Mobile key unlocking delay

[LuvLucy]

It would be good to know why some owners are having high success rates with unlock while others are having such a different experience.

Some owners are overly apologetic for obvious flaws.

 

[segbrk]

Some owners are overly apologetic for obvious flaws.

That may be true, but it is not the only truth. I've met them, they're not just saying it, their cars work better for some reason. What's really hard to tell without trading cars for a day is how much it works better for them because of them -- how they interact with the car, how patient they are, where they carry their phone/fob, how much of a swagger they walk with -- or because of the car. I think there is some of both.

 

[LuvLucy]

I’m just saying anyone who says the Air is much better with phone access than a model 3 is fabricating a new reality.

I never ever sat outside my Tesla hoping and wishing it would mysteriously unlock on its own accord. It’s routine with the Lucid.

 

[segbrk]

I’m just saying anyone who says the Air is much better with phone access than a model 3 is fabricating a new reality.

I never ever sat outside my Tesla hoping and wishing it would mysteriously unlock on its own accord. It’s routine with the Lucid.

Sure, understood. I don't find myself idly hoping my Lucid will unlock though, I take my phone out and wiggle it around and 99% of the time it does unlock after a second because the phone wakes up and starts doing its thing. Not saying that's good, but a degree better than standing and hoping.

 

[newlucidguy]

My phone works without me doing anything 99% of the time (certainly a higher proportion of the time than it did with my M3P (which was about 90% of the time). If you count me waking up my phone and making sure the Lucid Ap is running? Well, then my phone has worked 100% of the time.

Sorry u are having this experience.

same (without the tesla part, I've never had one of those). my '25 AT with a pixel 8 pro. once in maybe 30 times I need to wake my phone up. But aside from that, zero issues with my phone as key or my key fob. yes, if I approach straight from the rear of the car, I have to come to the side a little or raise the phone / key, as I'm pretty sure the back of the car blocks the signal. but, I don't really stress or worry about that, I know how to handle it. I view my phone as being reliable enough that I will drive locally without a key (well I always have the card as backup). I take the physical key on long trips 'just in case'. But, I'm fully confident in being able to unlock the car and start the car with my phone. I could never say that about my polestar 2.

 

[borski]

Some owners are overly apologetic for obvious flaws.

Some owners just genuinely have less of the problem. I’ve seen it firsthand, and some car/owner pairings do seem to just work fine.

 

[thyname]

I take my phone out and wiggle it around and 99% of the time it does unlock after a second because the phone wakes up and starts doing its thing.

It sounds like this is major hardship for some .

 

[Bobby]

It sounds like this is major hardship for some .

I understand why it feels like a big deal to some owners. That said, I think we should reserve ‘major hardship’ for the really heavy stuff people are going through — this might not rise to that level.

 

[Steve181]

I prefer the keyfob, but there are problems and work-arounds:

- It used to constantly lock/unlock the car when I worked in the garage. I turned that off.
- I installed a much larger keyfob battery that I expect to last a year instead of 3 months.
- The keyfob button does work to lock/unlock 95 % of the time, but I prefer pushing the door handles, which works about 98% of the time.
- I have almost never gotten the trunk button sequence and timing correct. So after shopping, I push the door handle to unlock the car, and then the rear trunk button.
- I always carry the key card. Someone said the fob would work also, but the provided picture of the so-called sensitive zone does not correspond to my car. (2025 Pure)
- Turning off wi-fi does appear to have made the Sirius radio much more reliable. It did nothing for the locks.

I love driving the car, and Lucid's emulation of an old Datsun's locking system is charming.

 

[L-Dude]

I love driving the car, and Lucid's emulation of an old Datsun's locking system is charming.

Ok this made me laugh

 

[Leftlane]

My phone works without me doing anything 99% of the time (certainly a higher proportion of the time than it did with my M3P (which was about 90% of the time). If you count me waking up my phone and making sure the Lucid Ap is running? Well, then my phone has worked 100% of the time.

Sorry u are having this experience.

You were definitely in the tiny minority with your Tesla - in 45k miles I have never had the mobile key not work automatically. I think you can bang on Tesla for a lot of things but their software is top notch and super mature, and just works. Of course, they’ve had quite a head start, but the decisions they have made with UI hardware and software have made it very easy on the owners.

 

[LuvLucy]

It sounds like this is major hardship for some .

I’m not saying it’s a major hardship by any stretch. It simply does not work very well and no where near as well as other manufacturers- specifically Tesla which works every time very well - ie I am not stuck outside for seconds half the time with my wife looking at me saying - why did you spend so much on this? It’s not a feeling I enjoy in the experience- many things outweigh it.

