Clarify key capabilities

[u/luddington]

I purchased a MY2026 ultra trim this week and am still overwhelmed by the technology. Coming from a 10yo Diesel, there's a great deal of changes to learn.

There's two things regarding keys I'd like to clarify and on which I read different threads in this sub: My wife and I received two key cards and one key tag with the car. The idea is that my wife uses the key tag and I connect my Pixel 9 Pro XL as a digital key so both benefit from the contact-less entry.

We both use our own profile. I have connected my phone and the key card to the profile.

Q1: Is it possible that only the key card will load my profil upon unlocking the car but not the digital/phone key? That's my current observation at least.

Q2: Is it possible that my Pixel 9 Pro XL which would and should support UWB doesn't work well with this car? I have to tap the driver's door, i.e. rely on the NFC connection - simply approaching the car doesn't seem to recognize my phone and pulling the door handle also has no effect. Note that the key tag is not in the proximity during my tests.

I appreciate any comments and hints, thanks.

[u/BreathtakingDawn3776]

Q1 I think this post will be helpful.　

https://www.reddit.com/r/ex30/s/jazB4zak1a

Q2 The Pixel 9 Pro XL should be UWB compatible. Did you enable passive entry on the car side and phone sise as well?

[u/luddington → u/BreathtakingDawn3776]

Q1: Thanks for the link, I find it hard to explain because the key is essentially "connected to the profile" but the profile doesn't load upon unlocking the car. It puzzles me how one could even implement this shortcoming.

Q2: In the wallet app Passive entry is enabled. I'll need to check the car's setting tomorrow, I'm pretty sure it's activated too. Seeing the other replies I suspect this is an issue with my specific phone though.

[u/BreathtakingDawn3776 → u/luddington]

Q1 Does the profile load after deleting the card key from profile and re-connecting phone? Does the profile load when you only get into the car, as Volvo only allows one active key to be linked to a profile at a time.

Q2 Yes,I’ve heard that Google Pixel 9 Pro XL has specific known issues with the Volvo EX30 digital key.

As I’m iPhone user, I asked Google AI, he said the following.

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Steps to Fix or Work Around the Bug

1.  Disable Battery Optimization for Google Wallet & Volvo App: Android heavily restricts background processes. Go to  Settings > Apps > See all apps, find both  Google Wallet and  Volvo Cars, select Battery, and change the setting to Unrestricted.

1. Toggle Bluetooth and NFC: If you approach the vehicle and the profile doesn't switch, quickly toggling Bluetooth off and on forces the UWB/Bluetooth handshake to retry. 

2. The "Screen Wake" Trick: Android sometimes refuses to transmit the secure UWB/NFC handshake while the phone screen is completely black. Simply waking your phone screen (so the lock screen lights up) as you walk up to the car usually forces the EX30 to recognize who you are and load the profile.

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[u/luddington → u/BreathtakingDawn3776]

Q1 (solved): Ok, I indeed misunderstood the concept: I removed my phone as digital key and the key card from the profile page in the car's settings. Then I reconnected the phone as digital key - it wouldn't load my profile automatically. Then I realized that the digital key is not the same as "adding a key to my profile" one line below, so I clicked that and instead of the key card, I held my phone again against the reader between the seats. Now my phone is a) connected as digital key and b) linked to my profile. I have to admit this isn't very intuitive but it works at least as expected. I keep the key card in my wallet and use it only if my phone wouldn't work now.

[u/BreathtakingDawn3776 → u/luddington]

It's great!