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I think I figured out much of the cause of my MobileKey frustrations - baby got back!

LuvLucy

LuvLucy

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2025 Lucid Touring
I have a '25 Touring and use (or have been trying to with great frustration) MobileKey exclusively with passive lock and passive unlock both enabled. I keep a Valet card in my wallet as well as a backup.

I have been very frustrated with the performance of MobileKey for me and I think I have figured out why. To date I have been leaving my phone in my rear pocket as I approach and use the auto entry or door handles. It's a force of habit from my Tesla where it never caused issues. The auto entry would rarely work and I would sit there pushing the door handle like an idiot with my family trying to get in the car and nothing would happen.

I just did a bunch of testing, simply by standing next to the car (as you would approach it), using the door handles to lock and unlock the car with the fob in my front left pocket, my iPhone (iPhone 15 Pro Max) in my right rear pocket, and then my phone in my left hand (I'm right handed)

Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the Fob in my front left pocket (and bo phone near) has a 100% success rate.
Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the phone in my rear left pocket (and no fob near) has a low 30% success rate, it is incredibly buggy, does not work most of the time and laggy if it works at all - this was the frustration I was experiencing - totally reproducible
Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the phone in my left hand between me and the car (and no fob near) returns the success rate to almost 100%

Clearly, for my car at least, the Lucid MobileKey does not like my 180lb butt (it's not a huge butt) between the phone and the car? Putting the phone in my hand as I approach seems to clear up many of the issues.

I wonder if this is a common theme for the frustrations with MobileKay and passive unlock expressed here. Just a recommendation for others, take your phone out of your pocket (especially if it's a back pocket) and see if it improves your experience for passive and manual entry/locking, It makes a big difference for me - apparently the big bag of water in between (me) is a particularly bad issue for this car/bluetooth antenna/radio.

Looks like I need to get in the habit of taking my phone out of my rear pocket and having it in my hand as I walk up to the car.

Maybe everybody already knew this, in which case I would be the "Butt" of everyone's jokes.
 
Last edited:
LuvLucy said:
Looks like I need to get in the habit of taking my phone out of my rear pocket and having it in my hand as I walk up to the car.
Click to expand...
I think if most people did this regardless of rear or front pocket you’d probably find the complaints about Mobile Key not working would be few and far between.
 
Doesn't work for me. I have the phone in my hand (with the Lucid app on-screen just for good measure ....), and I still have to yell at the car to get the doors to unlock.
LuvLucy said:
Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the Fob in my front left pocket has a 100% success rate.
Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the phone in my rear left pocket has a low 30% success rate, it is incredibly buggy, does not work most of the time and laggy if it works at all - this was the frustration I was experiencing - totally reproducible
Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the phone in my left hand between me and the car returns the success rate to almost 100%

Clearly, for my car at least, the Lucid MobileKey does not like my 180lb butt (it's not a huge butt) between the phone and the car? Putting the phone in my hand as I approach seems to clear up many of the issues.

I wonder if this is a common theme for the frustrations with MobileKay and passive unlock expressed here. Just a recommendation for others, take your phone out of your pocket (especially if it's a back pocket) and see if it improves your experience for passive and manual entry/locking, It makes a bog difference for me - apparently the big bag of water in between (me) is a particularly bad issue for this car/bluetooth antenna/radio.

Looks like I need to get in the habit of taking my phone out of my rear pocket and having it in my hand as I walk up to the car.

Maybe everybody already knew this, in which case I would be the "Butt" of everyone's jokes.
Click to expand...
 
HC_79 said:
I think if most people did this regardless of rear or front pocket you’d probably find the complaints about Mobile Key not working would be few and far between.
Click to expand...
Maybe if so it should be suggested here to people having problems as step #1. I have literally never seen it - everybody seems to immediately go to pair/unpair/re-pair, reboot, reset etc, or they say "works fine for me, never have an issue".
 
Also I should have mentioned - all of my testing above was done with the Lucid app closed.
 
