Finally — Apple Wallet Car Key is Activated!

[portdirect]

It's ok mate. It was just a matter of time before we had to endure the horror of using PAAK. Only the OG1s will know what it's like to walk up to your car and the door handles open and you drive off.

Though it often works, to be fair both gen1 and gen2 currently do a great job of keeping you waiting far too often:
1) waiting for the R1 to wake up, showing you gary watching you, and then decide that it’s time to present the door handles.
2) somthing playing up with the phone app, leaving it stuck at the unlocking animation for 20-30 seconds until you get frustrated and restart the app and have it unlock instantly after reopening.

Both of the above combine to the ‘affleck experience‘ when it comes to Rivian ownership - where sometimes you get to imagine that you are surrounded by paparazzi while just wanting to get into your R1 - though usually it’s just the frustration of having to deba whether to put down the box of Costco muffins or a wild toddler whist you dig out your phone in the rain.

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[iansriv]

Though it often works, to be fair both gen1 and gen2 currently do a great job of keeping you waiting far too often:
1) waiting for the R1 to wake up, showing you gary watching you, and then decide that it’s time to present the door handles.
2) somthing playing up with the phone app, leaving it stuck at the unlocking animation for 20-30 seconds until you get frustrated and restart the app and have it unlock instantly after reopening.

Both of the above combine to the ‘affleck experience‘ when it comes to Rivian ownership - where sometimes you get to imagine that you are surrounded by paparazzi while just wanting to get into your R1 - though usually it’s just the frustration of having to deba whether to put down the box of Costco muffins or a wild toddler whist you dig out your phone in the rain.

Oh yes, there is the possibility of most of us being stuck outside our cars while being surrounded by paparazzi. Seriously though, I do respect that some might be experiencing issues with the G1 setup. However, there are others like me that have had zero issues. My R1 has consistently worked for the last two years of ownership. I'm happy for G2 owners that need this, as well as G1 owners that don't. A bit sad for the G1 owners that need it but are PAAKed.

 

[mkhuffman]

Though it often works, to be fair both gen1 and gen2 currently do a great job of keeping you waiting far too often:
1) waiting for the R1 to wake up, showing you gary watching you, and then decide that it’s time to present the door handles.
2) somthing playing up with the phone app, leaving it stuck at the unlocking animation for 20-30 seconds until you get frustrated and restart the app and have it unlock instantly after reopening.

Both of the above combine to the ‘affleck experience‘ when it comes to Rivian ownership - where sometimes you get to imagine that you are surrounded by paparazzi while just wanting to get into your R1 - though usually it’s just the frustration of having to deba whether to put down the box of Costco muffins or a wild toddler whist you dig out your phone in the rain.

That is the first time I have seen that video. Priceless! I love how she is standing there, wrapping her fingers on the window, waiting for him to get the door open. My wife would have less patience.

BTW - just about every vehicle with PaaK has issues once and a while. Maybe only Tesla has got it down 100%. I had Affleck experiences (without the attention) multiple times with my Mach-e. Since I picked up my Tri in March, it has been practically flawless. (My phone is less than a year old, so that probably makes a big difference.)

 

[bfilippo]

Can I add my minor hope for the next OTA, alongside this long desired update, related here?

We have 2 trucks (S and T), and the PAAK cannot sense which one you’re getting into, even if the other is at another location, it simply defaults to last used. I have no idea how the mechanics of this would work, and obviously we’re a small minority of owners, but man would it make things less dumb on a daily basis.

 

[portdirect]

Can I add my minor hope for the next OTA, alongside this long desired update, related here?

We have 2 trucks (S and T), and the PAAK cannot sense which one you’re getting into, even if the other is at another location, it simply defaults to last used. I have no idea how the mechanics of this would work, and obviously we’re a small minority of owners, but man would it make things less dumb on a daily basis.

This is honestly unfortunately what excites me most about enabling carkey - that we be able to have a different R1s active on our watch and phones (gen2 on the watch, gen1 on the phone) - I looked into this issue some time ago, and if my memory serves correctly Rivian were reusing the MAC addresses for the various bluetooth ‘proximity’ sensors around the Gen1. I hope my memory is wrong (it was a very late night), but I do remember walking away thinking ‘what on earth’ after looking at various aspects of the stacks whist looking to build my own WAAK app based of the findings of the folks who did the Home assistant integration. Which is all a very long way to say: Rivian's Bluetooth stack sucks - and that’s why you need to specify which R1 you are targeting in the app; it also causes me to additionally suspect that PAAK is noticeably less reliable for those with two or more Rivian's than those with one (we a perfect experience 95% of the time until we got two gen1’s - from there on out I’d say it’s been 65% awesome).

 

[skyguyscott]

This sounds great but I just can't see myself ever wearing a square watch.

Are you kiddin'? I've been wearin' square watches since the '80s! Oh yeah, I am THAT guy.

 

[mkhuffman]

This is honestly unfortunately what excites me most about enabling carkey - that we be able to have a different R1s active on our watch and phones (gen2 on the watch, gen1 on the phone) - I looked into this issue some time ago, and if my memory serves correctly Rivian were reusing the MAC addresses for the various bluetooth ‘proximity’ sensors around the Gen1. I hope my memory is wrong (it was a very late night), but I do remember walking away thinking ‘what on earth’ after looking at various aspects of the stacks whist looking to build my own WAAK app based of the findings of the folks who did the Home assistant integration. Which is all a very long way to say: Rivian's Bluetooth stack sucks - and that’s why you need to specify which R1 you are targeting in the app; it also causes me to additionally suspect that PAAK is noticeably less reliable for those with two or more Rivian's than those with one (we a perfect experience 95% of the time until we got two gen1’s - from there on out I’d say it’s been 65% awesome).

If you have to specify which R1 you are targeting, does it make it more secure? Maybe that is why they did it that way?

 

[portdirect]

If you have to specify which R1 you are targeting, does it make it more secure? Maybe that is why they did it that way?

If the behavior was limited only unlocking the active R1 in the app then maybe, however for auto locking the behavior actually reduces security: the number of times we’ve gone out with both of our R1s, ended up with both of us having the same R1 active in our phone apps, and then discovered later that proximity locking for one of them has not occurred—because it only works when you walk away from the R1 that is active in your phone app—is just too high. We’ve now trained ourselves to verify the lock in the app before we go anywhere, defeating most of the benefit of proximity-based locking.

 

[jbssfelix]

Is this only for Gen 2, or possible for Gen 1 also?

Clarifying for all. Gen1's do not have UWB radios, so Car Key from your watch, for example, would not work.

Gen2's do have UWB support, hence compatibility.

 

[ahoover]

So, just a quick clarification, we are still awaiting Rivian to push an OTA update to support adding the Rivian key to the Apple iPhone Wallet?

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[robertchavez90]

So, just a quick clarification, we are still awaiting Rivian to push an OTA update to support adding the Rivian key to the Apple iPhone Wallet?

Thanks for the clarification.

yes

 

[Lester Green]

My question is why on earth is this taking so long to enable? I'm really looking to forward to this!

 

[Dark-Fx]

My question is why on earth is this taking so long to enable? I'm really looking to forward to this!

My money is on "Rivian wants to make sure people don't get locked out after depending on it".

 

[mkhuffman]

It's rumored Garmin is introducing LTE in their watches this fall, so it will be interesting to see what that looks like. Folks think it's really just going to be text, phone, limited data and satellite connectivity (to not kill their great battery life) but who knows. I probably wouldn't get rid of my Apple Watch if Garmin beefed up their offerings, but I would consider moving my watch data plan to it if it met my music needs.

Not a rumor any longer.

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