Do you leave your Connect App open all the time on your phone

[LovinTaycan]

Do you leave your connect app open all the time on your phone? I am not talking about the setting where you allow it to use location services all the time but when you use the app, you don't actually close it, you only let the screen go into the background and the App stays open.

I find this helps greatly in making sure my App stays connected to the car.

I find if I close it, and let time pass, and then open the App, it has a hard time reconnecting. It appears if I leave it open connected in the background, when I go to tap the App, it shows up immediately and the App stays connected to the car.

How are others experiencing this and are they doing the same thing, and do you have problems connecting when you open an App that has been closed.

If you keep the App open all the time, does it prevent the car from sleeping?

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[grahamsimmonds]

I leave my app open all of the time. I don't think it keeps the car awake like as in a Tesla because there is no appreciable battery vampire drain from day to day. Also, it always takes a few moments to start up the PCM every time. I also don't think it makes any different to its reliability as I sometimes have to get it to refresh when I want the latest readings.

 

[W1NGE]

I tend not to leave open as there were concerns that constant polling of the car could potentially lead to draining the 12V battery (and none of us want that). Not sure if this was ever proven but I don't need to talk to my car that often so I attempt to connect on demand.

If it was an issue it may have been subsequently resolved with the update campaigns.

The system is slow / unreliable to reconnect - this seems to be a 'feature' of the service.

 

[DerekS]

iOS developer here. You should,not be in the habit of force closing apps unless there is a problem.

Apps are designed to save their state when backgrounder and relaunch quickly. Some can update themselves when backgrounded.

Killing backgrounded apps hurts battery rather than help it in almost all cases. It requires more battery to launch the app co;d.

 

[PDACPA]

iOS developer here. You should,not be in the habit of force closing apps unless there is a problem.

Apps are designed to save their state when backgrounder and relaunch quickly. Some can update themselves when backgrounded.

Killing backgrounded apps hurts battery rather than help it in almost all cases. It requires more battery to launch the app co;d.

Derek does it require more battery on the car to relaunch the app or more battery on the phone to relaunch the app?

I regularly close all my running iPhone apps on my phone (swipe up on all of them).

 

[DerekS]

Derek does it require more battery on the car to relaunch the app or more battery on the phone to relaunch the app?

I regularly close all my running iPhone apps on my phone (swipe up on all of them).

The phone. iOS developers everywhere beg you to stop mass closing apps.

Backgrounded apps are only "running" for a brief period, then they are suspended to disk with a screenshot placeholder. When you task back to one of those suspended apps it can very rapidly restore the state.

If you've killed it, it must be reloaded from scratch which takes more time and also takes longer (usually forcing you to see a branding splash screen. etc.)

https://store.simplymac.com/blogs/blog/stop-quitting-iphone-apps-it-s-a-waste-of-time

NOTE: Android apps remain running like PC apps so this advice does not apply there.

 

[PDACPA]

The phone. iOS developers everywhere beg you to stop mass closing apps.

Backgrounded apps are only "running" for a brief period, then they are suspended to disk with a screenshot placeholder. When you task back to one of those suspended apps it can very rapidly restore the state.

If you've killed it, it must be reloaded from scratch which takes more time and also takes longer (usually forcing you to see a branding splash screen. etc.)

https://store.simplymac.com/blogs/blog/stop-quitting-iphone-apps-it-s-a-waste-of-time

NOTE: Android apps remain running like PC apps so this advice does not apply there.

Guess I need to change my ways. Thanks

 

[FrozenRobert]

Guess I need to change my ways. Thanks

Same here. Didn't know that. I actually assumed the opposite.

 

[benver]

I don't think the app is communicating much with the car even when left on the iPhone screen. Just checked: Kept the app open on my iPhone, made a mental note of the Taycan state of charge as visible in the car and took a quick spirited drive of about 3 miles/5 km. The state of charge as visible in the Taycan dropped 2%. On my iPhone, the state of charge was not changed.

After refreshing by sliding down on the iPhone screen until the refresh animation was shown, the actual state of charge was on the screen too.

Another grin from ear to ear, accelerating after exiting two round-abouts in sport-plus
Darn, our Taycan is fast Love it!

 

[submatrix]

I don't think the app is communicating much with the car even when left on the iPhone screen. Just checked: Kept the app open on my iPhone, made a mental note of the Taycan state of charge as visible in the car and took a quick spirited drive of about 3 miles/5 km. The state of charge as visible in the Taycan dropped 2%. On my iPhone, the state of charge was not changed.

After refreshing by sliding down on the iPhone screen until the refresh animation was shown, the actual state of charge was on the screen too.

Another grin from ear to ear, accelerating after exiting two round-abouts in sport-plus
Darn, our Taycan is fast Love it!

I wouldn't be surprised if the app only updates on demand (such as pulling down to refresh), rather than receiving updates from the cloud or regularly polling. For example, if you have the app open and simply lock or unlock your car, does the app automatically refresh the lock/unlock state?

 

[DerekS]

I wouldn't be surprised if the app only updates on demand (such as pulling down to refresh), rather than receiving updates from the cloud or regularly polling. For example, if you have the app open and simply lock or unlock your car, does the app automatically refresh the lock/unlock state?

It looks like the app has opted into the capability for background updated (go into settings, Background Refresh and see the apps that have this capability...you can shut it off for individual apps or all if you wish.)

Background Refresh is designed as a battery-efficient way of getting updated data. The device will decide when to do an update, and "coalesce" the updates so all the apps that have opted in refresh themselves at the same time. This allows waking the radio less frequently (which is battery heavy).

The problem? This is on Apple's schedule, not ours. It might happen once per hour, one per day, etc. No way to predict how frequently it will happen, just that it potentially can happen.

A more robust test if Porsche Connect is background refreshing:

- Start the app, note charge level, background it
- Drive your car to drain some charge
- Wait 8-10 hours
- Start the app back up and see if it shows the up-to-date charge level without doing pull-down refresh

Background Refresh is a really good compromise. Of course if you're killing the app when backgrounded it can't do this for you.

 

[DerekS]

I should note that it's common for apps to opt into background refresh without actually doing the work to implement it. It must be claimed as an app entitlement so it's common for developers to opt in with plans to code for it down the road.

 

[Miwa]

I can't even remember the last time I opened the Connect app.

 

[submatrix]

- Start the app, note charge level, background it
- Drive your car to drain some charge
- Wait 8-10 hours
- Start the app back up and see if it shows the up-to-date charge level without doing pull-down refresh

I think the app refreshes whenever it gains focus, or at least when it is being restored from the background state, so that you don't always have to do the pulldown.

 

[Boss Hogg]

The connect app seems to really drain my iPhone battery due to 'background activity' rather than 'screen' activity. Going to disable the background function of the app to save phone battery.

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