I don't think it's the fact that it's in front of you vs behind you, it's the fact that the phone is asleep in your pocket vs awake in your hand. This has been talked about a lot here on the forum. If you did another test with the phone face-down on a cart or something such that it isn't waking up I think you would see a return to the same 30% success rate.
 
segbrk said:
I don't think it's the fact that it's in front of you vs behind you, it's the fact that the phone is asleep in your pocket vs awake in your hand. This has been talked about a lot here on the forum. If you did another test with the phone face-down on a cart or something such that it isn't waking up I think you would see a return to the same 30% success rate.
Click to expand...
This is correct. You don’t even have to unlock the phone. Literally just take it out of your pocket and shake it for a second. Or just shake it in your pocket, or tap the screen.

If you wake up the phone, you wake up the Bluetooth radio, and it will unlock.

Also, if you’re wearing AirPods or another Bluetooth device that is in active use, you may find your car also unlocks faster… since the Bluetooth radio isn’t asleep.
 
segbrk said:
I don't think it's the fact that it's in front of you vs behind you, it's the fact that the phone is asleep in your pocket vs awake in your hand. This has been talked about a lot here on the forum. If you did another test with the phone face-down on a cart or something such that it isn't waking up I think you would see a return to the same 30% success rate.
Click to expand...
Nope - phone locked, lying face down on a kitchen cutting board in my left hand - success rate = 100%. Phone then moved to my back pocket, still locked - rate is 30%
 
As soon as I place the phone between me and the vehicle even with the screen off, hit rate goes to 100%. Shaking seems to make no difference. I should probably stop testing this before my wife calls the padded wagon/white long sleeved backwards jacket people on me, LOL.

For me it's definitely having it in my back pocket that kills it. Very reproducible.
 
LuvLucy said:
As soon as I place the phone between me and the vehicle even with the screen off, hit rate goes to 100%. Shaking seems to make no difference. I should probably stop testing this before my wife calls the padded wagon/white long sleeved backwards jacket people on me, LOL.

For me it's definitely having it in my back pocket that kills it. Very reproducible.
Click to expand...
Do you line your back pocket with tinfoil?
 
borski said:
This is correct. You don’t even have to unlock the phone. Literally just take it out of your pocket and shake it for a second. Or just shake it in your pocket, or tap the screen.

If you wake up the phone, you wake up the Bluetooth radio, and it will unlock.

Also, if you’re wearing AirPods or another Bluetooth device that is in active use, you may find your car also unlocks faster… since the Bluetooth radio isn’t asleep.
Click to expand...
This ☝️
 
Unmutual said:
Doesn't work for me. I have the phone in my hand (with the Lucid app on-screen just for good measure ....), and I still have to yell at the car to get the doors to unlock.
Click to expand...
Personally, I would pay extra for the "Yell To Unlock" feature.
 
LuvLucy said:
I have a '25 Touring and use (or have been trying to with great frustration) MobileKey exclusively with passive lock and passive unlock both enabled. I keep a Valet card in my wallet as well as a backup.

I have been very frustrated with the performance of MobileKey for me and I think I have figured out why. To date I have been leaving my phone in my rear pocket as I approach and use the auto entry or door handles. It's a force of habit from my Tesla where it never caused issues. The auto entry would rarely work and I would sit there pushing the door handle like an idiot with my family trying to get in the car and nothing would happen.

I just did a bunch of testing, simply by standing next to the car (as you would approach it), using the door handles to lock and unlock the car with the fob in my front left pocket, my iPhone (iPhone 15 Pro Max) in my right rear pocket, and then my phone in my left hand (I'm right handed)

Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the Fob in my front left pocket (and bo phone near) has a 100% success rate.
Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the phone in my rear left pocket (and no fob near) has a low 30% success rate, it is incredibly buggy, does not work most of the time and laggy if it works at all - this was the frustration I was experiencing - totally reproducible
Manual lock/unlock (via the door handles) with the phone in my left hand between me and the car (and no fob near) returns the success rate to almost 100%

Clearly, for my car at least, the Lucid MobileKey does not like my 180lb butt (it's not a huge butt) between the phone and the car? Putting the phone in my hand as I approach seems to clear up many of the issues.

