Apple Watch as a Key Works Great on Gen 1 Rivian With WAAK App

Vincent · 2025-01-10T19:33:15+00:00

A friend needed to support his son who would be running a 'very cold' marathon on Sunday while rucking a 30 pound pack. The outside temps will be around 15F-20F the whole time. The location of the race is nowhere close to any L2 chargers, but he's not worried about driving distance to or from the race - it is 50 miles away from his house. He says he will be sitting in his ruck with his laptop and watching his live track+Garmin inReach data for the duration of the race (about 4 hours). He thought about taking his Honda EB2800i gasoline powered generator, if he can use the level 1 EVSE attached to the generator and keep the truck running with full heat + power - without really consuming much of the truck's main battery? He feels it's super dorky to have a gas generator running while attached to a Rivian in the woods, just so he can stay warm, but don't know if it would work ok this way and 'preserve' the main battery so he doesn't need to worry about driving range when we wants to head home. He talked to me about it and I told him the simple answer is NO. I tested this theory the other night when I was plugged into a 5.9kW charger. To maintain the interior amenities (interior and exterior lights, radio, heater, seat heaters), it took almost all of the charge. I charged for 15 minutes, it delivered 1.6kW, and the truck consumed 1.4kW, delivering only 0.2kW to the truck battery. Told him he would be using a laptop at another 200ish watts. The little trickle charger charges at 1.4kW on a good day, 1.2kW is normal for me. You can slow the bleed, but you cant stop it. My advise to him was for him to charge it up to 100% at home, and roll the dice is what I would do.

Rivian Mom

Active Wheeler

Dec 31, 2024

I no longer drive a Gen 1 Rivian but I thought it'd be cool to share this for Gen 1 users who might find it interesting. So, it's a beta app and works perfectly fine. Met someone who used it last Sunday when he let his phone battery die. It was a great backup.

If you can't get it to let you drive, or to do passive lock/unlock, then you can try to reboot the Watch. Also if you're on iOS 18, you may have different experiences. Others didn't have to reboot. This sets up in the truck just like a phone but shows up as a key card. You will need to be inside the vehicle to set it up as a key. Launch the app, and it will guide you.

TestFlight - Apple

Using TestFlight is a great way to help developers test beta versions of their apps.

testflight.apple.com

Important tip: You will need to log into your Rivian account on the Watch itself. If you use a proper password, that would suck a lot. Advisable to use 20 characters that are very random/complex. But you can use your phone and its password manager to share the info. Just put the phone by the Watch or tap it, when you are in the login prompt, and the iPhone will prompt you to enter or share the password automatically.

For those who might be wondering if it's a direct bluetooth connection, no, it actually isn't. The Rivian has many bluetooth radios/sensors, maybe five. It knows if the key is inside or not, and where on the outside it is. The sensors for PAAK are not at all related to the BT system for the entertainment system. Go to your BT settings when you are near the car and it is awake. You will see the expected "Rivian Camp Speaker" and "Rivian Audio." But you probably will also see a bunch of "Rivian Sensor 1" and other numbers. I think I've seen four but not sure.

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