Best way to defrost Born remotely

[steve green]

Hi, am still trying to understand the car after months but realise now its below zero at night there might be better ways to defrost it next morning.
Appreciate I can set a time routine and air con on when unlocked but our departure times are un predictable so hoped when unlocking on the key fob it would then defrost but the car just locks itself again a minute later and stops.
I tried the switch ventilation on on the app but its so flakey when the car is next to me on the drive next to the wifi hub, it often just gives up when the wifi around us is fine.
Car doesn't like our home wifi for some daft reason "unrecognised doo dah" but otherwise communicates from mobile to car via wifi and vice versa, albeit very slowly or gives up minutes later.
Surely there's a better way to defrost the car 10 minutes before departure without going out to it.
Not found it yet, help welcomed.

[daern]

Personally, I'm just using the app (OK, I'm using Home Assistant via the app's backend API, but it's the same difference practically!) and it's mostly pretty reliable. I'm not connecting the car to my home WiFi (is there a reason you are doing this?) and it typically wakes up every few minutes (no more than 5 mins) and accepts the heater settings.

Note, it doesn't work immediately when you press the button on the app, and people do get confused about this. When you request heating, the request doesn't go to the car but is actually queued up on VAG's servers waiting for the car to communicate and pick up the setting. To avoid flattening the (very modest) 12v battery, the car sleeps between checks so is not permanently online waiting for commands. In practical terms, this means that it will take a few mins for the car to wake, connect, receive the request and start heating.

I've got ours configured to start the heater 15 mins before my wife walks out of the door and this has been reliably adequate to ensure a defrosted car. And this is without using the specific window heaters too...mostly because we've not finished integrating those into HA!

[Daveion]

Much the same here. The app works for me presumably via its own 4G because its not connected to any other network. I precondition plugged-in and the charger can maintain the SoC despite the energy draw on the battery.

[Born Leccy]

Yep, getting that same experience (same as our other EV) - app > servers > car > servers > app

I.e. not instant/direct comms with the car in either direction.

[Deleted User 456]

My electric heated seats appear not to work in the App. Just greyed out (or not responsive)

[monkeyhanger]

My electric heated seats appear not to work in the App. Just greyed out (or not responsive)

Might be by design - what's the point of a seat warmer being on when no one is sat in it? Unlike the ventilation, the seat and steering wheel warmers don't really give out enough heat to heat the cabin, just your back and your hands when you're touching them.

I'm sure mine were greyed out on the app this morning.

[UniqueUser1]

Personally, I'm just using the app (OK, I'm using Home Assistant via the app's backend API, but it's the same difference practically!) and it's mostly pretty reliable. I'm not connecting the car to my home WiFi (is there a reason you are doing this?) and it typically wakes up every few minutes (no more than 5 mins) and accepts the heater settings.

Note, it doesn't work immediately when you press the button on the app, and people do get confused about this. When you request heating, the request doesn't go to the car but is actually queued up on VAG's servers waiting for the car to communicate and pick up the setting. To avoid flattening the (very modest) 12v battery, the car sleeps between checks so is not permanently online waiting for commands. In practical terms, this means that it will take a few mins for the car to wake, connect, receive the request and start heating.

I've got ours configured to start the heater 15 mins before my wife walks out of the door and this has been reliably adequate to ensure a defrosted car. And this is without using the specific window heaters too...mostly because we've not finished integrating those into HA!

Can you share some details please about how you got access to the backend API to integrate with your home assistant?

[daern]

Can you share some details please about how you got access to the backend API to integrate with your home assistant?

I posted some details here: viewtopic.php?p=3050

Shout if you need any help getting this going.

[Deleted User 456]

Might be by design - what's the point of a seat warmer being on when no one is sat in it? Unlike the ventilation, the seat and steering wheel warmers don't really give out enough heat to heat the cabin, just your back and your hands when you're touching them.

Hmm. So what's the point of putting them in the app then?

[AGW]

'so hoped when unlocking on the key fob it would then defrost but the car just locks itself again a minute later and stops'.

If you open the car doors from the key fob and then also open the boot from the key fob the car won't re-lock and the heating will defrost the car. On mine anyway! Just need to remember to shut the boot before driving off.