I wonder if this is a common theme for the frustrations with MobileKay and passive unlock expressed here. Just a recommendation for others, take your phone out of your pocket (especially if it's a back pocket) and see if it improves your experience for passive and manual entry/locking, It makes a big difference for me - apparently the big bag of water in between (me) is a particularly bad issue for this car/bluetooth antenna/radio.

Looks like I need to get in the habit of taking my phone out of my rear pocket and having it in my hand as I walk up to the car.

Maybe everybody already knew this, in which case I would be the "Butt" of everyone's jokes.
Click to expand...
@LuvLucy with something nice to say! OMG, I died, didn't I?

charlie-smile.gif


I guess I have always kept my phone in my front pocket... so maybe that's why I'm so lucky and haven't experienced anything bad with mobile key.
 
I've noticed this too. Even if my phone is "awake", in my back pocket (which is rare, usually on my front side in various locations) it's considerably worse as a mobile key (e.g. even pressing the door handles does nothing - I have to spin my butt around to get in the car or pull out the phone). But on my front side it's generally successful. My biggest problem is my home office is on the other side of a wall from my garage, where my phone generally lives when I'm home. I get "passive unlock unavailable" numerous times daily (which can also affect how well it works when I go into the garage to actually get in the car). If they could just geofence it so the car is optionally unlocked when I'm home that would fix one of my main gripes (also, often, I like to go unplug the charging cable in preparation for a quick getaway - or put something in/out of the trunk - and don't have my phone with me which this would also fix).
 
RAF42 said:
I've noticed this too. Even if my phone is "awake", in my back pocket (which is rare, usually on my front side in various locations) it's considerably worse as a mobile key (e.g. even pressing the door handles does nothing - I have to spin my butt around to get in the car or pull out the phone). But on my front side it's generally successful.
Click to expand...
Interesting! Have you tried walking more like a New Yorker? :p jk

RAF42 said:
My biggest problem is my home office is on the other side of a wall from my garage, where my phone generally lives when I'm home. I get "passive unlock unavailable" numerous times daily (which can also affect how well it works when I go into the garage to actually get in the car).
Click to expand...
Hm… you should only get it once, unless you unlock it manually, but maybe it times out after a while. In any case, what that does is literally disable passive unlock, which just means when you go to the car you just have to hit the door handle.

RAF42 said:
If they could just geofence it so the car is optionally unlocked when I'm home that would fix one of my main gripes
Click to expand...
Yeah, this is a good idea that’s been brought up a number of times. I’m sure it’s on their list.

Honestly, if I were that close to my car all day I would just turn passive unlock off. Pressing the door handle isn’t that hard or annoying, at least to me. It’s how I lock my car 99% of the time, too; I only have passive lock on in case I forget. Because of that, it’s muscle memory, so the car is either already open, or I press the handle (out of habit) and don’t even notice it wasn’t.

Maybe everyone just needs more handle-pressing in their lives. :p

RAF42 said:
(also, often, I like to go unplug the charging cable in preparation for a quick getaway - or put something in/out of the trunk - and don't have my phone with me which this would also fix).
Click to expand...
You know, that gives me an idea.

While there’s nothing (today) in the API that turns passive lock/unlock on/off… you could totally use Home Assistant to just check once every half hour or something if the car is:

1) at home, and,
2) locked,

And then unlock it.

That way, whenever you get to the car it will be unlocked, and your key fob or phone won’t be messing with it since it’s already being unlocked “manually via the mobile app” (in essence) by HA. Hell, do it every 5 minutes if you want, lol.

I do wonder if it would kill the battery, but I actually doubt it. The car does eventually lock; you could watch it and time it, and just issue an unlock command however many minutes that is minus 1. :p

If you get home assistant set up, that automation is like 30 seconds to make.
 
borski said:
Interesting! Have you tried walking more like a New Yorker? :p jk
Click to expand...
Well, I lived in Connecticut on the border of NY when I was a lot younger, but never picked up the walk :)
borski said:
Hm… you should only get it once, unless you unlock it manually, but maybe it times out after a while. In any case, what that does is literally disable passive unlock, which just means when you go to the car you just have to hit the door handle.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it can be dozens of times or just a few, but always happens.
borski said:
Yeah, this is a good idea that’s been brought up a number of times. I’m sure it’s on their list.

