Climate Control Defrost

I have the Advanced and it allows you to turn on the front and rear defrosters through the app. As near as I can tell this is the only way to turn them on. I tried just using the key-fob but they reset to off when the car is turned off and don't appear to activate when the key-fob turns on the climate control.

 

So for us Canadians there is no way to do this remotely ? Would have been really useful when there is an ice storm...

 

I have Premium trim, and as pointed out above it does not have smart phone app to turn on climate control, but fob dese work to turn on the climate control for both cooling and heating (Toyota calls this function A/C). However, it will not turn on front defrost. In order to turn on the front defrost, ICE must come on. It will not do that with the fob. I am not sure about rear defroster, but I don't think that can be turned on either. Also, even going out to the car to turn on the front defroster will not work if the car is plugged in. It must be a safety set-up by Toyota not to allow car to start engine while plugged in. There was a thread by someone who installed after market remote engine starter on Prime, and confirmed even with after market remote engine starter, this safety feature could not be overridden. So, remote engine starter to work, the car must be first unplugged. Here is the thread on remote engine starter on Prime. Remote start and charging? | PriusChat

Does Advanced model allow ICE to come on with the remote when front defroster is enabled? I thought it couldn't.

Another practical point for someone who lives in really cold climate is that the remote climate control does really nothing when the ambient temp is below 14F. Heat Pump will not work below this temp, and ICE must be turned on to heat up the car. I have tried remote A/C with heat setting at AUTO 70F for continuous 30 min when cabin temp was 6F. After 30 min to repeatedly turning on remote A/C, the cabin temp was staying at 6F, and of course the ice and snow on the window was not melted.

 

Even if the car allowed you to turn on the defroster remotely, I wouldn't do it unless the air intake vents were clear. When the air intake vent is blocked, you risk burning out your fan motor, as it has to work harder to draw in the air. Maybe the Prius is designed to get around this, but I know of 2 cars whose fan died mainly because it was run with plugged intake vents.

 

And of course they'll probably never upgrade our software. The keyfob will certainly not work from my office in the plant to the parking lot. 500 meters minimum. But maybe while I am walking toward the car. That could still save me some time.

Oh ! Well that's that then. So it will mostly be useful during summer for actual A/C.

 

just signed the paperwork today for the prime premium, but have not picked up the car because they have to bring the color i want in from another state. have been doing some reading about this a/c button on the remote. so some say it can heat up the interior, other say it cannot. I am a bit confused. so if i set it up climate control of 70 degrees and turn off the car, then I press the a/c button, how will the car know if i want it to go over 70 degree (in winter) or below it (in summer)? thank you guys in advance for explaining.

 

Remote AC will either heat or cool to whatever the last HVAC setting you left the car at the time you turned it off. I set my Climate control to "AUTO" 70 degree, and almost never change. If ambient temp is lower than that, remote AC will heat up to 70, and if it is higher than 70, then it will cool down to 70. That said, Prime's heat is not very strong, it does not defrost frozen windshield in winter, even after repeated run up to 30 min of remote AC.

 

For having tried it all my first winter with my car , i find it totally useless. I mean it's really great for temp from -8C and up but the heat pump performance is very poor below -8C with a small layer of ice on the windscreen. Why ? because it need 6-7 minutes to become warm and one session of '' press A/C Button '' work only for 10 minutes and you have to start it again .. and you have to wait 2-3 minutes between session.

So .. if it's -13 C outside with a bit of snow/ice you will probably need around 25 minutes ( 2 sessions ) to get a warm car and clear windscreen. Of course the side mirrors and rear hatch are still covered because we , Canadians , can't start them remotely. ( Thank you Toyota ). Also when it's cold and humid the first 10 minutes will only produce a foggy windscreen and side windows and will also produce enough condensation to blind the Safety sense camera. I have complained several times at my dealer and asked them to check the '' almost always blinded '' camera in winter. Turns out that that thing is not sealed and is built like this. Yes there is a heater inside the camera housing to cure the blindness , they have ran a diagnostic on my car to see if the camera heater is working and the report says everything is in order .. it appear that the camera heater need around 15 minutes to get rid of the fog/condensation .. my daily commute to work is 10 minutes .. so there you go why my dash light up with tons of sensors warning .. not enough time to clear the camera. I use my weathertech floor carpet in winter ..I try as much as possible to clean my snow boots before getting in my car to reduce humidity level.

sooooo.. long story short .. Im not using the A/C button or the prep-climate feature at all in winter with scheduled departure. I just remove the Ice/snow manually get in my car and start heated seats and heated steering wheel and i can start to drive right away in EV with dry and clear side windows and windscreen. If the Prime decide to kick the ICE by itself because of the low temp then i turn everything to max

 

Yap, same experience. Winter morning temp below 14F (-10C), heat pump is just not effective. For my winter morning commute (~20 miles), ICE came on no matter what I did, so I decided to switch to HV as soon as I start the car in the morning and run on HV all the way to work saving EV range for my afternoon commute back home. I don't have way to charge at work.