Cool Clarity Features

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by bfd, Jan 3, 2018.

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  1. bfd

    bfd Active Member

    Seemed like a good idea to have a thread with undocumented (or hidden) features, so I'm making one.

    Opening all windows when you unlock your car. This one isn't in the manual, but it works on other Hondas, so I tried it on this one. It works. It'll be great for hot days. I can't remember how many times I walked around my old car opening all the doors to get the hot air out and then walked around again to close everything up. While you can always use the remote climate feature to cool things off, this one uses very little battery power.

    To activate, using the key fob, press down on the unlock button once and the driver door unlocks (unless you've set it to unlock all doors). Press and hold a second time until windows roll down.

    So while this isn't exactly a Clarity only feature, it's one that people might not know about - and since it doesn't appear to be documented it might be worth airing. I'm sure other interesting little features may be uncovered by new owners over the next few thousand miles. Post 'em here!
     
    Atkinson, hngo, TruckerAlex and 4 others like this.
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  3. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    Thanks bfd. It is noted in the Owner's Manual on page 157. What would be great is if there was also a way to close all of the windows from the key fob. The key, removed from the fob and inserted in the handle keyhole, can raise or lower all of the windows too.

    This video a generic Honda smart key presentation. Almost all of it applies to the Clarity.
     
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  4. West1

    West1 Member

    Window up or down including sunroof is a option that VW/Audi had had for many many years now. They also have a rain sensor close feature. it will close all openings if rain is detected.
     
  5. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    One of the coolest features to us is the automatic seat position depending on which key fob is close to the driver's door when it is opened. My wife is shorter and I would, in the Prius, have to cram myself into the moved-forward seat to slide the seat backward for me. It would often require an additional adjustment to get it just right. I love opening the door to see the seat moving backward.

    Yesterday my wife first went around to the passenger side to put something in the front seat. The car must have deduced that if she was getting into the passenger seat then I must be driving. When she walked around to the driver's door the seat moved back to my position.

    The seat memory and power seats were the a key factors in our paying extra for the Touring model.
     
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  6. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    Of course the best feature to us of the Clarity is the EV range. It is actually more than we need for around town which gives us the freedom to use the seat heaters and the car's heating system on these winter days.

    Driving the two previous Prius cars we owned taught us how to drive for maximum mpg. That's the way we drive the Clarity. Just for fun I pushed the car on a 14 mile round trip last night, accelerating as quickly as I could without involving the ICE. Normally, with care, this would result in a remaining EV estimate around 30 miles. Last night, after burning as much power as I could on that same trip, the car showed 14 miles remaining - about double the normal battery drain for us. Clearly there is great benefit to driving while being cognizant of burning energy.

    The good news is just driving the car normally without being too concerned returns excellent range in EV only.
     
    TomW, dstrauss and ArkansasVolt like this.
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  8. ArkansasVolt

    ArkansasVolt New Member

    I do the same thing in my Volt. Put in sport mode and stomp he accelerator at every chance when I know I will not need the range.


    2011 Chevy Volt;
    2018 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid
     
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  9. dstrauss

    dstrauss Well-Known Member

    I find the Clarity to be one of the most FUN cars I've ever owned (probably second only to my college 1966 Mustang restoration). It gets great EV mileage with minimal effort; excellent EV range when I give it the Prius treatment; yet you can push it hard and it gives a real fun kick (at least for this old codger).

    And all the while, now four weeks without gasoline...
     
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  10. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    Here's a cool feature. Fast charging.

    Today we really made good use of the Clarity. It took 4 trips away from the house (30 miles, 20 miles, 15 miles, and 5 miles), with a bit of charging between trips. All together we drove about 70 miles. Just before reaching home, for the last 1/2 mile, we ran out of juice and the engine kicked on. This was the first time we've depleted the battery around town. So we had an opportunity to see how long a full charge would take.

    The charger kicked on at 5:03 pm when I plugged it in, and it was fully charged at 7:08, just 2 hours and 5 minutes for a full charge. Our charger is a JuiceBox on a 40 Amp breaker but while the car is charging it usually shows only about 28 amps going into the car.

    We actually could have prevented the last 1/2 mile on the ICE except on one of the brief times the car was in the garage today we didn't plug it in.

    Total charge time for the day was 3 hours and 47 minutes. A total of 26.94 Amps. At $0.15/kWh that totals $4.04. Had we used the engine all day we would have used about $4.58 worth of gas. Unfortunately our solar system was offline today and it was raining anyway.

