Other than going to the driver’s seat there’s no way at all to open the hatch unless you have the physical key. There’s no spot on the hatch to hold your phone against, or unlock sensor that can sense your phone (maybe they added this in MY 24 IDK). So if you plan on having any luggage or groceries or plan on using the hatch at all then you need the physical key, so why bother with the phone?
You turn on sentry mode when you need to. It’s not just on all the time and draining battery. And “draining” should also be put into context. Last checked it was like 9% per 24 hrs.
An app that can do everything a physical key can, that should be considered an absolute minimum as far as technology goes in 2024.
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They both do let you swipe.
BMW’s way is great: Always visible UI element top right. Tap that, you get vertical list of your cars, don’t need to scroll unless you have 4+ BMWs there. Tap the car you want.
Mercedes: Tap Hamburger, Tap Selected car, Always have to swipe right to select other car(s), tap other car.
My wife had a funny moment charging at EA with multiple cars in Mercedes app. Plugs in, goes to charge menu and sees it sitting at 1kW there for a while, calls me to complain. Of course, she was looking at the other EQS charging on L1 in garage for 12v charging purposes.
I’m saying swipe like the Tesla app. All you need to do to change between cars, solar, and powerwalls is to swipe. One single swipe. No hamburgers. No “get your list” malarkey.
9% per 24 hrs on S or X is 9kW, that’s almost a power wall worth of energy. At the same time, I got a ring door bell streaming stuff all day long on a tiny battery, good for a week. I would call that insane.
Should app keys be at least as secure as key keys ? I am 100% certain that my physical key fobs and Apple Car keys (wireless or NFC) won’t let a stranger get into my cars and drive off. As far as bluetooth based “keys” go, they can kinda guess how far you are but they don’t really know which side of the door. Sketchy ? I guess ignorance is bliss when it comes to things like that.
2 taps = bad
swipe through list of 2 cars, solar, and power wall = good
It’s not two taps though. It’s two taps, a swipe through the cars, another tap for “set to active”, then watch the app crash because it’s a POS.
I’m talking BMW here: You tap top right 1. Get a list of cars. Tap on car 2. If you have 4+ cars and have to swipe, lucky you. Merc app is worse in switching cars, as I said.
If you happen to have 2 Teslas, Solar, and Powerwall. You want to get from first item in list to the last one. How maybe swipes ? But then again, I think Tesla app also lets you tap on something and select from list.
But, why expose yourself to POS apps ? I don’t understand. Should stick with awesome Tesla quality software and hardware.
Do I want Tesla? No, I’m spoiled with German n japanese luxury car quality. That doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge what Tesla is doing right.
For me, sentry, apps n digital key are what Tesla has done correctly. 9% battery waste is fine with me if I can find out who the sob messing up with my car in parking lot 
I like the eqs sentry way better. Only record when it detects contact vs whenever someone is near it. My model x drains like 5-10% everyday with sentry on, it’s quite a pain especially when you are on trips where you use it as you need to go to supercharger to top up.
Will it activate when someone keys the eqs?
No, but it won’t drain a power wall worth of battery in a day. For that kind of energy they should just zap people getting too close, would be very much on brand.
I get pretty annoyed when these cars start shinning lights at me in a parking lot, just because I walked by. Wonder what that does to your chances of getting keyed.
I get pretty annoyed when these cars start shinning lights at me in a parking lot, just because I walked by.
Which cars do this?
Have not tried it. It’s actually supposed to take a photo, but have not experimented.
Ones with sentry mode
Feature is called “Collision detection”, don’t think keying would trigger it.
No I’m talking about Mercedes guard 360 which is diffferent.
Yeah we have an on-prem mobile car wash service at my office. The folks washing the car didn’t trigger any alert. But when they blasted the car with water, it triggered the collision thing. They had my key and they locked the car to wash it since they wanted the mirrors folded in.
IMO the MB system wouldn’t catch those events that the Tesla owners typically boast for why Sentry is so good compared to other systems (when people key the car, pee on a wheel, or spit on their Teslas).
Collision Detection is part of the guard 360, and only part that has to do with taking pictures. Other than that, they bundle regular alarm and tow away protection.
Or just walk by it, lol. How dare they.
And, ugh, thank you for the link.