How can I remove PAAK and use the fob only? PAAK can F all the the way off

[2kwik4u]

So, I've been "locked out" of the truck a couple times now. Last night was the final straw. I'm beyond pissed at this asinine, tech laden, fuck up of an entry system.

Apologies for some strong language coming in hot here........be warned. You can skip the rant part in the middle if you don't want to read all that mess.

<rant>

Sister is in town for the weekend. Brought the nieces/nephews up for my youngest's birthday party (turning 7!). We get the kids pizza and head out to get some authentic wings while she's in town. Drove the Rivian over to Bar Bills in East Aurora and had a great meal and conversation. It was raining last night so we make a dash for the truck, only to find I can't get in. App doesn't work, key card from my wallet doesn't work. Nothing. They sprint back inside, I continue to screw with it for another 5 minutes. Getting completely soaked. I eventually got the key card to work and we got home. Phone and truck refused to pair with each other throughout the trip, and the key card was on the struggle bus, because I assume, the downpour of rain was interfering with the RFID between the card and the door handle.

Now, once I was home I cooled off a little and started trying to figure out what happened. Key fob appears to work. Key card works (in the garage where it's dry), why won't the app work?!?! Force stopped the app, and re-opened it. Rivian pushed a fucking OTA update on it, WHILE WE WERE AT DINNER that now requires 2FA. Sure, it's more secure, fucking YAY on that front I guess. I was parked in a quite secure location in a low crime neighborhood, and had to fiddle fuck around with technology AGAIN to get into the truck because of something I neither asked for, wanted, or quite frankly needed.

Tell me again how great OTA updates are. I'm really, completely ready, for someone to tell me why it's this damn important to update something as simple as how I get into the vehicle. Been on this earth for 44 years and have been driving for a solid 28 of them. Beyond that I think this is like my 15th or 16th vehicle I've owned. I've yet to have a fucking KEY fail to grant me access to a vehicle.

Needless to say, I'm effing PISSED that not only can I not access my $85k luxury vehicle. But that it decided to keep me out, in the rain, in the dark, with out of town guests. This is, quite literally, unacceptable and has me considering selling the fucking thing and losing my ass because I've lost faith in the ability to, well, even get inside the damn thing. Talk about one of the EASIEST things to do on a vehicle, and the completely new and innovative ways they've managed to absolutely fuck it up.

</rant>

OK, rant over, In an attempt to not lose my mind over this thing. How can I completely disable PAAK while retaining BT connection into the truck. I make calls from the truck often, and stream music from time to time. I want to keep that connection, but I want to completely remove my phone from the access portion of truck ownership. I have a fob, and I have the key cards, and honestly, that's going to be just fine.....assuming they actually work.

Any thoughts?

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[RandomMcRandomFace]

Just remove the phone key. In the phone app, pick “Drivers and Keys”, choose the driver that the key is under, choose the key you want to delete, then hit delete.

I could have sworn lock/unlock worked even with the 2-factor. I don’t recall for sure though. I will say I’ve had no issues with PAAK other than 1 out of 50 times needing to take my phone out (I assume something was blocking the signal).

Sorry for your troubles!

 

[COdogman]

 

[RedRaiderRivian]

So, I've been "locked out" of the truck a couple times now. Last night was the final straw. I'm beyond pissed at this asinine, tech laden, fuck up of an entry system.

Apologies for some strong language coming in hot here........be warned. You can skip the rant part in the middle if you don't want to read all that mess.

<rant>

Sister is in town for the weekend. Brought the nieces/nephews up for my youngest's birthday party (turning 7!). We get the kids pizza and head out to get some authentic wings while she's in town. Drove the Rivian over to Bar Bills in East Aurora and had a great meal and conversation. It was raining last night so we make a dash for the truck, only to find I can't get in. App doesn't work, key card from my wallet doesn't work. Nothing. They sprint back inside, I continue to screw with it for another 5 minutes. Getting completely soaked. I eventually got the key card to work and we got home. Phone and truck refused to pair with each other throughout the trip, and the key card was on the struggle bus, because I assume, the downpour of rain was interfering with the RFID between the card and the door handle.

Now, once I was home I cooled off a little and started trying to figure out what happened. Key fob appears to work. Key card works (in the garage where it's dry), why won't the app work?!?! Force stopped the app, and re-opened it. Rivian pushed a fucking OTA update on it, WHILE WE WERE AT DINNER that now requires 2FA. Sure, it's more secure, fucking YAY on that front I guess. I was parked in a quite secure location in a low crime neighborhood, and had to fiddle fuck around with technology AGAIN to get into the truck because of something I neither asked for, wanted, or quite frankly needed.

Tell me again how great OTA updates are. I'm really, completely ready, for someone to tell me why it's this damn important to update something as simple as how I get into the vehicle. Been on this earth for 44 years and have been driving for a solid 28 of them. Beyond that I think this is like my 15th or 16th vehicle I've owned. I've yet to have a fucking KEY fail to grant me access to a vehicle.

