How do I enabled scheduled charging without sharing location with app?

[LaunchGreen]

The short answer is you can't. For whatever reason Rivian completely removed the ability to do it the dumb way by just setting a time from the vehicle charging screen, unless you keep location data enabled. It doesn't matter if it's tied to a location or not. Also, regardless of being able to disable other app users from seeing your vehicle location, it doesn't stop Rivian or even necessarily the cellular provider from sharing it with any number of third parties they have agreements with. Even if you've read the terms of all those said agreements and are cool with that, it also assumes none of those who touch your data are like T-Mobile, verizon or AT&T that have been making settlements in court to do with lawsuits concerning selling real-time phone location data without user's consent.

You'll also find you can't turn it on, set up a charging time or location and then turn it off again. It will remain disabled despite the vehicle knowing both the time and its location.

As of the latest update you'll also find that your navigation doesn't work if you don't have location data sharing enabled either. Not that the internet-based features like traffic alerts don't work, it is completely disabled. All you get is a screen telling you to turn location sharing back on.

I've personally yet to discover what this means in an area without cell service. If scheduled charging and the GPS mysteriously works without being able to phone home, why exactly would location data sharing be required?

There are lots of people who are oblivious to or simply don't care about that stuff, but it's bizzarre for a company that prides itself on its security to give the finger to people who care about their privacy with changes that come months or years after becoming customers.

Navigation and real time updates work fine with app location disabled.

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[Kaiju]

If that works to satisfy your needs, cool. I'll note that so long as the share precise location data setting is on in the vehicle, you're still actually sharing your location data with Rivian and all its various third parties. That in-app feature only prevents other separate drivers you've added to your account from seeing the vehicle location in their app. However you are still being tracked and if you are ambivalent about corporations doing so, anyone signed in on your main account will still be able to see the vehicle location.

 

[sub]

My guess is that the feature as currently implemented requires the vehicle to communicate its location with Rivian's servers so that the servers can tell the vehicle when it should and should not charge. While yes, it would be possible for Rivian to rebuild the functionality with 100% in-vehicle processing, management probably told them not to. Most people don't do scheduled charging and most people don't care if Rivian can see your location. The number of people who fall into both buckets is not zero (you are proof of at least one) but it is tiny. There are probably 10,000 of other things on the software team's agenda that impact way more people than this.

If you are just here to vent, vent away. It certainly is dumb to rely on the internet for scheduled charging even if the current implementation works fine for 99.9% of people.

But if you are looking for solutions there is a relatively easy one. Replace your charger with one that is smart. There are plenty of chargers on the market that can do scheduling. If the charger doesn't deliver electricity until the time you set, it doesn't matter if the car knows it's supposed to wait.

 

[CANCERDOC]

Since it cannot be done without sharing your location with other family members (for whatever reason you want to keep it private), maybe the best thing to do is plug in, turn off charging manually and just set an alarm on your phone to turn on and off charging using your app. Saves you the hassle temporarily.

 

[LaunchGreen]

Since it cannot be done without sharing your location with other family members (for whatever reason you want to keep it private), maybe the best thing to do is plug in, turn off charging manually and just set an alarm on your phone to turn on and off charging using your app. Saves you the hassle temporarily.

time of use rates start at midnight. i'm old and sleeping then, but thanks for helping out.

 

[LaunchGreen]

My guess is that the feature as currently implemented requires the vehicle to communicate its location with Rivian's servers so that the servers can tell the vehicle when it should and should not charge. While yes, it would be possible for Rivian to rebuild the functionality with 100% in-vehicle processing, management probably told them not to. Most people don't do scheduled charging and most people don't care if Rivian can see your location. The number of people who fall into both buckets is not zero (you are proof of at least one) but it is tiny. There are probably 10,000 of other things on the software team's agenda that impact way more people than this.

If you are just here to vent, vent away. It certainly is dumb to rely on the internet for scheduled charging even if the current implementation works fine for 99.9% of people.

But if you are looking for solutions there is a relatively easy one. Replace your charger with one that is smart. There are plenty of chargers on the market that can do scheduling. If the charger doesn't deliver electricity until the time you set, it doesn't matter if the car knows it's supposed to wait.

Nope, not venting - was looking for a solution.

Also, I know Rivian follows these forums and my intention is to get them to resolve it. Between the forum and some emails with RJ, Tony, etc I've had success on other larger items in the past. I suspect it's an easy fix so hopeful I'll succeed in drawing attention. It worked that was a couple of months ago and I think got lost in the Google Maps update.

Agreed that it's likely a small number of people that care, but it's bigger than this issue since part of their market positioning is the privacy-focused alternative vs a Tesla, etc. I'd be surprised if "most people don't do scheduled charging" is true though. I'd wager that more than half of Rivian's sales are in heavy Time of Use states (CA, WA, OR, etc).

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