No key detected

[Mike734]

This is a weird one but here goes. I have installed the vline in my 09 Lexus ES350 w/NAV Pebble Beach edition). I had trouble but Sean and I figured it out. He had me install a jumper wire from the car power harness onto the Grom power harness. He said the problem was the vline needed constant 12v to work properly. We worked together and sure enough, it works. Now here’s the weird part.

If I’m dropping off a passenger and whey open then passenger door with the engine running, I get a, “No Key Detected” warning on my dash. It
it also happens if I open my door or close it after starting the car. The warning will not go away until I hold the key fob near the dash. It’s as if the fob battery is low. That is, in fact, the most likely explanation. But I’ve replaced both fob batteries and tried them independently. No joy.

After searching Lexus forums one guy said he found that an “after market” radio he installed was using too much power or interfering with the fob to car communication and was causing the same problem. Has this ever been observed by the Grom team? Is it possible the vline is interfering? I will depower the vline soon and try it but it’s mostly an annoyance now, not a big problem. Any thoughts are appreciated.

[Heath]

The VLine draws around 0.3 Amps while on.

This should not be enough to cause that issue, as plugging in a phone to charge via the cigarette charging port can draw anywhere from 0.5A to 3A depending on the charger. So even doing that would cause this issue if that was the case.

I would recommend unplugging the VLine and testing to see if the issue is still present. If you have a second key, I would also recommend swapping to it and see if the issue happens with it.

After looking a little deeper online, it does seem that this can also happen due to poor connections in the key fob for the battery. You can try taking the key fob apart and cleaning the metal battery connectors to make sure they are not causing this. Here is a video I found online detailing the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcakAzyzdk4

Thanks,
Heath
GROM Audio