Honestly, if I were that close to my car all day I would just turn passive unlock off. Pressing the door handle isn’t that hard or annoying, at least to me. It’s how I lock my car 99% of the time, too; I only have passive lock on in case I forget. Because of that, it’s muscle memory, so the car is either already open, or I press the handle (out of habit) and don’t even notice it wasn’t.
Click to expand...
borski said:
Maybe everyone just needs more handle-pressing in their lives. :p
Click to expand...
I may just try turning it off, though when I'm out and about it's a much better experience to just walk up to the car (possible needed phone jingling aside) to have it open. Actually I usually press the handle to lock and watch the mirrors fold every time I leave the car anyway, guess I'm overly paranoid even though walk away lock seems extremely consistent.
borski said:
You know, that gives me an idea.

While there’s nothing (today) in the API that turns passive lock/unlock on/off… you could totally use Home Assistant to just check once every half hour or something if the car is:

1) at home, and,
2) locked,

And then unlock it.

That way, whenever you get to the car it will be unlocked, and your key fob or phone won’t be messing with it since it’s already being unlocked “manually via the mobile app” (in essence) by HA. Hell, do it every 5 minutes if you want, lol.

I do wonder if it would kill the battery, but I actually doubt it. The car does eventually lock; you could watch it and time it, and just issue an unlock command however many minutes that is minus 1. :p

If you get home assistant set up, that automation is like 30 seconds to make.
Click to expand...
I tried a test (both with Home Assistant - set that up months ago and love it - and the Lucid app, both mirror my general experience) and if I unlock the car, it re-locks itself within 17 seconds (which is another pet peeve, very often it locks itself as I try to get out and go open a passenger side door - add a few more seconds or make it adjustable). Yes, turning off passive lock would "fix" this too.

Am I missing something re auto-relock? If not, HA won't help since it would have to ping pong the locking pretty much continuously and that would not be an elegant programming solution. Now if you mean turn off passive lock and have HA lock or unlock the depending on home or away, that might work, though as a former Systems Programmer/Analyst I would not trust that to guarantee locking my car when "away" (back to the turn off passive and press the handle I guess).
 
RAF42 said:
Well, I lived in Connecticut on the border of NY when I was a lot younger, but never picked up the walk :)

Yeah, it can be dozens of times or just a few, but always happens.


I may just try turning it off, though when I'm out and about it's a much better experience to just walk up to the car (possible needed phone jingling aside) to have it open. Actually I usually press the handle to lock and watch the mirrors fold every time I leave the car anyway, guess I'm overly paranoid even though walk away lock seems extremely consistent.

I tried a test (both with Home Assistant - set that up months ago and love it - and the Lucid app, both mirror my general experience) and if I unlock the car, it re-locks itself within 17 seconds (which is another pet peeve, very often it locks itself as I try to get out and go open a passenger side door - add a few more seconds or make it adjustable). Yes, turning off passive lock would "fix" this too.

Am I missing something re auto-relock? If not, HA won't help since it would have to ping pong the locking pretty much continuously and that would not be an elegant programming solution. Now if you mean turn off passive lock and have HA lock or unlock the depending on home or away, that might work, though as a former Systems Programmer/Analyst I would not trust that to guarantee locking my car when "away" (back to the turn off passive and press the handle I guess).
Click to expand...
“I tried a test (both with Home Assistant - set that up months ago and love it”

How did you get the car connected to Home Assistant? It doesn’t show up as a device that can be added in my Home Assistant.
 
Mister H said:
“I tried a test (both with Home Assistant - set that up months ago and love it”

How did you get the car connected to Home Assistant? It doesn’t show up as a device that can be added in my Home Assistant.
Click to expand...
Install HACS then add the Lucid integration. Install instructions are here - https://github.com/borski/ha-lucidmotors.
 
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