    We love this car!
     
    TomW likes this.
  11. Ken7

    Ken7 Active Member

    Your charge time and amperage pull is exactly what I’m seeing with both my 32A & 40A chargers on my 50A line. The phone app estimated 2 hours 15 minutes for an empty battery, but the charger showed a charge duration of 2 hours and 5 minutes before actually shutting off.
     
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  13. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    Display photos in a slideshow feature on the 8" screen... Could be better but it does work.

    There may be more ways or other options than this.
    - Put some photos on a USB thumb drive.
    - Photos must be in the root directory (this limits options)
    - Photos may need to be smaller than 5 megabytes. Not sure about this restriction.

    - In the car select home->App List->Gallery
    - In my case there was a message saying there were zero photos available
    - Click on Menu and select "make images available offline" Photos should appear.
    - Use Menu to start a slideshow
    - There is actually a photo editor there as well. Crazy I know.

    I haven't tried driving the car to see if photos can be viewed while the car is moving.
     
  14. loomis2

    loomis2 Well-Known Member

    I looked through the android settings of the unit and it looks like there is a little over 2gb of free space. I bet you could load photos directly onto the unit and do the slideshow that way.
     
  15. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    loomis2 How do you gain access to the Android data?
     
  16. loomis2

    loomis2 Well-Known Member

    That is a good question. I just looked through the settings menu under storage and saw how much free space there is. I haven't did any deeper than that. Android apps are in .apk format. I wonder if you put a file manager program on a USB stick if you would be able to install it from there. If so then you could use that app to copy your photos onto the unit.
     
  17. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    I don't mind having the photos on the USB stick. I've loaded 100% of the family .mp3 audio files on a stick, and added a few photo files to test out the slideshow. We just leave the USB stick in the car USB slot all the time. The phones connect with Bluetooth which seems to provide all the functionality we desire - we don't use or care to use Android Auto which seems to add nothing to the mix.
     
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  18. loomis2

    loomis2 Well-Known Member

    The whole entertainment screen is android-based so this settings menu doesn't even mess with Android Auto, which is just an app as well. The screen is running some proprietary, and old, version of Android so I doubt this idea would work very well anyway. I didn't dig into it too far because it is the wife's car and I didn't want to get blamed for anything. ;)
     
  19. JyChevyVolt

    JyChevyVolt Active Member

    You can enter the developer mode by pressing audio, menu, light. Then hold down menu for 5 sec. Nothing interesting. I tried to disable distracted driver but it's not there anymore.
     
    TruckerAlex likes this.
  20. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    I tried it again today but could not get the images to display. The car seems to be pointing at it's own internal memory rather than the USB thumb drive.
     
  21. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    Tonight I found out what kind of acceleration is available and was quite pleased. After driving over 2,000 miles in Econ mode and being soft on the pedal I tried sport mode. Wow this thing can get up and go. It's no ludicrous mode but there is plenty of acceleration. Nice to know it's there if we have to pass a vehicle on a two lane mountain road. We did that in our Prius and it certainly lacked the kind of acceleration needed for the job.
     
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  22. dstrauss

    dstrauss Well-Known Member

    You may be (pleasantly) surprised where you will find Level 2 chargers on your travels. We were staying at a Best Western in Llano, TX (Central Texas Hill Country) this past weekend, and it had two Tesla chargers and a FREE Clipper Creek J1772 240v/30a charger - all of the local commuting was on the hotel (probably in the hotel rate - who knows), but a quick 2 hour charge at night and away we went.

    PS - averaged 36mpg (actual miles divided by actual fill-up) on the highway parts - 70mph through up and down hills.

    What a caaaaarrrr!

    [​IMG]
     
  23. PHEV Newbie

    PHEV Newbie Well-Known Member

    Some of the coolest clarity features are not easy to see. The first is the extensive use of aluminum. The chassis makes extensive use of ultra high strength steel but most body panels are aluminum (doors, front fenders, hood, trunk lid and roof) as is much of the suspension. That's for weight reduction but it's also the best way to resist corrosion as an added bonus for owners in snowy areas. Another cool feature is that most of the undercarriage is cladded with smooth panels for aerodynamics. You don't find this on any other Honda product other than the NSX supercar. Have a look underneath. It's impressive down there!
     

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