I’m also not a brand fanboy ignoring the obvious issue with my head in the sand, because… Lucid… or trying dress down those who bring it up because they know it is there and they don’t like to speak of it and hear that in this area their baby is ugly. Telling anyone why raises it they are whining about a ‘major hardship’ is well, insulting their intelligence, frankly.

 

[Jbortone]

Seriously. It's a good 15% of the time. I have my phone as a key and my FOB, often separate, and I walk up and nothing. It's not cold today it's 70f. My battery was just changed last week AND I got a faraday bag because of course you need that nowadays?

I feel SO stupid walking up to my $125k car and the doors not allowing me in. The mirrors don't move, the handles don't move, and I'm just standing there like an idiot pushing a handle that won't do anything.

This is my only complaint about this car in six weeks, but damn. It's a big one. I'm not comfortable without my FOB because the PAAK is unreliable, but so is the FOB. Less than six weeks in and I already had to change the battery.

Let me in my F'kin car ya?

Am I alone here?

SAME!! I'm so annoyed with the fob and phone access! It's driving me crazy! And everything other car I owned I was able to just leave the fob in my bag and it worked fine! Plus I'm having serious problems with my phone connecting to the Apple CarPlay, have removed and re-added, etc. It's very flaky.

 

[borski]

I’m also not a brand fanboy ignoring the obvious issue with my head in the sand, because… Lucid… or trying dress down those who bring it up because they know it is there and they don’t like to speak of it and hear that in this area their baby is ugly. Telling anyone why raises it they are whining about a ‘major hardship’ is well, insulting their intelligence, frankly.

You’re not wrong.

I think part of the crux of the issue is that some people seem to focus *solely* on this single feature that doesn’t work as well as it should; that’s true, and it should work better.

But there are dozens of other things the car does exceptionally and had better than any Tesla; and people seem to forget that whenever they post here about the fob not working for them, or how “they are left stranded for 40 seconds” when all they had to do was push the button on the fob or push the door handle.

If those features aren’t working for you and you actually can’t get in the car, fine, you’re right.

If you are sending “thoughts and prayers” for a half minute instead of pushing the button or the door handle to open the car, you are only annoying yourself.

That’s just my opinion.

It’s not that anybody thinks it’s perfect. It’s that it isn’t the end of the world, and the car has many qualities, some of which are exceptional. This feature is not one of those qualities.

So push the button or door handle. Or don’t. But stop telling us you wish you didn’t have to? We know you have to. We also wish you didn’t have to. But you do. Telling us you do adds to the great chorus of “we know” but does not accomplish much else.

I hope that makes sense and didn’t come off aggressive. That’s not my goal at all.

 

[LuvLucy]

The only thing single more annoying thing than entry that doesn't work reliably is people telling you it works 100% and you are imagining it, or you should delete and add you phone, or whatever other excuse/blame is made up to divert/ignore reality and put it on the person. This is not a problem with the user 100% - let's stop the pretense of making it so. Mobile Key access is spotty at best, and I do not believe anyone who says it auto-presents as they walkup 100% of the time - they are living in made up reality.

I believe there are people that thinks it's perfect and go to great lengths every chance to say so, to defend the brand. I don't think that helps make the car any better, by making excuses or feigning ignorance.

I did say there are many things that outweigh it - it is a much much better car than a Tesla overall, but this one thing - and a few others in the software (such as not being able to put one app on the bottom screen and another on the top, no audio favorites reording on the Home Screen (so your only option is to reset and start over), profile switching taking eons, no channel changes in SiriusXM via steering wheel buttons) stand out as warts, and should be easily corrected.

I do push the door handle - after it doesn't unlock when I walk up and stare at it waiting for a few seconds, then after pushing I wait a random number of seconds to see if it might randomly pay attention this time, then sometimes after a few more seconds I have to take out and unlock my phone, launch the app and unlock, then wait some random time for the OTA unlock to happen. The whole time I feel like an idiot (who does all this and stares at their car in puzzlement in a Home Depot parking lot in the rain), and it's not at all the experience.

That’s just my opinion.

And before you do, please take your "you should just use the fob - it works 100% if you change the battery every day" and keep it to yourself, I ain't carrying a fob, capiche?

 

[segbrk]

The only thing single more annoying thing than entry that doesn't work reliably is people telling you it works 100% and you are imagining it, or you should delete and add you phone, or whatever other excuse/blame is made up to divert/ignore reality and put it on the person. This is not a problem with the user 100% - let's stop the pretense of making it so. Mobile Key access is spotty at best, and I do not believe anyone who says it auto-presents as they walkup 100% of the time - they are living in made up reality.

