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Remote Climate Control - Working?

Discussion in 'Prime Main Forum (2017-2022)' started by Captmiddy, Dec 18, 2016.

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  1. Captmiddy

    Captmiddy Active Member

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    I know somewhere someone has mentioned this issue but I can't find it now. I have a Prime Advanced with the Safety Connect account active. I can see my charge details, I can apparently lock or schedule charging although I haven't really had need to try this since we don't have time of day differences for electricity.

    What doesn't appear to work at all is the remote climate. Once it seemed to indicate it was successful, but it didn't actually warm the car at all. All other attempts over the last week have failed. One time it told me to see the display in the car, but there was nothing there when I could get to the vehicle. Has anyone been successful in getting the remote climate to work? Part of my justification to get this vehicle and not buy the remote starter was the fact that I could warm the car in winter without the remote starter I know that at home I should be able to use the AC button on the remote and that should warm the car also (although it seems odd it is called AC so not sure if it will heat).

    I plan to call Toyota on Monday when they are available but was wondering if anyone has had a different experience and if there is something in the car I need to adjust to make this possible.
     
  2. ForestBeekeeper

    ForestBeekeeper Active Member

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    I tried it the other dday. It did not seem to do much.

    Our Prime seems to be very slow in warming up.

    I think that in winter we may need to start with the engine running to get heat going, then maybe go for using the battery later once the ice is melted.
     
  3. civicdriver06

    civicdriver06 Active Member

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    Maybe it was too cold ?
    The heat pump won't work at temperatures below -10 ° C .
    I had great hopes for that heat pump,as I thought it should warm the car up pretty fast,faster than the conventional ice heatiing system.
    Would be kind of a disappointment if the heat pump and the pre-heat feature, plugged in or not,turns out be nothing but a marketing gag !
     
    #3 civicdriver06, Dec 18, 2016
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2016
  4. SeattleHawaii

    SeattleHawaii Member

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    pre-heat works for me (Prime Plus). Hit the A/C button before heading out...wait 5 - 10 minutes and the temperature in the car is nice and cozy. This worked fine with outside temperatures from 27 upwards...that's as cold as it has been up here. For the Plus, it heats up to the last setting that you had set for the Climate Control - in my case 69. Even if you had the climate control turned off when parking the car, once you hit the A/c button on the remote, it will still work. Even if you unplug the car it will continue to heat until you open a door.
    The heat pump seems to be working fine also when driving around in EV mode...together with the heated seats, no complaints in the recent Arctic air blast that we had. If you turn the heat up, plus heated seats, be aware that the EV range will be reduced significantly though.
     
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  5. priuscatprimeguy

    priuscatprimeguy Senior Member

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    I'm curious to know what Toyota has to say too, I've gotten it to work maybe once or twice since I've had the car (November 30th I received the car)

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
  6. arctichaze

    arctichaze New Member

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    Strictly on an engineering point of view this might be more geared towards cooling the vehicle than heating it up. Heating tends to be more effective if the engine is on, which of course consumes gas.
     
  7. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    What setting are you choosing? There are three - max cool, max heat, previous setting.

    If you select the previous setting and you left it on "off" or a setting that wouldn't heat the car, then it wouldn't heat the car.
     
  8. Captmiddy

    Captmiddy Active Member

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    My system is on auto sweet to 65f. It was 30f out today when I attempted to turn it on. I simply got a fail message which was meaningless. It should be able to heat the car a little for 10 minutes. I haven't tried using the button on the remote, this is the Entune feature in the Advanced model. The Entune application is pretty bad but I was hoping this would at least work.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
  9. trescenzi

    trescenzi Junior Member

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    This was the problem I had initially. I had it set to default which was previous setting and since I drive around with climate off generally it wouldn't actually heat the car up. Both remote climate and climate prep work as expected for me with that understanding.


    iPhone ?
     
