Motorola Razr Won't Stay Unlocked and Won't Text With my Car

[petecal]

I am really fed up with this new Motorola Razr Ultra 2025. It is supposed to operate "Extend Unlock". and I have spent many hours trying to get this to work (I'll mention some of what I tried down below).
Now, I discovered yesterday that my car reports, "The currently connected phone does not support text messaging via Bluetooth". Apparently the car uses Map method and the new phone doesn't use Map. My 8 year old Sony phone has been working fine with my car for 8 years.

I am seriously considering returning this phone for a refund!!.

Has anyone found a solution for these problems?

So of my unlock problems:
I have tied so many things I can't remember them all. Motorola says:

User Guide (HTML) | motorola razr - 2025| Motorola Support US

Visit the customer support page to view user guides, FAQs, bluetooth pairing, software downloads, drivers, tutorials and to get repair and contact us information.User Guide (HTML) | motorola razr - 2025

en-us.support.motorola.com

Baloney! that doesn't work. The 8 year old Sony has a lock/unlock ability that works perfectly and has for years. As a test, I unlock both phones and place them side by side. If I check back in 10 or 15 minutes the Razr has locked itself but the Sony is still unlocked just as it should be. After trying the link above many times and trying lots of other things I went to ChatGPT. After a lot of things it told me to try MacroDroid. That was a mess. I tried a few things that I couldn't get to work. The problem with MacroDroid is it keeps blasting adds. I swear it over road my volume settings to do the blast. If it would have worked I would have paid for the Pro version but with the add blasts I couldn't concentrate to test it.
Then ChatGPT said try the app Automate. I started that and then said to myself, "Why am I spending hours of my time trying to fix a Razr problem"?
This is ridiculous. You spend over $1,000 on a phone that isn't as good as the $500 one I bought 8 years ago.

 

[Hadron]

I don't have that phone, but just for clarity what Extend Unlock trigger are you trying to use? Location based, or connection to a particular Bluetooth device, or relying on it detecting when you are carrying it (which would not work if you lay it down on a table, so presumably is not the answer)? It will help someone trying to answer this if we have the full information, i.e. know which method(s) is/are not working.

 

[petecal]

Thank you for responding. When I started this post I considered listing all the things I tried but decided no one would want to plow through all that. So I will answer all questions and try everything anyone suggests.
Under "More Security....." , I set Auto Lock OFF. (I also tried it ON, no difference)
Trusted Places 1, my home, about 500m circumference.
Trusted Devices none.
Trusted Network 1, my home WI-FI LAN

Extend Unlock:
On Body ON
Trusted Places, 2, my home and my son's home.
Trusted devices NONE.

Further down below Extend Unlock there is an item:
Trust agents, one active, Extend Unlock

I need to point out that my 8 year old Sony uses just 1 trusted place (my home) and works perfectly. Stays unlocked around my home, locks when I drive away.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hadron]

I've never used most of these options, and annoyingly they don't all appear on my Samsung so I can't test all of them (that's even allowing for the way Samsung shuffle the settings into different places from standard Android). So for example I can't set conditions for Auto Lock: it's always On unless Extend Unlock is active, and all I can do is set how long it takes to time out. But logically if it's Off then you'd not expect the screen to lock at all unless you trigger it (e.g. with the power button). The only thing I can think of there is whether this being a flip phone it has other options, e.g. locking when you close the phone? But if either being at your home or being connected to your home WiFi would turn it off it seems very strange that it still happens (and even stranger that it happens despite being turned off!).

But if Auto Lock is linked to Extended Unlock, like on my phone, then the real question is why Extend Unlock doesn't work. "On body" probably doesn't help: from the description of it it relies on the accelerometer detecting motion, so putting it down, possibly even sitting still enough, will stop that working (I've never used it myself, never really seen the point). You will almost certainly need the "location accuracy" feature enabled for Trusted Places to work properly: it probably is on, because Google work so hard to encourage its use that unless you've made an active decision to keep it turned off you have probably activated it at some point, but it's worth checking because I doubt that Trusted Places will work reliably otherwise (e.g. without it location will not work when indoors). But if that is on I can't see why it shouldn't work, though it might be worth opening something like Maps when in your house to confirm that it does know where you are.

Sorry I don't have any more insight. Hoping that someone who has the same phone, or uses these features more than me, can offer something.

Trusted devices might be an option if you have a suitable device, but might not work throughout the house if you can't maintain good bluetooth contact (which does vary between devices: my running watch can maintain contact over longer distances and through more walls than my kitchen radio can, which surprised me a little).

 

[petecal]

Hadron,
Wow. Thank you for that detailed analyses. I think I have followed your train of thought already. There are a lot of "switches" that have to be thrown the right way. I think I did that but I'll keep playing (unless I get so Pi$$ed I send it back).
I also considered some kind of interaction when it is flipped. It seems to perform and lock similarly whether it is flipped or open.
With trusted places there is one thing that bothers me. I can select what it calls Home as a trusted place but the name seems to be garbage. Q498-7MB (my city). But the map it shows has the correct location relative to nearby streets. I have added more trusted places in and around my home thinking that one of them will always be considered close enough. No luck yet.

I am starting to think this phone was released too early. There are a lot of things that seem a little "dirty" not smooth. For example, in my first post about not messaging with my car. I looks like the phone doesn't do MAP type texting. Seriously???

I guess I do what you say and hope someone else solves this.

 

[mikedt]

I am starting to think this phone was released too early. There are a lot of things that seem a little "dirty" not smooth. For example, in my first post about not messaging with my car. I looks like the phone doesn't do MAP type texting. Seriously???

I guess I do what you say and hope someone else solves this.

"MAP type texting"?? That's something I've never heard of, and I've been using many Android devices for over 15 years now.

 

[petecal]

This is what I got from ChatGPT

 

[petecal]

For the Unlock issue I think I found a crude work around. I can set the delay before sleep to 30 minutes (I once thought I saw "never" but can't find that setting anymore). Then I can set "lock after sleep" to 60 minutes. If it works it means I have a 90 minute window wherein I should not need to enter my code to unlock. It seems to work so far.
But Motorola needs to get the Extended Unlock to work correctly. It works fine on my 8 year old Sony phone!