I believe there are people that thinks it's perfect and go to great lengths every chance to say so, to defend the brand. I don't think that helps make the car any better, by making excuses or feigning ignorance.

I did say there are many things that outweigh it - it is a much much better car than a Tesla overall, but this one thing - and a few others in the software (such as not being able to put one app on the bottom screen and another on the top, no audio favorites reording on the Home Screen (so your only option is to reset and start over), profile switching taking eons, no channel changes in SiriusXM via steering wheel buttons) stand out as warts, and should be easily corrected.

I do push the door handle - after it doesn't unlock when I walk up and stare at it waiting for a few seconds, then after pushing I wait a random number of seconds to see if it might randomly pay attention this time, then sometimes after a few more seconds I have to take out and unlock my phone, launch the app and unlock, then wait some random time for the OTA unlock to happen. The whole time I feel like an idiot (who does all this and stares at their car in puzzlement in a Home Depot parking lot in the rain), and it's not at all the experience.

That’s just my opinion.

And before you do, please take your "you should just use the fob - it works 100% if you change the battery every day" and keep it to yourself, I ain't carrying a fob, capiche?

What I don't understand here is you seem to be arguing with no one. There's some disconnect here. We're all agreeing with you, but you keep saying everyone is just fanboying and telling you your problems aren't real. No, your problems are real and most of us - not all of us - but myself included, share them to some degree. I never meant to be dismissive with my previous reply, just to make sure you're not making it worse for yourself than necessary. It is the single most annoying thing about my car. I don't see anyone telling you otherwise. Just a few people saying they have personally had fewer issues, which is also valid.

 

[borski]

The only thing single more annoying thing than entry that doesn't work reliably is people telling you it works 100% and you are imagining it, or you should delete and add you phone, or whatever other excuse/blame is made up to divert/ignore reality and put it on the person.

That is called troubleshooting. If you have already tried all the troubleshooting steps, then your problem is not solvable using those troubleshooting steps, and that is what you should say. Not the equivalent of “how dare you try to help me?”

That’s called being helpful, not giving you a hard time.

For some people, it *does* work 100%. That’s not a lie.

Nobody is telling you your lived reality doesn’t exist; that isn’t what is happening.

This is not a problem with the user 100% - let's stop the pretense of making it so.

Except that sometimes, it is. It is at least half the time that I help someone who *has never set up mobile key* but claims it doesn’t work.

Mobile Key access is spotty at best, and I do not believe anyone who says it auto-presents as they walkup 100% of the time - they are living in made up reality.

No, and with all due respect, please stop insinuating people are lying. They aren’t.

For me, my phone presents the handles about 98% of the time. If I push the door handle or tap my phone, it’s 100% of the time. That’s not a lie; that’s the truth.

Just like I am not telling you your reality is false, please don’t claim to know more about mine than I do.

I agree mobile key seems spotty for a lot of people. You won’t see me saying otherwise.

I believe there are people that thinks it's perfect and go to great lengths every chance to say so, to defend the brand. I don't think that helps make the car any better, by making excuses or feigning ignorance.

Your anger and/or bias is lacing people relaying their experiences as a defense of the brand.

Just like people seem to go to “great lengths every chance to say” how the mobile or and fob *don’t* work for them, even on unrelated threads, it would stand to reason that people for whom the fob or mobile key works fine might do the same.

I wouldn’t say anyone who posts about their fob not working is attacking Lucid, so I don’t see why posting about the fact that it works for you is suddenly defending Lucid.

I did say there are many things that outweigh it - it is a much much better car than a Tesla overall, but this one thing - and a few others in the software (such as not being able to put one app on the bottom screen and another on the top, no audio favorites reording on the Home Screen (so your only option is to reset and start over), profile switching taking eons, no channel changes in SiriusXM via steering wheel buttons) stand out as warts, and should be easily corrected.

Sure. I didn’t mean to imply you hated the car. Even if you did, that would be fine of course lol - plenty of people love other cars I don’t, and vice versa.

Lots of things can improve.

I do push the door handle - after it doesn't unlock when I walk up and stare at it waiting for a few seconds, then after pushing I wait a random number of seconds to see if it might randomly pay attention this time, then sometimes after a few more seconds I have to take out and unlock my phone, launch the app and unlock, then wait some random time for the OTA unlock to happen. The whole time I feel like an idiot (who does all this and stares at their car in puzzlement in a Home Depot parking lot in the rain), and it's not at all the experience.