Needless to say, I'm effing PISSED that not only can I not access my $85k luxury vehicle. But that it decided to keep me out, in the rain, in the dark, with out of town guests. This is, quite literally, unacceptable and has me considering selling the fucking thing and losing my ass because I've lost faith in the ability to, well, even get inside the damn thing. Talk about one of the EASIEST things to do on a vehicle, and the completely new and innovative ways they've managed to absolutely fuck it up.

</rant>

OK, rant over, In an attempt to not lose my mind over this thing. How can I completely disable PAAK while retaining BT connection into the truck. I make calls from the truck often, and stream music from time to time. I want to keep that connection, but I want to completely remove my phone from the access portion of truck ownership. I have a fob, and I have the key cards, and honestly, that's going to be just fine.....assuming they actually work.

Any thoughts?

Sorry for your frustrating experience. I have been using PAAK on my Gen 1 R1T for over two years with two different Samsung phones and have only had a good experience. Technology can be the best or worst depending on whether it works or not.

It appears the way to remove PAAK is to go into the phone app under the Drivers and Keys tab and remove the phone. If that removes the phone under the Settings->Connect->Bluetooth page in the vehicle, you should be able to add it back.

 

[Seano]

To be fair: Rivian didn’t know you were at dinner… if you want to, you can turn off auto updates.

Are OTA updates great? I don’t know, but I like the fact that on ea of our Rivians we’ve continually had updates and changes to the vehicle we’d purchased. I don’t think, though, you are required to do it.

Pretty sure, too, 2FA only required when logging into acct or app.

 

[runwithscissors]

It's a luxurious price but not a luxurious vehicle imo, at least the Gen 1 isn't. A very capable off-road truck that 90% of owners will never do.

 

[electruck]

First, sorry you had to go through that. Second, turn off auto updates so that you can better control when they are applied.

You don't need to disable PaaK to use the fob. Just turn off proximity locking/unlocking for the phone if you don't want to use that capability. Then you at least still have the ability to use the app to manually unlock when the battery in your fob decides to die at an inconvenient moment. As you have already learned, it's good to have backup options.

Are you sure the problems you experienced weren't simply because the vehicle was in the middle of performing an update?

 

[2kwik4u]

I'll reply more when I get back to a real keyboard. On the phone now.

Deleting the key from the app worked, but now there are reminders in all sorts of places in the app that I need to "setup phone key for more features". Don't want 'em, don't need 'em. Now how do I turn the damn constant reminders off?!?

Also, the fob isn't much better than the stupid effing PAAK. If the trucks been asleep it takes repeated requests to get into the damn thing.

Really sucks that the first interaction with the truck every single time I use it is a dumpster fire of poor user interface design and execution. There's so much to love about this truck, really sucks I have a bad taste before I can even get in it.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I don't understand why so many people have difficulty getting into their Rivians. I've had two Rivians and haven't had any issues with PAAK on either one. Also, Rivian has required 2FA for at least a month now; they even sent an email on it.

 

[Budman]

I don't understand why so many people have difficulty getting into their Rivians. I've had two Rivians and haven't had any issues with PAAK on either one. Also, Rivian has required 2FA for at least a month now; they even sent an email on it.

I recognize Mr Stanfield as a fellow longtime Rivian Forum member who I typically see eye to eye with on all things Rivian. However, on this topic our experiences diverge. I find the door locks to be the worst aspect of the Rivian experience. The capacitive touch door lock was perfected maybe 20 years ago. I think I would rather have the 30 year old standard of a mechanical insertion key vs all the various Rivian options I have now.

But to your point, I don’t understand the wide variation in experiences either.

 

[iforbes]

Maybe work directly with Rivian on this one instead of other owners? Sounds like you are all steamed up and unable to see/think clearly about this issue.

 

[Seano]

I recognize Mr Stanfield as a fellow longtime Rivian Forum member who I typically see eye to eye with on all things Rivian. However, on this topic our experiences diverge. I find the door locks to be the worst aspect of the Rivian experience. The capacitive touch door lock was perfected maybe 20 years ago. I think I would rather have the 30 year old standard of a mechanical insertion key vs all the various Rivian options I have now.

But to your point, I don’t understand the wide variation in experiences either.

We’re on #2 & #3 R1S’s… Gen 1 it was all over the place and got better through var updates to work quite well over owning it for 14-15 months.

The 2x Gen 2s **seemed** to work a bit better upon delivery and one recent update seemed to have PAAK working exactly as designed: car **seems** to be unlocked at a good (close to the vehicle)
distance, but still before I reach for the handle.

With that said, I do agree with you that touch capacitance would have been nice on these vehicles.

