No 2017 Prius Smart Key fob "resting place"?

My 2006 Prius had a little hole in the dashboard near my right knee, I suppose to put the key in to keep it from getting lost or to leave for mechanic (or if driving nude?). I was told it had nothing to do with driving the car.

Au contraire. About 2010, nothing about the key would work. Replaced battery. Nothing. Not Smart anymore; buttons wouldn't work. Car wouldn't power up...

... until I put the No-longer-Smart Key into that little hole in the dashboard. Car powered right up; still drives normally in a pinch. Even without a battery in the key.

The other Smart Key still works. My wife came home after driving it and said the buttons wouldn't work. It was too late (after 4pm) to go get a new one, so I took the one out of my '17 to get her ready to go next time she drove it. Tested: ok.

Then I thought I'd check to see if the '17 battery-less key would work as the '06 does: put key in the little hole and ...

... Where's the hole??

To say I've looked everywhere would be a lie. But don't tell me it's right about where the '06 hole is or I'll have yet another notch in my senility belt.

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Tideland said, "Yeah.. that slot in your 2006 actually does work for the car (it's not just a holder lol)."

LOL? I believe I established that I knew that in my original post. It was some ignoramus who TOLD me it had no function. Hell, I'm just trying to be entertaining. LOL!

Anyway, I wasn't sure if everybody was being serious about touching the key to the power button until I pressed POWER and the screen said to touch the key to the power button.

How does that work, anyway, this apparent closing of a circuit by two pieces of plastic touching? Please attach a wiring schematic with your response.

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Alanclarkeau said, "It's explained quite well in the Manual." But it's so much more entertaining to read some of the responses I knew I'd get. lolol

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I had to Google "rfid". Glad you brought it up. For anybody else who, like me, was unaware of Radio Frequency IDentification and how it works...

The technology "uses electromagnetic fields [EMFs] to ... identify ... 'tags' [that] contain electronically-stored information" (Wikipedia) for many purposes, such as inventory and theft-prevention on addition to non-Smart key identification.

Since my fob had no battery, it couldn't very well have generated anything, therefore it contains "electronically-stored info" that will be read and matched to identical "info" via some device that constantly (?) emits EMFs and reads whatever they might make available to other devices nearby.

I haven't seen an answer to the part of my question about how "two plastic objects touching" would enable powering up the car.

That's because they don't have to touch. Close counts. EMFs provide the connection, not touch. (The manual says to touch the Toyota emblem to the Power button. It probably shouldn't.)




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