Giving people with pets a heads up. The other day when I used the app to remote start my vehicle I noticed my previous settings of low/cold was switched to high/heat (I've had it on AC for the past 3 months) thought that was weird so I switched it back to low/cold. Fast forward a few days later I had to run into the store real quick, so I left my dog in the car and remote started, but I had a feeling it wasn't going to work so I went back outside a few minutes later and low and behold its blowing heat. I tested it multiple times after and even with the settings on low/cold in 90 degree weather it still blows heat.

My dog was fine, I never leave him alone in the car for more than a few minutes. Figured I'd let you guys know just incase.

 

So the app is showing a cool temp in the remote start menu but sending a signal to the defender for high heat? That’s super dangerous if so.

 

You have to set the temperature in the remote start. It won’t default to the temperature set when you turned the car off. I am assuming you set it to a low temperature, and it it still blowing out heat!?

 

Correct, that is my understanding. I have been using the Remote Start feature for awhile now, as when I park my car at the beach here in South Florida the temps reach unbearable levels being in the sun for hours. I typically use the Remote Start when I am packing up to leave, setting the desired temp in the app and by the time I reach the vehicle, it is pleasantly cool. Never had any issues.

 

I do the same here in the winter, and get things nice and toasty before leaving. I have noticed that the heated windshield will detect the cold and automatically defrost which is a nice plus. I definitely don’t miss scrapping the windshield. lol.

Hopefully OP just needs to adjust temp in the app and it is not a weird update glitch. I have not used the remote start since last winter. Glad the dog is ok!

 

I had the car set to AC/cold and the app set to AC/cold and when I remote start with the app it blows heat. I’ve been using the remote start for over a year with no problems until recently.

 

This is a problem (I have on occasion used this function for my bloodhound when I'm at the store or something for a quick moment) -- I'll leave car, then restart it with remote start with AC setting to LO on the app -- with the assumption that AC will be on full blast. It's not ideal but sometimes it is unavoidable.

The remote start "setting for temperature" overrides whatever the car HVAC panel was on... so if the app was indeed on "LO" and it blew hot... oh man. I'll never do that again w/ the dog in the car.