That sounds like it sucks. That has not been my experience, except for maybe once or twice, a very long time ago. I hope they continue to improve this for you. Does the fob button work, or are you only mobile key?

That’s just my opinion.

Cool.

And before you do, please take your "you should just use the fob - it works 100% if you change the battery every day" and keep it to yourself, I ain't carrying a fob, capiche?

I didn’t say that, so please take the attitude and set it aside, as it is unnecessary. Moreover, don’t put words in my mouth, especially when “quoting” them, since that is not a quote from me.

It is a potential solution for your problem. You may not want to use the fob, which is fine and your choice, but to ignore that a potential solution exists is willful ignorance. That is your right.

I also don’t carry the fob, as I have no other keys. But my mobile key happens to work. If it didn’t, and if there were only one thing “more annoying thing than entry that doesn't work reliably,” then I would probably start using the fob. But that’s me. You do you.

If the fob doesn’t work for you also, then that really sucks. But knowing whether it does or not is at least helpful in identifying the problem, and whether it’s your security nodes or just the mobile key acting up.

Claro?

 

[LuvLucy]

Moreover, don’t put words in my mouth, especially when “quoting” them, since that is not a quote from me.

You seem to confuse the use of quotation marks around a hypothetical phrase (or paraphrase) readily for direct quotation, which it is not (I would use the quotation function of the forum for that as you see here), so please stop putting word-in-mouth-putting in my mouth. I have not said anyone is lying (as you just accused me of 2X - another big *stretch*), nor do I have anger and bias issues - all of which you just gattling-gun unloaded on me. There are some bias issue here though.

I do say I do not believe anyone who says MobileKey works 100% of the time - walk up and the doors instantly present as/before you are standing next to the door - and I stand by that. We could settle it with a challenge where walkup is done 100 times on video - for pink-slips? . I do believe most users experience unexplained delays of intermittent time period when approaching the car - probably 5-10% of the time and it is frustrating, and they need to randomly resort to handle pressing or app using. It's the unpredictability which is truly annoying - ascyou never know what you are going to get.

 

[idiot900]

Some owners just genuinely have less of the problem. I’ve seen it firsthand, and some car/owner pairings do seem to just work fine.

Anecdotally my mobile key has worked substantially better with 2.6.11 but maybe that isn't because of any intrinsic improvement in the firmwares of either car or phone...maybe there is just less interference lately in the 2.4 GHz spectrum where I park?

 

[borski]

You seem to confuse the use of quotation marks around a hypothetical phrase (or paraphrase) readily for direct quotation, which it is not (I would use the quotation function of the forum for that as you see here), so please stop putting word-in-mouth-putting in my mouth.

You were suggesting that might be my response. Given that is not something I have ever said, it is not a paraphrase either. But whatever, this is a dumb argument and I won’t belabor it.

I have not said anyone is lying (as you just accused me of 2X - another big *stretch*), nor do I have anger and bias issues - all of which you just gattling-gun unloaded on me. There are some bias issue here though.

I did not accuse you of lying once, and if you show me where I did I will happily remove it or rephrase it. I do not think you’re lying, nor would I intend to imply you were.

Please don’t take the bias comment as a personal attack. Your bias, as you’ve described it, is that you believe people posting about how it works for them are doing so to come to the defense of Lucid. That is your presupposition.

I am simply challenging that. Perhaps, they aren’t, and instead are simply commenting about their experience in the same way you are, but without the additional motive of trying to defend Lucid or imply that it *not* working for others is ideal or acceptable. That’s certainly another possibility; can we agree on that?

The reason for this bias, btw, in my estimation, is because you are angry or frustrated that it doesn’t work for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it’s a reasonable position.

It was not a personal attack.

I do say I do not believe anyone who says MobileKey works 100% of the time - walk up and the doors instantly present as/before you are standing next to the door - and I stand by that.

Okay. Nothing *ever* works 100% of the time, so I agree with you.

We could settle it with a challenge where walkup is done 100 times on video - for pink-slips? .

Hard pass

I do believe most users experience unexplained delays of intermittent time period when approaching the car - probably 5-10% of the time and it is frustrating, and they need to randomly resort to handle pressing or app using. It's the unpredictability which is truly annoying - ascyou never know what you are going to get.

I agree with you that’s true for some users. I don’t know if it’s “most.” I simply don’t have the numbers; neither of us do.

I agree it’s the unpredictability that’s annoying, if you have this issue.