Just had a weird experience could somebody have been trying to clone my key?

[f1eng]

Too bad you didn’t snap a picture of the screen with your phone @f1eng . I second @tigerbalm comment on the key cloning - not at all consistent with your symptoms. While all the theories mentioned here sound plausible, I have 2 more possibilities.

1. Could it be some free trial activation of XM radio? I recently had XM activated (or so the car said) for 5 days to give me “a taste”.

2. Do you listen to FM radio? Taycans have a feature that finds your FM station via the internet when the FM signal gets too weak, and it automatically switches to internet version of it, but the source still says FM. This results in an odd behavior when I travel out of state. The car plays an FM station I select at the start of the trip, it silently switches to online version while driving, all good until I park the car. When I get back in, the car is tuned to same FM frequency as before, but in the new location it is a completely different station, so in one case I remember some foreign language station came up when I got into the car. However, after a few seconds the car receives and decodes the digital station ID, realizes this is not the station I was listening to before, and it switches back to the online version.

My guess is you experienced a version of #2, even if you don’t listen to FM radio, somehow it might have gotten selected - my Taycan sometimes randomly switches audio sources on me. The popup window might have been something about online radio usage if you never used it before.

PS> Good old fashion mechanical keys are way to easy to hotwire. Try to insure a recent Kia nowadays

I don’t know what XM radio is, maybe a US thing?

I was listening to a music file on a USB memory stick plugged into the USB socket in the centre console.

I do listen to FM radio and it does swap if there is a poor signal but the channels I use, BBC 3 and 4, are nationwide so it doesn’t switch to an un expected station. Mainly I listen to my own music downloaded to a USB stick, or switched off, about 50:50.

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[artdept]

Flipper ? https://flipperzero.one/

 

[simcity]

There’s a couple of EVs on the market that have succumbed to actual programmable key theft using “Gameboy” devices.

There have been quite a few Hyundai Ioniq 5 stolen in London in this way. Some of these have been reported by the media.

As far as I’m aware the Taycan is not vulnerable in the same way. Luckily it has one of the lowest theft rates of any EV on the market.

 

[Fish Fingers]

Daughters house in Anglesey Frank?

If so, I very much doubt it's someone trying to clone the key. More a major city thing.

I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[f1eng]

Daughters house in Anglesey Frank?

If so, I very much doubt it's someone trying to clone the key. More a major city thing.

I wouldn't worry about it.

No, a different daughter near here.

Anglesey also probably safe since there is insufficient mobile phone signal at my daughter's house, they still have to use a landline.
My brother's farm in the Scottish borders also doesn't have a reliable enough phone signal to use for voice, although texts do eventually get through in one spot in their kitchen - cue a pile of everybodies mobiles...

 

[tigerbalm]

Anglesey also probably safe since there is insufficient mobile phone signal at my daughter's house, they still have to use a landline.
My brother's farm in the Scottish borders also doesn't have a reliable enough phone signal to use for voice, although texts do eventually get through in one spot in their kitchen - cue a pile of everybodies mobiles...

If they have reliable broadband/wifi – then this is the poster child scenario for "wifi calling".

https://n.vodafone.ie/network/wi-fi-calling.html

 

[whitex]

Anglesey also probably safe since there is insufficient mobile phone signal at my daughter's house, they still have to use a landline.

If they have internet, perhaps a femto cell would be a good solution. It's a router looking device with a GPS antenna which serves as a tiny cell phone tower. I use it at my home, which after the gradual transition of cell towers to 5G, went from having great 3G or even LTE coverage, to marginal 5G and LTE. I initially got the femto cell for the Taycan, so that it can communicate though the internet to the phone app while in the garage, but then my main cell coverage got even worse (overall competency of service companies seems to have nosedived after COVID), so the femto cell is now providing signal for all cell phones in the house. I also noticed that 2 other neighbors have put up femto cells in the last year (they show up on the spectrum scan in the femto cell UI) - perhaps the cell phone company suggested that as a solution to a crappy coverage at home.

Where I live a femto cell is one time expense ($250 IIRC), no monthly fees. I also heard of people getting them for free after complaining to the cell provider of poor coverage at their homes (which makes sense, they'd rather give you a $200 device than lose you as a customer, not to mention your femto-cell can be used by other customers of theirs as most people don't bother configuring them to only service specific devices/phone numbers, possible but takes effort, I personally didn't bother locking it down, let others in range who might need it use it, I just prioritized the internet in such as way that it would not interfere with my home internet usage).

 

[f1eng]

If they have reliable broadband/wifi – then this is the poster child scenario for "wifi calling".

https://n.vodafone.ie/network/wi-fi-calling.html

We are just in the process of cancelling our 25+ year old subscription to BT internet in favour of Virgin and it will change our “landline” to such a system this month.
The downside, of course, is no longer getting phone power down the phone line so any power cut cuts the phone too, hopefully no problem.
My wife hates her mobile phone and almost never uses itfor anything other than family snaps.

My son in law is a techie so sorts that sort of thing in a way he prefers. He is profoundly anti-Apple it makes me laugh.

 

[whitex]

The downside, of course, is no longer getting phone power down the phone line so any power cut cuts the phone too, hopefully no problem.

Nothing a simple UPS won't solve. My internet provider powers the modem (which includes a landline if you wish) with a simple $20 battery which backs it up for 12+hrs. You can get a UPS device to power any router/VoIP adapter for many hours. I have a generator at my home, but my parents just use a UPS, which powers their digital land line and WiFi for 8hrs or more in case of a power outage .

 

[f1eng]

Nothing a simple UPS won't solve. My internet provider powers the modem (which includes a landline if you wish) with a simple $20 battery which backs it up for 12+hrs. You can get a UPS device to power any router/VoIP adapter for many hours. I have a generator at my home, but my parents just use a UPS, which powers their digital land line and WiFi for 8hrs or more in case of a power outage .

I have a UPS too, but not used for the ‘phone.
Power cuts are pretty rare here and having no ‘phone for a while would be more pleasure than pain…

 

[whitex]

I have a UPS too, but not used for the ‘phone.
Power cuts are pretty rare here and having no ‘phone for a while would be more pleasure than pain…

Perhaps schedule some phone outages on purpose? "No-phone Sundays!"

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