Apple warns of Pencil and contactless car keys interference

If the second-generation Apple Pencil charges wirelessly on an iPad Pro, it can cause interference when using contactless car keys. Apple has put that on the Pencil support page.

If the Pencil charges wirelessly on the case of an iPad Pro, the car may not unlock or start, Apple says on the page that iGeneration discovered was changed. The solution is to move the iPad Pro away or store the Pencil somewhere so it won’t charge. When charging is complete, there is no more signal interference and the car just starts. These are systems where the car only starts when the remote control key is nearby.

It is unknown why this implementation of wireless charging interferes with the contactless car key and whether other products that can charge wirelessly can also disrupt the transponder key. There is a single user on the Apple forum who previously reported the problem.

The outage won’t happen often, as it requires a 2018 iPad Pro, a second-generation Apple Pencil, and a car with a transponder key. In addition, the Pencil has a relatively long battery life, so users do not have to charge it all the time. Apple tablets with a Pencil of the first generation do not have this interference, because they charge wired via the Lightning port of iPads.

Apple iPad Pro with second-generation Apple Pencil on top