Why won’t my car recognize me?!

General
1

Still loving my 2025 Santa Fe Hybrid Calligraphy, but I’m totally confused about Profiles.

I set up my fingerprint, and it worked—for a day. Then nothing. Deleted and re-added it. Worked a couple of times. Then nothing. Tried my thumb. Same story.

Then I thought, maybe the car can recognize me by my phone instead of the fob. Set up the digital key, left the fob inside, unlocked and started the car with my phone—no issues. But it still asks for my fingerprint or PIN. Same thing happens with Bluelink.

I even tried moisturizing my fingers since it’s cold out, but no luck. The car knows my phone but refuses to know me.

Is there any way to get it to just remember me without the fingerprint reader (which barely works) or the slower PIN method? If I were the only one driving, I wouldn’t care as much, but my spouse may want to drive it too at some point.

2

You can turn it off.

3

Flor said:
You can turn it off.

Thanks a ton! That worked perfectly. And as Heavy_Invite pointed out, now there’s a 10-second countdown so my spouse can pick their profile if they drive. I’ll show them how it works on our way to rehearsal tonight.

4

Flor said:
You can turn it off.

Appreciate it! I can get the fingerprint reader to work maybe half the time, if that.

5

You still have to pick a profile, but you can turn off the PIN and fingerprint option. I did, and it makes everything way smoother.

6

Feng said:
You still have to pick a profile, but you can turn off the PIN and fingerprint option. I did, and it makes everything way smoother.

Exactly. The day we brought the car home, my teenager messed around with all the settings and set a password for my profile because the car asked for one. Entering a password every time got old real fast.

It’s easy to go back into the settings and turn it off. Now, my profile loads automatically with no password or fingerprint needed. There’s still a short countdown to pick a different profile if my husband or kid ever set one up.

7

@Lee
Are both phones in the car when this happens?

8

Brice said:
@Lee
Are both phones in the car when this happens?

Nope, just mine for testing purposes.

9

No way around it. You have to pick a profile and either use the fingerprint or enter the PIN. I’ve had no issues with the fingerprint reader, though.

10

Or you could just ignore the gimmicky fingerprint thing and hit the start button. Way faster.

11

Arun said:
Or you could just ignore the gimmicky fingerprint thing and hit the start button. Way faster.

If I were the only driver and didn’t care about the on-screen prompts, that would be fine. But neither of those things are true. Turning off the profile lock seems like the best workaround—at least until the weather stops drying out my fingers. In the meantime, I should probably take advantage of having no fingerprints and go into a life of crime.

12

@Eli
Solid plan. I’m in!

13

Here’s what you do:

  1. Set up the digital key and link it to your profile (fob and NFC key can’t be linked to a profile).
  2. Turn off PIN security.
  3. Enable fingerprint (why not, in case the digital key fails and you don’t have the fob?).

Now, when you enter the car with your phone, it should default to your profile. The countdown still shows up in case another driver needs to switch.