 

[2kwik4u]

OK, I'm back. It's Monday morning, incident was Saturday night. I'm *slightly* less pissed off now than I was when I wrote the original post.

A few things to note here.

I don't think this not just a "it's not function right" rant. This is also, very much, a "This is a stupid interface decision" rant. My Audi capacitive touch entry was exceptionally good, and the key fob was nearly instant response from the vehicle. The Rivian is very much NOT this experience, and I don't think it's directly an equipment thing, but rather a result of choosing a system that is better in theory, but turns out to be worse in execution.

I took a bunch of screenshots of what is disabled when you don't have a phone key available. Essentially all of the HVAC, Charging, and Camera functionality is removed, as well as all of the open/lock/unlock/etc functionality is removed. This makes sense, but is still agitating. This is another case where I can probably get along just fine without the app, and I might try that in the future, but have a road trip coming this weekend, and have other stuff to deal with. I repaired the phone this morning, however I went into the settings in the truck and disabled it for proximity lock/unlock. We'll see if the truck still struggles with which key to use when I have the fob with me. That's the reason I stopped carrying the fob in the first place. Also the fob seems to mess with the Bluetooth connection between my Garmin watch and my phone. This sounds stupid, but in practice all my issues with that both appeared and disappeared with the fob.

I'm certain at this point that it wasn't an OTA update that borked me on Saturday night. I'm 99% certain that my 2FA token on the app expired while I was at dinner. I completely understand how Rivian could not have known this, and it's not Rivians direct fault for this interaction. I am still blaming Rivian though, as the premise that this situation could arise at all is an indication of a poorly designed system. At the very least, a notification that my credentials had expired would have let me remedy the situation before we left the safety of the restaurant, and the very most, I could have had a damn physical means to access my truck. Lots of gray area in between, but the premise remains that this is a poor choice of systems on Rivians part.

Where do I go from here? Well, like I said above, it really sucks that the initial interaction with the truck is going to be a poor one, every singe time I use it. I'm certain I'll get used to it, or figure out some algorithmic workaround of always locking it when I leave it, and hopping up and down on one foot 3 times and spinning in a circle that always seems to work for me. I knew I was buying a "first year" vehicle when I got it, but I didn't expect it to be this much of a PIA, or quite frankly, this embarrassing, of a set of headaches. I can't knowingly total the thing, and I doubt any offer to sell will be enough to buy myself out of the lease. I am going to go look around and start planning my departure from the brand. Maybe I'll find another set of lease deals from a different brand that will get me out of this one.

I really hate that too. There really is SOO much to love about this truck, between PAAK, Stupid dash vents, and a non-opening sunroof, I'm over it and ready to move on.

Fun timing, I got a survey invite from Rivian at 4am on Sunday asking "How is your first 6mo with your Rivian". I resisted the urge to go scorched earth level rant on that survey as I don't think it would have helped the brand improve. I do intend to be completely honest about how I feel though when I do take the time to reply, including the premise that the "honeymoon phase" on this vehicle was shorter than any other vehicle I've owned, bar none.

 

[elektrode]

There’s one slider in the Settings -> Vehicle -> Access menu where all you had to do was turn off phone PAAK and leave FOB on.

First page of the table of contents in your manual links you to:

I only use my FOB because PAAK was too inconsistent. When the FOB doesn’t work great, I sometimes take it out of my pocket and move it closer to the door handle.

I hope the rest of your week is better than your weekend.

 

[Indy avocado]

OK, I'm back. It's Monday morning, incident was Saturday night. I'm *slightly* less pissed off now than I was when I wrote the original post.

A few things to note here.
...

I'll back you up on this rant / disillusionment.

I *LOVE* PAAK, but the reliability and inconsistencies are sometimes frustrating.

The amount of nagging the app gives you when not using PAAK is absurd. And the cards are not intuitive or quick to use, especially on Gen1.

I don't understand why so many people have difficulty getting into their Rivians. I've had two Rivians and haven't had any issues with PAAK on either one. Also, Rivian has required 2FA for at least a month now; they even sent an email on it.

Literally the first errand I ran with my R1T I got locked out for 10 minutes (also in the rain). I blamed it on the phone, but I don't think it's 100% that. Since then, I *never* leave the truck without a key card. I've had a number of times where PAAK has been flaky, opening very late/slowly and occasionally not at all because the app had updated or something in the background. Not to mention the complication of my phone battery potentially dying.

I recognize Mr Stanfield as a fellow longtime Rivian Forum member who I typically see eye to eye with on all things Rivian. However, on this topic our experiences diverge. I find the door locks to be the worst aspect of the Rivian experience. The capacitive touch door lock was perfected maybe 20 years ago. I think I would rather have the 30 year old standard of a mechanical insertion key vs all the various Rivian options I have now.

But to your point, I don’t understand the wide variation in experiences either.

It seems like there is variation in the vehicles and definitely between phones.

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