  10. priuscatprimeguy

    priuscatprimeguy Senior Member

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    Tried to use remote climate on my phone. Turned wheel on app to max heat. After 2 minutes it looked like it was successful. went out to my car after work. no sign that the heat was on. No message in car despite when I got home the phone app said check car for message because turning on climate was not successful. Time to call Entune support.:mad: (it's going to be 0 degrees tomorrow morning):confused:
     
  11. civicdriver06

    civicdriver06 Active Member

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    So if the app doesn't work as it should,why not try the timer ?
    As things look,unfortunately Europe does not seem to get any app-controlled check on charge status nor app-controlled remote climate,at least nobody has mentioned it up to now,but we seem to be at least able to set a timer for it or just hit the button on the key .
    To be able to check on the charge with my smartphone would sure be nice,as I will have to use a public charge station most of the time as for now .
     
  12. priuscatprimeguy

    priuscatprimeguy Senior Member

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    here's an interesting tidbit: On the Entune website there's a phone compatibility checklist. I have the Galaxy S7 Edge with T-Mobile. Turns out according to this website it's not available for Remote Climate.

    Entune Connect
     
  13. Captmiddy

    Captmiddy Active Member

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    That is odd, but I can't imagine an iPhone SE and an Google Pixel would both be incompatible with the software. Not to mention, it shouldn't really matter, the real trick here is that you aren't controlling this via your phone but via their cloud services. You send a message to their servers, they send a message to your car. The message is part of the application not some magic your phone is able to do. I should be able to be sitting in my office, 3 miles from my car, start the climate controls and arrive at my car with it having run for the 10 minutes allowed. Their is something wrong with their communication design that they aren't getting messages out to the car to initiate the remote climate.
     
  14. priuscatprimeguy

    priuscatprimeguy Senior Member

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    Tried calling them just now. Got the message that their office is closed. So I sent them an email instead.
     
  15. Captmiddy

    Captmiddy Active Member

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    Funny - I also called them. Normal operating hours 5AM to 6PM PST (which is 8AM EST) which was 30 minutes ago, must be nice to start late :D. I am going to try to call them again in 30 minutes in case they really are playing Standard versus Daylight games but I have a feeling it is going to enter a black hole. If enough of us start to raise the issue maybe someone will pay attention. There are other annoyances, like the fact that you can't view the fuel usage details after you get out of the car which is when it would be useful. If I am sitting in the car I don't need to use the phone to see how I am doing there are a half dozen gauges in the car to look at. Someone should really explain to them why their Entune system is so bad and they should have just gone with the Google/Apple compatible systems many other people are using. But then they would have lost the money we all spend on the updated Maps data.
     
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  16. Captmiddy

    Captmiddy Active Member

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    So talked to Entune, they had me log out and log back in, it worked once but the car didn't really seem to be warming even though the app showed remote climate was on. The other interesting thing is that the ECO Dashboard doesn't work either unless you are in the car driving. This is completely useless as you are supposed to be able to pull up historic data and share it.
     
  17. priuscatprimeguy

    priuscatprimeguy Senior Member

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    wait a few, the remote climate seems to be working only to come back with remote climate failed check car for details:mad:
     
  18. JamesBurke

    JamesBurke Senior Member

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    Never looked into or paid much attention to Entune before but I just searched the Entune site and pdf and couldn't find a single phone that actually supports this. Nothing but red x's. Some give you the map but that's all. No using wifi through the net from a tablet either. Need a cell conection to even download the Entune app. Without the remote features what's the point $ of the advanced? No sale until this is actually made useable.

    Full suite of Prius Prime Apps including Charging Station Map, Remote Charge Management, ECO Dashboard, Remote Climate and Vehicle Finder
     
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  19. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    Heads up display, blind spot monitor, rear cross-traffic alert, Homelink mirror, etc.
     
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  20. Captmiddy

    Captmiddy Active Member

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    So after resetting the app, I have been able to get remote climate to work once. I will try again in the morning and see if it is still working. The ECO dashboard is still broken. I posted a message to Entune support, lets see if they respond.
     
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