Remote Climate Control - Working?

I tried it the other dday. It did not seem to do much.

Our Prime seems to be very slow in warming up.

I think that in winter we may need to start with the engine running to get heat going, then maybe go for using the battery later once the ice is melted.

 

Maybe it was too cold ?
The heat pump won't work at temperatures below -10 ° C .
I had great hopes for that heat pump,as I thought it should warm the car up pretty fast,faster than the conventional ice heatiing system.
Would be kind of a disappointment if the heat pump and the pre-heat feature, plugged in or not,turns out be nothing but a marketing gag !

 

pre-heat works for me (Prime Plus). Hit the A/C button before heading out...wait 5 - 10 minutes and the temperature in the car is nice and cozy. This worked fine with outside temperatures from 27 upwards...that's as cold as it has been up here. For the Plus, it heats up to the last setting that you had set for the Climate Control - in my case 69. Even if you had the climate control turned off when parking the car, once you hit the A/c button on the remote, it will still work. Even if you unplug the car it will continue to heat until you open a door.
The heat pump seems to be working fine also when driving around in EV mode...together with the heated seats, no complaints in the recent Arctic air blast that we had. If you turn the heat up, plus heated seats, be aware that the EV range will be reduced significantly though.

 

I'm curious to know what Toyota has to say too, I've gotten it to work maybe once or twice since I've had the car (November 30th I received the car)

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Strictly on an engineering point of view this might be more geared towards cooling the vehicle than heating it up. Heating tends to be more effective if the engine is on, which of course consumes gas.

 

What setting are you choosing? There are three - max cool, max heat, previous setting.

If you select the previous setting and you left it on "off" or a setting that wouldn't heat the car, then it wouldn't heat the car.

 

This was the problem I had initially. I had it set to default which was previous setting and since I drive around with climate off generally it wouldn't actually heat the car up. Both remote climate and climate prep work as expected for me with that understanding.


iPhone ?

 

Tried to use remote climate on my phone. Turned wheel on app to max heat. After 2 minutes it looked like it was successful. went out to my car after work. no sign that the heat was on. No message in car despite when I got home the phone app said check car for message because turning on climate was not successful. Time to call Entune support. (it's going to be 0 degrees tomorrow morning)

 

So if the app doesn't work as it should,why not try the timer ?
As things look,unfortunately Europe does not seem to get any app-controlled check on charge status nor app-controlled remote climate,at least nobody has mentioned it up to now,but we seem to be at least able to set a timer for it or just hit the button on the key .
To be able to check on the charge with my smartphone would sure be nice,as I will have to use a public charge station most of the time as for now .

 

here's an interesting tidbit: On the Entune website there's a phone compatibility checklist. I have the Galaxy S7 Edge with T-Mobile. Turns out according to this website it's not available for Remote Climate.

Entune Connect

 

Tried calling them just now. Got the message that their office is closed. So I sent them an email instead.

 

wait a few, the remote climate seems to be working only to come back with remote climate failed check car for details

 

Never looked into or paid much attention to Entune before but I just searched the Entune site and pdf and couldn't find a single phone that actually supports this. Nothing but red x's. Some give you the map but that's all. No using wifi through the net from a tablet either. Need a cell conection to even download the Entune app. Without the remote features what's the point $ of the advanced? No sale until this is actually made useable.

Full suite of Prius Prime Apps including Charging Station Map, Remote Charge Management, ECO Dashboard, Remote Climate and Vehicle Finder

 

Heads up display, blind spot monitor, rear cross-traffic alert, Homelink mirror, etc.