Android smart lock & my 2019 SE

[Blindeye_03]

Android Smart Lock has never given me issues, even with my cheap as hell knock off airpods that I bought on AliExpress for $11. This also used to work flawlessly in my crapbox Fiesta ST (lol).


But it wont work in my GTI. Let me reprase - it DOES work but every time I start my car it again asks if I want to add the car as a trusted device. I even changed the name of the car from "none BT" to something else & that changed nothing.

My phone is a Pixel 3A but again Ive never had this issue with any of my android phones forgetting trusted devices.

The car isnt paired up to any other BT anything and its just now a week old with 400 miles on it.

Short of disabling the smart lock all together, for my own sanity, has anyone else encountered this issue?

 

[Cuzoe]

Can't offer any solutions but my phone can't seem to keep Smart Lock enabled with my phone either... that's with a couple different phones, Android 9 & 10.
Although to be fair I find Smart Lock to behave strangely in general. It seems to randomly forget trusted devices. Strange things like Android auto telling me I need to unlock my device first even though the device should be unlocked when it connects to the car's Bluetooth.

 

[Cuzoe]

Responding to myself but I just checked my trusted devices and my car isn't in there... again. Wonder if it's not fully supported as a trusted device because of whatever Bluetooth profile it's reporting. I tried to add my generic OBDII dongle in the past and Android world have none of it.

 

[Blindeye_03]

Responding to myself but I just checked my trusted devices and my car isn't in there... again. Wonder if it's not fully supported as a trusted device because of whatever Bluetooth profile it's reporting. I tried to add my generic OBDII dongle in the past and Android world have none of it.

Hmm also weird.. What phone do you have?

 

[Cuzoe]

Right now an unbranded Oneplus 6T with stock Oxygyen OS, Android 10. Before this the same phone on Oxygen OS but Android 9. And prior to that a Oneplus One with a custom ROM, android 9 based though. I don't remember how well/poorly smart lock behaved with my old phone... but I have always had the issue with getting a notification about granting message access, as if the car is a new device. This doesn't make sense though since the car/phone are connecting automatically. I don't use the infotainment's built in message features as I normally plug-in and run android Auto but definitely weird.

Thinking about it more, I wonder if it has something to do with the Bluetooth roles (or whatever the technical term is). I haven't gone through the pairing process recently but I seem to recall that in the VW I could search from the phone and find the car or search from the car and find the phone. In my wife's car it is not possible to find the car when searching from the phone. You have to search for the phone, from the car.

I don't know how bluetooth implementation works but in my other work with master/slave devices, one device having the wrong role (ie two masters in a system) leads to weird behavior. My wife's car seems to only act in the "master" role but I'm not sure what's going on in the VW. I presume only one device can act as master but if the roles are inconsistent it might cause our issue. Or maybe Trusted Devices only really works when the phone is the master device in a given pairing. If the phone is connected as a slave/client device this would no longer apply. That would make this an issue with the Trusted Device implementation, as it should prevent us from adding "master" devices to the Trusted Devices list. That or Trusted Devices should be based solely on mac addresses (maybe they are).

There's an option in the developer options on my phone called "Trust agents only extend unlock." The description says "when enabled, trust agents will keep your device unlocked for longer, but can no longer unlock a locked a phone" which I read as... even if the car is a trusted device, you have to manually unlock the phone once (fingerprint, pin, face, whatever) and then it will remain unlocked as long as the car is connected. I have this option disabled, so in theory Trust Agents should be able to unlock the phone automatically. I don't know what the default setting for this is though, and most people won't have developer options enabled in their settings anyway. Any android devs/bluetooth experts in here, we need help!

 

[CamarosRus]

Inept Android user wanting to know how SMART THINGS app was installed onto my Samsung 7
when I paired phone to my new 19 Golf SE ???

Smart Things is using a lot of battery (I think)
Do I need to keep Smart Things for phone to work in my Golf ??
HOW do I remove Smart Things IF I dont need it ???

Thanks, Chuck S Auburn,WA

 

[Cuzoe]

I would say you don't need it. I don't know what the SmartThings app is but I haven't had a Samsung phone in 5-6 years so maybe it's a Samsung specific app. In ant case, I've never had to install any app to get Bluetooth to work with my VWs.

Also not sure that Android allows any automatic app installation. At least not in the last few versions. I know you said a Galaxy 7 which might not be running the newest version of Android but it's not that old, I would suspect even older versions don't allow that type of thing. Might me a pre-installed app that Samsung thanks is useful for car Bluetooth connections but I'm almost positive it's not necessary.

 

[Blindeye_03]

bump

 

[MonkeyMD]

Uninstall it. You don't need it to connect to your car.
And if you really want to know if it's using battery, just go to settings - device care - battery - battery usage

On my phone, it has never used any battery.

 

[Blindeye_03]

Has anyone else had issues with trusted devices or the phone asking your permission to let the car read their texts? Id say it is my phone but I never had these issues with the car before the GTI and this phone.