooted” the horn, signaling that the car door was locked (though I don’t remember for sure).

Just as I got nice and inconveniently far away from the car, my wife presses the door unlock. Car alert immediately goes off.

I tell ya folks, nothing more relaxing in the wilderness than the car horn blazing away, echoing through the hill, traumatizing wildlife not to mention the spouse.

Wife doesn’t know what to do, so I start jogging back to the car to assist (no cellphone access, so “unlock” on the app wasn’t an option from far away).

Needless to say, my wife wasn’t particularly pleased with my choice in automotives at that point, nor was I.

I think my faulty assumption here was that, since my wife was still in the car, her phone would prevent it from going into lock. Of course, since I didn’t pay attention if the car “tooted” that it was in lock, that might have been a clue right there. I think I have read in the past that the car would alarm if someone tried to open it from the inside after it’s locked. But I assume that was folks without a phone key on them.

So what was my error here? What should I, or my wife have done different. Thoughts?

 

[beachsideev]

Same thing happened to my wife too. I'm not sure if pressing the unlock button on the screen would have prevented it. Maybe?

However I'd expect the same behavior in a regular car if the doors were locked and opened from the inside.

 

[Darmie]

Next time you leave your wife in the car, use dog mode. She will love it. I noticed that they changed the screen from my owner to the driver.

Current.


Several years ago.

 

[brkaus]

Put car in camp mode.

 

[arnolddeleon]

Make sure your phones are actually staying Bluetooth connected. I suspect that your phones "power management" feature is either putting the Tesla app to sleep and/or disabling bluetooth for the app. In the app you can see if it is "connected" where is says "Security and Drivers".

If someone is in the car they shouldn't let the car "go to sleep" (i.e. the screen goes off). If it does, just touch the screen and it will wake up. This will keep from locking in the in the first place. This almost never happens to me because I generally have audio running so when the audio cuts out I reminded to to wake the car up.

 

[GooseSlapper]

Thank you all for the feedback. Camp mode is OK. Auto-lock is disabled in camp mode so she would have to remember to lock from her app when she left. I think the "incident" caused enough of a hullabaloo that my wife will either exit the car when I do or I'll pay particular attention if I hear the auto-lock horn sound and go back and remediate.