Phone and key fob keeps activating truck.

[Lightning Rod]

I hate it when I'm doing something like washing my truck in the driveway and the lights turn on because of the close proximity of the fob and my phone. Lately, the locks will lock and unlock even though my hands are nowhere near the door handles. It seems to happen a lot while rinsing. Now, I just leave my keys and phone in the house. Is there another workaround for this?

Thanks.

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[Mike G]

I hate it when I'm doing something like washing my truck in the driveway and the lights turn on because of the close proximity of the fob and my phone. Lately, the locks will lock and unlock even though my hands are nowhere near the door handles. It seems to happen a lot while rinsing. Now, I just leave my keys and phone in the house. Is there another workaround for this?

Thanks.

Turn welcome lighting off. There's no way around the lock/unlock while washing unless the fob is nowhere near the truck.

 

[Amps]

You can disable the welcome lighting.

Settings>Vehicle>Lighting>Welcome Lighting Off

As above, the door handles are very sensitive to being touched when a PaaK or fob is close.

 

[RickLightning]

Used to happen on our older Fords also - 2018 Fusion Energi all the time. Pull car out, put fob in garage.

 

[Lightning Rod]

Used to happen on our older Fords also - 2018 Fusion Energi all the time. Pull car out, put fob in garage.

That's a shame... shouldn't have to go thru all of that. You would think that they would design the software so that after a certain time, the truck would recognize the fob/PaaK and not keep doing the same thing for hours. Maybe that's one of the things they're working on.

 

[The Quiet Man]

Just put your fob in the truck while washing. Locks & lights will not be activated.

 

[Lightning Rod]

Just put your fob in the truck while washing. Locks & lights will not be activated.

Really? OK.

How about phone? I haven't tried it yet but does PaaK wake up truck even if app is not launched? I would hate to miss an important call because I couldn't hear the call.

 

[Jsfrye]

Turn off Bluetooth and or wifi

 

[Calvin H-C]

How about phone? I haven't tried it yet but does PaaK wake up truck even if app is not launched? I would hate to miss an important call because I couldn't hear the call.

PaaK seems to be always active. When I arrive home in my Focus Electric and walk around the back to get to the EVSE to plug it in and my wife's Lightning is there, it lights up. My key fob for the Lightning is not with me when I'm not driving it, so it's PaaK that's doing it.

Others have mentioned how to avoid this from disabling Welcome (only deals with the lights) to leaving your fob in the vehicle (just be careful not to leave it unattended - thieves are everywhere!).

If the Lightning's door handles are anything like my FFE, they won't work well in very cold weather (below about -10C/14F). But then again, you probably won't be washing the vehicle at that time.

 

[ivan256]

Disabling welcome lighting is the answer. The truck is doing what it's set to do. There's a button in there to disable exactly the thing you're complaining about.

 

[Lightning Rod]

Disabling welcome lighting is the answer. The truck is doing what it's set to do. There's a button in there to disable exactly the thing you're complaining about.

I have disabled the welcome lighting but it still doesn't fix what I'm "complaining about" lol. Disabling the welcome lighting is going to do zero for the phantom locking/unlocking of the doors.

 

[Jim Lewis]

For the fob, you can buy a Faraday cage pouch on Amazon. Another forum member here recommended it, and it works very well. It's a bit bulky in a pants pocket, but a metal ring is attached to the pouch that you could use to attach the pouch to your belt. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4DNQZ34

As others have said, I've turned off Welcome and nothing happens when I approach my truck until I touch the door handle with either the fob or PAAK, IIRC. My phone holster almost but not quite serves like a Faraday cage. The fob cage I mentioned comes in larger sizes designed to hold phones, too, and there are other brands advertised on Amazon for holding phones, as well.

 

[RickLightning]

I have disabled the welcome lighting but it still doesn't fix what I'm "complaining about" lol. Disabling the welcome lighting is going to do zero for the phantom locking/unlocking of the doors.

That is correct.

If you have the fob in your pocket, and you run water over your doors, it will wake up, lock and unlock. This is not new to Ford cars, my 2018 Fusion Energi did it with just a number pad.

 

[Jim Lewis]

While setting up a new State Farm Drive Safe & Save Bluetooth beacon to use in my truck, I was looking for a Faraday cage to prevent the old beacon from interfering without having to walk the old beacon a mile away (or even put it in the frig!).

It occurred to me that the closest Faraday cage to my garage is the wall-mounted microwave oven right by our back hallway and the door to the garage. So, I popped the old beacon in there to isolate it for the moment. Today in checking out how my hearing aids lose and fail to re-establish BT connectivity with my iPhone, I also found placing my iPhone in the microwave was a good way to trigger the BT disconnect problem that normally occurs if I walk away and stay away too long from my phone. We happen to have a countertop microwave, too and never use the wall-mounted one. But other than using a microwave as a "Faraday-cage-in-a-pinch," it's probably more of a humorous idea than a practical, safe one.

P.S. I found a way to test the "goodness" of a Faraday cage is to try pinging the iPhone with the Find My iPhone function of an Apple Watch. If the watch is set to use BT only, the iPhone in the microwave can't be pinged. But curiously, if I switch the watch to cellular and Wi-Fi communication, Find My iPhone can successfully ping the phone shut up in a microwave. Not sure what's going on here. Contrary to what I would have supposed, I found a HON steel filing cabinet was NOT a very good Faraday cage for blocking pinging via BT only or via cellular/Wi-Fi when I was within 10 or 15 feet of the closed filing cabinet.

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